Isaiah chapter 1 and verse 1. The vision of Isaiah the son
of Amoz which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days
of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah kings of Judah. Hear, O heavens, and give ear,
O earth, for the Lord hath spoken I have nourished and brought
up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his
owner, and the ass his master's crib, but Israel doth not know,
my people doth not consider. Ah, sinful nation, a people laden
with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corruptors.
They have forsaken the Lord. They have provoked the Holy One
of Israel unto anger. They are gone away backward. Why should ye be stricken any
more? Ye will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick and the
whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot, even
unto the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises
and putrefying sores. They have not been closed, neither
bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Your country is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire.
Your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate,
as overthrown by strangers. and the daughter of Zion is left
as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers,
as a besieged city. Except the Lord of hosts had
left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom,
and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. Hear the word
of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom. Give ear unto the law of our
God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude
of your sacrifices unto me, saith the Lord? I am full of the burnt
offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts, and I delight
not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come to appear before
me, who hath required this at your hand to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations. Incense is an abomination unto
me. The new moons and sabbaths, the
calling of assemblies, I cannot away with. It is iniquity, even
the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed
feasts my soul hateth. They are a trouble unto me. I
am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your
hands, I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea, when ye make many
prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean. Put
away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes. Cease
to do evil. Learn to do well. Seek judgment. Relieve the oppressed. Judge
the fatherless. Plead for the widow. Come now,
and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be
as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be
red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing
and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land. But if ye refuse
and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword, for the mouth
of the Lord hath spoken it. How is the faithful city becoming
harlot? It was full of judgment, righteousness
lodged in it, but now murderers. Thy silver is become dross, thy
wine mixed with water. Thy princes are rebellious and
companions of thieves. Every one loveth gifts and followeth
after rewards. They judge not the fatherless,
neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them. Therefore
saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, Ah,
I will ease me of my adversaries, and avenge me of my enemies,
and I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy
dross, and take away all thy tin. And I will restore thy judges
as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning. Afterward
thou shalt be called the City of Righteousness, the Faithful
City. Zion shall be redeemed with judgment,
and her converts with righteousness. And the destruction of the transgressors
and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the Lord
shall be consumed. For they shall be ashamed of
the oaks which ye have desired, and ye shall be confounded for
the gardens ye have chosen. For ye shall be as an oak whose
leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water. and the strong
shall be as tau, and the maker of it as a spark, and they shall
both burn together, and none shall quench them. Amen. May the Lord bless to us this
reading from his word. Isaiah's prophecy is called by
the prophet a vision. because much of it was received
in a visual form. That is, it was clearly seen
and easily understood. Visions were a way by which the
Lord revealed his will and his promises and his purposes to
his prophets and later also to his apostles that they might
in turn convey the message, the word of the Lord to the people. And the fact that this is a vision
suggests that there is a visual revelation here or a real appearance
or the use of sight and sound in a way that is more real than
simply a dream. Example in Chapter 6 in verse
1, Isaiah says, and his train filled the temple. So Isaiah saw the glory of God,
the Lord sitting on his throne. And then in verse 8 in that same
chapter, he goes on to say, also I heard the voice of the Lord. So he saw and he heard, and this
is the element or the nature of the vision that he received. And so too, in this opening chapter,
Isaiah tells us that the Lord hath spoken. And this is our
starting place today. The reason for our gathering
here today, the reason for coming together, the importance of this
meeting, the importance of this message is that the Lord has
spoken. It is why it is important that
I have your attention. It is why it is important that
Isaiah has both our attentions. It is why there is a burden and
an obligation upon us all, because the Lord has spoken. He has declared
Himself to men and women. He calls His creatures to listen. And as He gives ears to hear,
He calls upon us to receive and to believe and to obey his word. Isaiah's message from God to
Israel in these opening verses was not a pleasant or an encouraging
one. And yet the things that he said
are all too familiar to sinners who have seen and felt the true
state of their heart and their soul before God. God has created
us, he has nurtured and he has provided for us as he did for
Israel. But Israel rebelled against him. And Isaiah brings a charge sheet
of crimes, a catalogue of corruption which records the effect of sin
in the lives of men and women and indeed the effects of sin
in our lives and our pitiful state by nature. Look again at verses 4 to 6.
Sinful nation. A people laden with iniquity. A seed of evildoers. Children
that are corruptors. They have forsaken the Lord.
They have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger. They have
gone backward. He says, from the sole of the
foot even to the head there is no soundness in it. If we are honest, And what did
the Lord say about not bearing false witness? If we are honest,
we do confess that all that is said of Israel here is true of
us also. Isaiah has opened his book with
a statement of our sinful state in the sight of a holy God. These things are accusations
that fit. We confess them to be true. And except the Lord himself do
something, except the Lord himself do something to arrest us, we
shall revolt more and more. That's what he says in verse
five. Ye will revolt more and more. Ye will revolt more. You see, we cannot help ourselves.
If the Lord does not stop us, if the Lord does not arrest us
in our wild career, hell and destruction is never
full. If the Lord will not stop us,
we will revolt more and more. There could hardly be a more
accurate description of total depravity in the whole of scripture
and the utter helplessness of mankind to save himself And this
is what Isaiah supplies to us in these opening verses. What
is said here of Israel is true of me. And Isaiah has brought
us a word from the Lord. He has faithfully told us that
the Lord has spoken. And this is what Isaiah has seen
in his vision of the state of the hearts of men and women. He has faithfully shown us our
sin. And he has shown us that we have
the need of a saviour. because except the Lord do something,
we will revolt more and more. And this message is from long
ago, but it has the same effect upon
God's elect people now and then. Because it shows us what we are. It causes us to acknowledge and
confess that the view of God, of our state, in our nature,
is one that is legitimately condemning. In verse 8, He says, the daughter
of Zion is left as a cottage. That daughter of Zion there is
a reference to God's elect. And he says, the daughter of
Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden
of cucumbers, as a besieged city. He's already spoken about the
nature of this wickedness, this depravity in man's hearts. And he has said, your land is
overthrown. Your land is rendered desolate
by your enemies. And we have discovered that there
are many enemies of our souls. That's what the hymn writer says.
Both without and within, we have enemies constantly besetting
us. We have these enemies today that
are being described spiritually here in the opening verses of
Isaiah. In a land overthrown and rendered
desolate by our enemies, the Lord's people are lonely and
abandoned. That's what this verse is referring
to. A cottage in a vineyard isn't
some idyllic residence in a French winery or a California winery. That's not what that means. It's
speaking about helplessness and vulnerability. It's speaking
about being completely open to the desolations of our enemies
around about us, that we are on our own and that there is
no one available to help and support. Loneliness, destitution,
surrounded by enemies, our fate, is the same as for all men and
women bound in our sin. We walk the way of the wicked
and we shall follow them down to hell for we are trapped in
this state, in this condition, in this booth, in this straitjacket
without power. And Isaiah is a prophet with
a spiritual grasp of what total depravity means. Except, Isaiah opens the next
verse with except. He is telling us that there is
an exception. The Lord has made an exception
in this world. There is something exceptional
in verse 9. We remarked in yesterday's note
that Isaiah, the name Isaiah means the salvation of the Lord. And now the prophet is going
to bring a message that corresponds to his own name. And he opens
up to us our next point in our search for the Lord in this prophetic
passage. So the prophet has done two things
for us in these opening verses. He has shown us the true nature
of our hearts and souls and the wickedness of our nature in Adam
and in the flesh. He has shown us our complete
destitution, what is sometimes called our total depravity. But now he is going to show us
that there is an exception made for some individuals. And verse 9 begins, the Lord
of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant. We should have
been as Sodom and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. Sodom and Gomorrah were cities
that were completely destroyed in the time of Abraham and they
are mentioned throughout scripture as examples of God's complete
judgment. and of man's hopelessness. There wasn't to be found even
just a few in these cities that were righteous. Had there been,
they may have been delivered, but there was not. There was
nothing that merited deliverance amongst them. And so God wiped
them out, raining down fire and brimstone upon them. And they
have stood the test of time in the testimony of Scripture as
examples of destruction and condemnation and judgment. But here Isaiah
is saying that there is hope because the Lord of hosts has
safeguarded a remnant, a very small remnant to be delivered
from judgment and saved from this imminent destruction that
is typified in Sodom and Gomorrah. And that remnant means a little
part. So when it is talked about a
very small remnant, he's saying that there's a very little small
part. There's an emphasis here of fewness. A remnant's a bit that's cut
off. Often we think about it in the
context of a piece of cloth. It's the bit that's left aside.
It's the bit that's The bit left over when what is to be cut out
of a piece of cloth has been properly and suitably measured
and cut and then there are remnants that are left at the side. Generally
considered worthless. But here Isaiah tells us that
while many wicked shall be condemned, as they were indeed in Sodom
and Gomorrah, and as they will be in the eternal destruction
that is to come, a very small remnant will be preserved and
delivered because the Lord of hosts chooses to redeem them
from the curse of the law. And I think we should just pause
for a moment and realize what Isaiah is saying here. At the
very start of this major prophetic book, he tells us of salvation
and he is preaching redemption. He's introducing us to salvation
and he is preaching redemption. And note this, he is proclaiming
Christ 700 years before Christ came. He is continuing that great
theme of prophecy as it anticipates a coming Redeemer whose work
will be to deliver and to save the people of God's choice. Isaiah tells us the people to
be saved are a very small remnant. but a remnant chosen at the behest
of God, the Lord of hosts. And the Apostle Paul picks up
this strand from Isaiah's writings. Remember when the apostles were
expounding and preaching and writing their letters and their
epistles to the churches, they were dwelling upon the Old Testament
scriptures and the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so
we often find references to the Old Testament scriptures and
Isaiah is frequently used by the apostles in their epistles.
We regularly find these references being brought up to show and
to prove and to verify the doctrines of the Gospel. And this is what
Paul does here. He uses the prophecy of Isaiah. In the New Testament, Isaiah
is called Isaias, and Isaias is the Greek
form of Isaiah. So in Romans chapter 9 verse
29, it says there, and as Isaias said before, so he's speaking
about this reference in Isaiah, and as Isaias said before, except
the Lord of Sabeoth, that is the Lord of hosts or the Lord
of armies, so he's speaking about the same verse, except the Lord
of Sabaoth had left us a seed or a remnant, we had been as
Sodoma and been made like unto Gomorrah. So the Apostle Paul
in Romans chapter 9 is picking up this reference to teach us
about God's sovereign grace, God's sovereign purpose and the
remnant that has been left, the remnant that has been gathered
by God. The remnant signifies the few
that remain out of a larger number in the same way as a seed is
reserved for re-sowing out of a crop that has been either sold
or consumed. and it is speaking about the
work of God in sanctifying or setting aside, setting apart
a small number. It's an act of God's sovereign
grace whereby a people shall be justified and redeemed according
to his saving purpose. And this people, this remnant,
in the days of Isaiah, in the days of Paul, in today's Gospel
age, are being called from here and there, through the preaching
of the Gospel, through the revelation of the Word of God, into this
little remnant, this people. the elect will be called in time
and safeguarded from corruption and from judgment and prepared
in Jesus Christ for glory. So that once again, Isaiah is
setting forth election and particular redemption seven centuries before
the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has shown us the nature of
our sin and our depravity. He has shown us the need of a
saviour and he has told us that the Lord has a remnant people
that he has called in election, set apart in election and sanctification
within the covenant purpose of his grace and will save by the
blood of Jesus Christ. And Paul continues in Romans,
we refer to his use of this verse from Isaiah. In chapter 11, verse 5, he says,
even so then, at this present time, that is in the day of Paul,
there is a remnant according to the election of grace. There
was an election There was a remnant according to the election of
grace in Isaiah's day because God had reserved a few souls
to himself. There was a remnant according
to the election of grace in Paul's day for the same reason. And
there is a remnant according to the election of grace today. God has chosen a people, a little
flock, a small remnant, set apart in every age to preserve a testimony
to his glory, to maintain a witness to the gospel and to honour the
Lord Jesus Christ and his blood atonement. Isaiah then has told us of our
sin and our need for a saviour. He's spoken of God's remnant
and now Isaiah tells us how this work of preservation is accomplished. How salvation and the deliverance
of this remnant will be effected. And he tells us that it is all
of grace. He says, There's no works of
man involved in this salvation because no man will have the
right to boast before God. In verses 11 to 15 The Lord condemns all religious
efforts of men. Oh, there is so much religion
in our world today. There is religion of every kind,
of every flavour, of every colour. People are rabid about their
religion. It may be Christian religion,
it may be many other forms of religion. But the Word of God
says, Who hath required this at your
hand to tread my courts? God doesn't want our sacrifices. He doesn't want all our efforts,
our vain oblations, our incense. He doesn't want our new moons.
He doesn't want our assemblies. He doesn't want these things
to be brought before him in our feasts and our new moons or the
solemn meeting. He doesn't want man-made religion. He condemns that kind of religion. They're abominations to him. They cannot cleanse, they cannot
justify a guilty soul. Only blood purging can cleanse
a guilty soul. And only repentance and faith
looking to that blood purging. will be of comfort and meaning
to those who are guilty and seeking forgiveness. This is what Isaiah
is telling us. If we have that experience, then
we will have a knowledge of what Isaiah is saying here. In verse
18, The Lord invites his elect people to come and to witness
how this cleansing and justification is to be accomplished. He says,
come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins
be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they be
red like crimson, they shall be as wool. This verse is not
an invitation to negotiate with God about getting saved. I know
that it is used in the invitationary systems of so many churches as
an appeal to sinners to come to Christ. That's not what this
verse is saying. In its context, it is a word
of comfort and encouragement to the remnant that Isaiah has
identified. It is a word of comfort to the
elect of God who feel the weight of the sin in their own lives
and they find themselves brought under judgment and condemnation
when they look at their own souls. They fear that their sins will
consume them and they tremble before the holiness of their
judge. And it is then that the quietening
and the comforting word of God says to them, come and I will
show you what I have done for you. come and I will show you
how your sins will be purged, how your iniquities will be washed
away, how despite your sin, your harlotry, your rebellion, your
thievery, your murderous nature, I will wash you white as snow
and I will make you as wool. And verses 25 to 27 explain how
this is achieved. The Lord says, I will turn my
hand upon thee. I will turn my hand upon thee. Our salvation is all the work
of God. We are His workmanship. He is
the potter, we are the clay. He is the refiner, we are the
raw ore from which that precious metal is taken. He is the great
creator and He is the craftsman who brings us to be what He wills
us to be. He says, I will turn my hand
upon thee. He goes on to say, I will purely
purge away thy dross. These are beautiful little phrases
that Isaiah, so many years ago, has brought before the view of
the elect in his Old Testament age. and left as a legacy and
a heritage for the people of God ever since, to wonder at
the ways of God and the sovereignty and majesty of his purpose on
our behalf. I will purely purge away thy
dross. Now, if you come from Scotland,
you will perhaps think about dross as being the little coal
dust that you used to get at the bottom of your coal bunker
in the days when people had coal fires in their house. That's
what we always called the dross. But really, that's, I think,
probably a local colloquialism. Dross has a more technical meaning,
and it is the scum that forms, or the waste that forms, on the
top of molten gold and silver. And what the Lord is saying here
is that He will purely purge away thy dross so that no impurities
will be left. Not even that dross on the very
surface of the molten silver will be left for the elect to
worry about. God doesn't say, I'm going to
make you 99% pure. and then you can work on the
last few specs for yourself. That would be too much for any
man or woman or boy or girl to handle. Rather, he says, I will
purely purge away thy dross. Salvation, says Isaiah, is a
finished work of God. You see how the New Testament
doctrines about the completeness of our salvation are here in
these Old Testament passages? This is great blessing and a
great comfort for the remnant people. We so often feel like
our flesh, our old nature, our old man is getting the better
of us. We doubt, we grumble, we fall
into temptation, we find ourselves brought again under a sense of
guilt and failure. But God has made us pure in Christ. He sees us as pure gold. He sees us as fine silver. And Isaiah's message is to reckon
yourselves to be so. This is what it means when the
Lord reasons with us. He is saying, this is what I've
done for you. I know that you feel like that.
And I'm going to explain that in a moment. I know that this
is how you feel when you see your own nature, when you feel
your own sin. But this is what I have done
for you. It is what you are in Christ. And Paul tells that to the Corinthians.
Here it is, the same message being repeated and repeating
throughout the ages. Ye are washed, ye are sanctified,
ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the
Son of our God. Your dross is purely purged away. blessed truth, blessed comfort. You may not feel pure, but in
God's sight, it is what you are. And then he says a very interesting
thing. He says firstly, I will turn
my hand upon you. He says I will purely purge away
your dross. And he says, I will take away
all thy tin. I will take away all thy tin.
Who thought that that was a misprint in their Bible when they read
it first? Certainly all our sin is taken
away but the sense here is very precious I think and it specifically
has to do with our self-righteousness. No tin is allowed to take the
place of any of the silver. It used to be that when the craftsmen
were making silver they would add tin into it in order to make
an alloy. He's talking here about the purity
of the silver. It is fine silver, pure silver
to which Ordinarily, people would add tin. And tin, of course,
looks like silver. How would you tell the difference?
How can you tell the difference? And yet one is valuable and the
other one is much more common. The tin is our good works. It is our self-righteousness.
Polished up to make it look as silvery as we can make it. And
the Lord says, I will take away all thy tin. I'm going to take
away all your self-righteousness. I am going to show you how much
you depend upon my son. I am going to show you how important
Christ is to you. But here's the thing. When that
tin is removed, it doesn't feel easy. It doesn't feel good. When the Lord takes away that
tin, he is showing us that nothing of human flesh can or will be
added in the accomplishment of our salvation and our glory. It is all to be the work of God. Christ is come to make ready
a people prepared for the Lord and the presence of his glory.
And when you have pure silver, there's no need for tin. Tins
extraneous, tins a waste. You don't take up any space to
accommodate tin when you've got pure silver. Any Alloy is a dilution. Any alloy is a corruption. And all our self-righteousness
is corruption of the purity of Christ. Too much preaching today
is built on telling people how to live and it is simply mixing
self-righteousness with God's work of grace. It's trying to
amalgamate silver and tin. And it will not do. In fact,
God expressly says that he will actively remove our tin. What does that mean? It means
that the elect will be made to feel their corruption in their
own heart. It means that that removal of
self-righteousness will be to show us our own true nature. to such a degree that there will
be no mistaking where our true righteousness comes from. That
is why the elect feel the weight of their sin so much. That's
the great perplexity of the Lord's elect, that there is this fusion,
this blend of heartfelt conviction with a joyous salvation and we
have these two things coexisting. Those who are truly pure in the
sight of God feel themselves least fit for his presence. Joseph Hart says, though all
are sinners in God's sight, there are but few so in their own. Who are these few? This remnant,
this very small remnant, who are these few that are sinners
in their own sight? But those who have had the tin
of self-righteousness stripped away from them. Heart continues,
a sinner is a sacred thing. The Holy Ghost has made him so. But now, see the difference.
What is it that the Lord says to these people to whom he says,
come and let us reason together? Though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be white as snow. Though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool. What is it? You'll no longer
be called a cottage in a vineyard. You'll no longer be a lodge in
a garden of cucumbers or a besieged city. But now you are Zion, the
city of righteousness. Now you are Zion, a faithful
city. Isaiah Chapter 1 verse 27 says,
Zion shall be redeemed with judgment and her converts with righteousness. What a beautiful verse this is
upon which to end our thoughts today. Isaiah is speaking here
of redemption. Not with corruptible things such
as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Zion shall be redeemed with judgment
and her converts with righteousness. Redeemed with judgment is judgment
for our sin that fell upon our substitute. There's the blood
of Christ. Redeemed with righteousness is
the righteousness of Christ, the righteousness of God, the
Lord our righteousness. Having that righteousness imputed
to all for whom Christ bled and died. Well might the psalmist sing,
beautiful for situation is Mount Zion, the city of the great King. Beautiful indeed in every way. What a place to be. Justified
in the sight of God. Pure, perfect and clean. Without spot, wrinkle, blemish
or any such thing. What a work of grace. What a
saviour. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to our hearts today and make sweet to our palate the ancient
truths that speak of Christ in the visions of the prophets. Amen.