Let's look at Isaiah again, chapter
one. I want to go back to Proverbs,
and eventually we'll probably alternate each week. But Isaiah,
we want to get established in it first, I believe, before we
start going back to Proverbs. Isaiah chapter one has a message. The entire chapter
really needs to be seen together, and yet there's so much in it,
it's just impossible to to look at in one message, so we'll advance
a few verses tonight in it, Lord willing. Verse five is where we'll begin tonight and talk about this,
a very small remnant, a very small remnant. From Isaiah 1,
5, why should you be stricken anymore You 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 Gomorrah. We should have been as Sodom
and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. Now there's a lot in these verses
and I want to try to say it all. Before we consider verse 5 though
let me remind us what it says in verse 2. This is God's Word.
The Lord has spoken. Isaiah said, I've got something
to say because God has spoken. God speaks to nations. He speaks to the world. All ye
lands, it says in that verse we looked at last week. All ye
lands, make a joyful noise. But He also speaks to individuals.
He's speaking to you tonight. He's speaking to me in His Word. And that either means something
to you or it doesn't. But I'll tell you this, whether
it means anything to you or not, it's life and death. Our Lord said in John 6.63, it's
the spirit that quickeneth the flesh, profiteth nothing. The
words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are
life. The word of God is life. In Matthew
4.4, he answered and said, it is written, man shall not live
by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the
mouth of God. God's word is as necessary to
your life, and more so than the food that you eat. Job
understood this, he said in Job 23, 12, neither have I gone back
from the commandment of God's lips, I have esteemed the words
of his mouth more than my necessary food. And that's just right,
that's just right thinking there. But more is necessary than just
understanding this to be true. I don't eat because I understand
that the human body needs fuel in order to survive. I do know
that. I acknowledge that fact and I believe it to be true.
The human body cannot survive without food. But it takes more
than that to live, doesn't it? I don't eat because I know that.
I eat because I'm hungry. Because I'm hungry. If you don't need God's word
that way, How do you know you're hungry? How do you know when
it's time to eat? You have to look in a book? You
have to look in a science book of some kind? If you do not need God's word
like that, then you're dead. That's me, that's you, that's
everybody now. Verse five, why should you be
stricken anymore? You're just going to revolt more
and more. Now Isaiah has just pronounced
woe and the first four verses he pronounced very vividly described
and very aptly described woe upon the children of Israel.
God's chosen. God's elect now. And here he
describes and how that they've been corrected for it. Why should
you be stricken anymore implies that they've been stricken. And
that's just right. That's only right. They've been
corrected. We're described as children in verse two in the
same verse. We're described also as rebels and rebellious children
need correction. That's just according to God's
word. It may not be according to contemporary thought. Don't
let me get off on that, but it's according to God's word. Rebellious
children need correcting. But we're talking about the gospel
here. The gospel. God restrains the sinfulness
of his people in its outward expression, at least. And he
does correct us. Paul dealt with that, you remember.
He said, he deals with you as with sons when he corrects you
now. And it's grievous when he does it. And when parents correct
their children, if it's not grievous, you're not doing it right. But here's the thing now, we're
talking about the gospel. God does correct us, and he does
restrain us, and he does teach us, and he does discipline us,
but a sinner can't be saved like that. Not gonna be saved like
that. And that's what our verse is
talking about, it will not fix the problem. And this is the
thing, organized religion is in the business of trying to
do that very thing. They won't discipline their children now,
but they'll discipline you if you come to their church. They've
got a church disciplinary committee for that very thing. They'll
do everything they can do to straighten you out. They'll threaten
you, they'll bribe you with heaven, they'll use the whip of the law
to beat people into submission. But our text reveals the futility
of that. spiritual things that's not the
way all the law and its accountability will do is make us rebel more
and more that's all it's going to do the law never saved anybody
by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in God's
sight and that's because we can never measure up to the law standard
and no amount of weapons is going to make it make us any better
the law can reveal our evil but it can't remove any of it that's
clear in the Word of God And our problem is not our behavior.
If our problem was behavior, you can modify behavior. You
can restrain outward evil, but you can't change the head and
the heart. He said, your whole head is sick and your whole heart
is unwell. That's the word faint, unwell.
That's our problem, not what we do. That's just a symptom
of our problem. You can't treat the symptoms
of a disease. You've got to get to the problem.
And that's what he's saying. You're corrected, and you're
restrained, and you're disciplined, and that's just right. There
should be consequences for rebellion. There are earthly temporal consequences
even for God's people for rebellion. And that's just the love of a
father is what that is. It's not punishment. The Lord
Jesus Christ took all of our punishment. But that correction,
that discipline, that's not gonna save you. In natural earthly families,
A father can restrain and discipline, and he may cause some outward
conformance, because I don't know about you, but I don't want
another whipping like the one I got yesterday. To some extent, there's gonna be
some outward conformance, and that's good, that's a good thing.
Because you love them, you want them to act right because you
love them. But if the child hates his father, in his mind and in
his heart, and that's what we're talking about, the head and the
heart, If that child hates his father, then he's gonna get away
with everything he can get away with behind his father's back.
And that relationship is gonna be an ugly thing. There's not
gonna be any trust whatsoever. You take your eyes off of them
for one minute and they're gonna be self-destructing and hurting
everybody around them if they can get away with it. But here's
how God has been gracious to overcome that in families, in
natural families. And it's a lesson to us in spiritual
things. You know what makes a family
a real family? Love. Not just cracking the whip. That's
not a family. Natural love for one another.
If I don't love my child then I'm not so much disciplining
them as I am punishing them. Or maybe I just don't care enough
to even restrain them at all. We see examples of that in the
scripture and the disastrous results of that in the scripture. God said if you don't discipline
your child then you hate them. Proverbs 13, 24, he that spareth
his rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth him
betimes, betimes. You know how many times betimes
is? However many it takes. How much do you love them? Because
that's love now. But if I correct them in love,
one more thing is vital. If my child loves me, then we got a family. And they
do, I believe with all my heart that they do, I know that they
do. And I could see it even in discipline that they love me,
and they knew that I loved them. I'll still need to correct them,
but unless they love me, as I said, they will rebel more and more,
and they'll get away with everything they can, but if they actually
about what I think. If it actually matters to them,
whether I'm pleased with them or not, now you've got something. Isn't that right? Now you've
got a family. And in spiritual terms, for a
sinner to love God, for us to love our Father, it takes a new
nature. It takes a new heart. Because
the old one doesn't. The natural mind is enmity against
God. The whole head is sick. That
head's always gonna be sick. It's sick unto death. It is a
mortal sickness. But God gives us a new mind.
He gives us repentance, which is a change of mind, a different
mind. The whole head is sick. All of
our thinking is wrong and diseased and anti-Christ by nature. You
can't fix that with a whipping. The whole heart, the affections
and lust, the will, the desires, our love is evil. What passes
for love in this world is selfish and man-centered and evil. And of course the whole heart
being faint, as I said, that means unwell, it's unwell, it's
sick. We love evil and we hate good,
that's the condemnation. Because we love ourselves and
hate God. That's why we love evil and hate
good. And the only cure is a new mind, a new heart, a new nature,
a new creature, a new creation. Your nature determines your thinking
and your desires, and you need new thinking and desires. That's
what our scripture teaches. Holding you accountable for your
evil thoughts and desires and the actions that spring from
them will not produce good thoughts. You should be held accountable.
And there is outward restraint that results. There is good that
comes of that. It's not going to save you. It's not going to
change you. It's not going to turn a rebel
into a willing obedient son. Only a new heart will do that. Verse six describes the result
of having a sick head and heart spiritually speaking. It makes
everything else evil too. When you're thinking is wrong.
and your heart, your affections, your will, and all that, your
desires are vile, then everything else from the top of your head
to the soles of your feet are evil. If your heart is wrong,
then your hands are gonna do wrong. Your feet are gonna go
wrong. Your tongue is gonna say wrong.
Your eyes are gonna perceive wrongly. Everything is diseased
and wretched. We call it total depravity. Total depravity. We are, in spite
of all of man's objections, totally depraved. This shows how comprehensively
sin has ruined us. From the top of the head to the
soles of our feet. There is no soundness. Not, just
not quite enough soundness to please God. There's not any in
it. There's not a lick of soundness in there. It's just all wounds
and bruises and nasty sores. And nothing's been done about
them. Nothing's gonna be done about
them. My old nature just as nasty and
uncured as it ever was. They haven't been closed, they
haven't been bound up, there's no medicine for that. You got
to be made all over again. You must be born again. You can't be reformed. You can't
be fixed like that. We are evil. Everything about
us is evil. Everything we do is evil and
there's nothing we can do about it. That's what this book teaches.
Just as plain as the nose on your face. You can't deny it. You can hate it. You can rebel
against it. But there ain't no denying it from this book. I would say that warrants the
word total when you. They are all gone out of the
way they are all together become unprofitable there is none that
do it good no not one. And as we'll see in our next
lesson if the Lord is willing to do the greatest expression
of our evil is that which we think is our best religion. Oh, I know I'm a sinner, but
I've cleaned myself up. I'm going to church. I'm tithing,
and I'm reading my Bible, and I'm inviting people to church.
That's what God hates the most. Because you presume as a sinner
that you can do anything to please God, and you're trampling under
your nasty feet the precious blood of his son. The Lord of
Glory died on a cross precisely because you cannot please God
on your own. And you're going about trying
to please God on your own. You see why God hates religion
more than anything else? He didn't go around pronouncing
woe on harlots and drunkards and murderers. He pronounced
woe on the Pharisees and the scribes and the chief priests,
and he still does, all through his book. And of course we'll
see that in the next lesson, as I said, if the Lord is pleased.
But the picture here is one of repulsive leprosy. That's what it is, when there's
no soundness in the flesh at all, and there's just sores,
and you're literally falling apart. That's what sinners literally
are just leaving a trail behind them. They're falling apart and
don't know it. Don't know it. It's a condition. It's a particularly loathsome
condition of the blood and of the flesh. And that's what our
sin problem is. It's a problem of blood. It's
passed on from parents to children and then their children. It's
a nature. It affects all of the flesh.
And just as physical leprosy is incurable and fatal, so is
spiritual. Only God can do anything about
it. Only God can cure a leper now. And then he said in verse
7, your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire,
your land strangers devoured in your presence, and it is desolate,
it is overthrown by strangers, and the daughter of Zion is left
as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of kids.
We're vile. So what we've seen now so far
is that we're vile. Everything we do is vile. in
all of our members, in all of our actions, in all of our thinking,
in all of our affections. And we can't change it, we wouldn't
change it even if we could, and we can't. But here's the teaching
of verses seven and eight, we affect everything and everybody
around us too. Even the very earth is cursed
because of us. Our land is desolate. It's our
sin that has ruined everything. Everything. Every problem in
God's universe is because of you. Has anybody told you that
lately? It's your fault. All of it. It's
equally my fault. And every other sinner. It's
our fault. I don't say it's your fault and you don't say it's
my fault. I only say that from the word of God. But it's my
fault. It's my fault. Everything. Everything vile and
wicked and evil. And this speaks of the temporal
effects of sin and God's temporal judgment of it. Even in the earth,
everything's ruined. All of this was true, but it didn't change these people. They didn't wake up and look
around one day and say, you know what? Our country is desolate.
We better straighten up. We better obey God. We better
listen to God. You know what we do instead, we blame it on
one another or blame it on God or both. It's somebody else's
fault. That won't straighten us up.
Seeing the obvious effects of our sin, that's not going to
cure us. And these two verses here, they vary well and I believe
it does speak of God's grace in removing his temporal blessings
for the sake of the souls of his sheep. He'll make you country
desolate to wake you up. That can be used of God as a
wake-up call. Sometimes God will set your barley
field on fire to get your attention, if you're one of his. Pictured
by Absalom setting Joab's field on fire in 2 Samuel 14. Joab
wasn't interested in anything Absalom had to say until he set
his barley field on fire, and then he came and said, why'd
you set my barley field on fire? Has God ever done that to you? Does God use temporal trials
and troubles for the good of the souls of his sheep? Now,
without grace, it's not gonna help you. As I said, they're
not just gonna wake up one day and say, look at the ruinous
effects of our sin, we better listen to God. No, but he can
use it as a means to apply his grace to your heart. I'd say that that's undeniably
taught in the word of God, that God will do that at times. in
the salvation of his people. But here's gospel now. We're all in the condition described
in these first eight verses of this chapter. And it's stark,
isn't it? And I haven't even scratched
the surface. How do you describe utter and
complete devastating ruin? You've just got to see it. You've
got to be able to see it somehow in yourself. If you can't see
it in yourself and you never will fully and that's that's
grace to To some extent it's it's not grace to be utterly
blind to your condition, but I'm glad I don't know fully what
I am But when you look to Calvary
do you see what what we are there And you see what it costs When
you see who it is that bears the awful load and the effects
of it upon him, for God Almighty to turn his back on his only
son and to destroy his only begotten son because of my sin. Well,
I can't describe it. I pray the Lord will impress
it upon us. But in these first eight verses, we see our condition,
all of our condition, our desperate condition. And sure enough, you
know, Our condition is desperate. If
we ever did see it, if we ever do, we'll cry, won't we? If you're
ever a leper, you'll cry, Lord, if you will. You gonna let the
one that can make you whole get by you without crying out? I
don't think so. Not if you're a leper. But as verse nine tells us, there
is a difference. There is a distinction. There
is an exception. We're not all going to hell.
We all ought to, but we're not. There is one difference and only
one. There is one exception. Notice
the word except and what it refers to here in this verse. There
is one exception made. There is one thing that distinguishes
among men. All other distinctions are meaningless.
Male, female, Greek, Jew, bond-free, none of that matters. We're all
the same when it comes to spiritual things, things that really matter. There's no difference except
the one. And there's one thing that makes that difference. 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.
Sodom and Gomorrah was all of these things put together that
we saw in these first eight verses and later on in the scripture
in talking to Israel God calls them Sodom and Gomorrah because
there's not any difference in us. We are Sodom and Gomorrah,
and we'd be exactly like Sodom and Gomorrah, including suffering
the sudden and absolute and eternal destruction of God, unless He
left us a remnant. What is that about? What is God
leaving us a remnant? Well, Paul calls it a remnant
according to the election of grace. a remnant caused or separated
out from the whole by the grace of God, by God choosing a people. There is a difference. If you are distinguished from
Sodom and Gomorrah, you are Sodom and Gomorrah, just
like he calls his people here. evil and deserving of sudden destruction. They absolutely deserved it.
Abraham says, shall not the judge of all the earth do right? Yeah,
he's going to do right. And you know what was right?
Absolutely wiping them off of God's earth. That's what was
right. And that's us now. But there's there's a difference.
There's an exception made. If we don't end up like that,
If we don't end up like they did, there's just going to be
one reason for it, and that's the free and sovereign and distinguishing,
electing love and grace of God. God left us a remnant. This is
God's Israel among Israel. That's what that remnant is. Paul refers to it in Romans 11.
Let's look at it and read some more about it than what I quoted.
Romans 11, 1. because he refers to another
passage of scripture there too. That word remnant, he doesn't
actually, I don't think, directly refer to Isaiah 1 there, but
he uses that same word remnant, and that's what, and he's talking about exactly
the same people, the same one, the same thing, God's elect. Romans 11, what I say then, hath
God cast away his people? And now, you know why he's asking
that question? if you read Romans chapter 10
you'll see that Paul declares pretty much that Israel is lost.
They are hopeless they don't know God. You read chapter 10
they don't know God that's their problem. The nation of Israel
doesn't know God. Well aren't they the people of
God? Wait a minute we are Jews we are God's people. Has God
cast away His people then? God forbid for I also am an Israelite
of the seed of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin. God hadn't
cast away his people, God hath not, look at verse two, he hath
not cast away his people which he foreknew. Earthly Israel is lost. They
worship in a false God now, they have not submitted to Christ
who is the end of the law for righteousness. But the ones that
God foreknew, God's never cast off. He made all of his promises
to them and he keeps them all. They are that remnant. Now look
at it, listen. Why ye not what the scripture saith of Elias?
How he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord,
they've killed your prophets. You're upset with me because
I'm saying Israel's lost, that they need to be saved, and my
heart's desire is that God will save them, but they plumb need
for God to save them. They're gone. They're lost. They're
far off from God. They're trusting in themselves
and their own works and traditions. Are you mad at me for saying
that? What did Elijah say about them? They've killed all your
prophets. These are God's chosen people.
No, not earthly Israel now. They hate God just like they
did when the Lord told them, you're of your father, the devil.
And you killed everybody that ever talked about me because
you hate me. They've killed your prophets.
They've digged down your altars and I'm left alone and they seek
my life. But what sayeth the answer of
God unto him? I have reserved to myself." That's what Isaiah
is talking about. Isaiah said, God's given me a
vision and he's spoken. And I have something to say because
he said something. And here's what he said. Look
at us. Look at what we are. You look
at Sodom and Gomorrah and you say, woe unto them. You know,
they deserve everything they got. Look in the mirror. It's
you. And you'd be exactly like them
in every way if God hadn't loved you and chosen you and set you
apart. I have reserved to myself 7,000
men who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so,
Paul said, teaching from that passage of Scripture, God right
now, even so at this time, at this present time, and I'm saying
that tonight, at this present time, There also is a remnant
according to the election of God's grace. God chose a very
small people. And they're not gonna bow to
Baal, not because they're not evil just like them, but because
God chose them and set them apart and keeps them and preserves
them and has saved them. Thank God for that word except
in our text. You see that there is no difference
between you and the most vile sodomite that ever perished in
that infamous city when God destroyed it with fire 4000 years ago except. Except. Do you know what the
difference is if there is one between you and them. Paul said in Romans chapter 9
that the purpose of God according to election might stand. God
said to Jacob, I love you. The difference is the love of
God. A remnant according to the election
of grace. What is the election of grace?
Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated. There is a remnant according
to the choosing of his love. The love of God is the difference.
If God loves everybody and is trying to save everybody, then
we're all going to hell. Because if his love couldn't
save Sodom, how's it going to save me? But if the difference
is that God loves me. Oh, what a difference. What a difference. Oh, if God's love can't save
Judas or Esau, if he loved them as much as he loved me, then
how's he going to save me? I'm worse than them. But the truth is God's love is
life. God's electing free love and
grace in Christ. His love is life. And you know
where his love is? It's in Christ Jesus our Lord.
That's where it is. Election is God saying I love
you. Have you ever wondered or asked
what if God doesn't love me? What if he doesn't love me? Well
let me ask you this, do you love God? Now you think with me for
a minute. Do you love God? You do? Do you know why? You do, don't you? Because he
loved you first, that's why. Do you not love God? then what are you doing complaining
about whether he's being fair to you or not? If you hate God,
you want to, you nailed his son to a cross, you cruelly murdered
his son and spit on him while you died and you're worried whether
or not God's gonna be fair to you or not? You got issues. If that's the case. The difference,
the only difference between sinners is God's electing love, and His
love is in Christ. If He loved you and chose you,
then He sent His Son to redeem you, and if He sent His Son to
redeem you, you are redeemed. That's how His love works. Herein
is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent
His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. That's what love
is, the electing love of God results in him sending his son
to be our sin offering. And as we saw this morning in
the book of Hebrews, when he became our sin offering, when
a body was prepared for him and he came as my representative
and my substitute, he once for all offered himself for my sins
and sanctified everybody he did that for, made them holy, made
them spotless in the eyes of God. That's how he's able to
present you faultless. Because he's washed you in his
precious blood. He did that because he loved
you. And because he loved you, he chose you a remnant according
to the election of grace. You know what propitiation is? Let me think with me for a second.
We just read that scripture, 1 John 14, here in his love,
not that we love God, just quit talking about our love. It's
not worth talking about. But he loved us, that's what
love is. His love for me is love. And he sent his son to be the
propitiation for our sins. His love is action, it's not
an emotion, it's action. It's an attribute and it's a
deed. People talk about grace as though
it was some thing out here floating in the air. Grace is God saving
you. Election is God loving you and
saving you. It's not just a doctrine, it's
a teaching, and of course doctrine's important. We don't know anything
about it unless he teaches us about it. But it's not just something
on a page that we agree with. It's God Almighty loving me and
choosing me and setting his affection and bestowing his grace upon
me. He loved me and he did something about it. That's what we're talking
about. He made his son my propitiation. Sent him to be the propitiation
for my sin. You know what propitiation is?
It's a sin offering. And do you know who sin offerings
are made to? They're not offered to you. They're
not offered to me. Sin offerings are offered to
God. So if God loved me, think with
me, if God loved me and he sent his son to be my sin offering,
a sin offering is unto himself now, then the issue is not whether
Christ is accepted by me or not. A sin offering is not made to
me. The issue as to whether I live before God or die is did God
accept his son? If Christ Jesus was a sufficient
offering for my sin, then I'm sanctified, I'm saved, I'm accepted
of God. If he accepted my substitute,
he accepted me. If he accepts my sin offering,
he accepts me. He had regard unto Abel and his
offering. Was his blood worth enough to
pay for my sins? What do you think? May God give us grace to think
about that as we partake of these simple elements in obedience
to him and come to his table tonight and take simple bread
and wine and show forth his sin atoning glorious death until
he comes back.