Let us turn to Isaiah chapter
1, that portion of scripture that we were reading, the opening
chapter, in the book of the prophet Isaiah. And turning now to the
18th verse, Isaiah 1.18, Come now, and let us reason together,
saith the Lord, that your sins, being scarlet, they shall be
as white as snow, Though they be red like crimson, they shall
be as wool." I'm sure it is a well-known verse of Holy Scripture, one
of the great texts, we might say, that we find here in the
Word of God. And it is good sometimes to come
to such passages as this, wherein we have such a wonderful declaration
of the Gospel, of the grace of God. And so this morning I want
to try to speak from this verse, we have looked at it on previous
occasions, but to say something with regards to that reasoning
together with God that's being spoken of. God should utter such
an invitation as this, 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. Very much a gospel word, but
set really in the midst of a chapter. You may have observed as we read
through the verses of the chapter how the Lord God is rebuking
the nation of Israel verse 4, our sinful nation. In fact he
goes on to address them as if they are Sodom and Gomorrah there
in verse 10. Hear the word of the Lord ye
rulers of Sodom, give ear unto the Lord our God ye people of
Gomorrah. God is speaking in plain words
to a sinful people and yet here in the midst of this solemn chapter
we have this remarkable text of scripture. As we come to consider
the word that I've read for a text, I divide what I say into two
parts. First of all, to consider how
here we have a proposal that is made by God himself, and to
consider the significance of the word, what God is proposing,
and then in the Second place, to see how our response is to
be that we will come and we will plead with Him. Surely that is
the response that we ought to make. God invites and we should
take up that invitation and we should begin to implore Him and
to plead with Him. But first of all, see how God
speaks, how God is the one who very much is taking the initiative. Come now, he says, and let us
reason together. We know that none can be beforehand
with God. St John reminds us that we love
Him because He first loved us. It's not that we love God and
then He responds in any way to that love that we expressed towards
Him. No, it is God who is first, always. It's God who is first. And so
here it is the Lord God who speaks and utters the words through
His servant, the Prophet, one of those holy men, who is speaking
as he is being moved by the Spirit of God. But how God does invites
that men should come and speak with Him. It's together. It's a reasoning together. There's
to be talking on both sides. It's not only the Lord who speaks.
Men are also invited to speak with Him. And yet God surely
is the one who has every right to be the sole speaker. In the
book of another prophet Jeremiah there in Jeremiah 8.14 the Prophet
says, Let us be silent for the Lord our God hath put us to silence
and given us water of gall to drink because we have sinned
against the Lord. Surely our sinning against the
Lord silences us. What have we to say? What have
we to say? What is the ministry of the Lord
of God? We know that what things soever the law saith it says
to them who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped
and all the world become guilty before God or when God speaks
when God comes and utters his powerful voice in the law that
dreadful voice of a holy God how it silences men because we
are those who have transgressed that law and fallen short of
the glory of God But the way God is speaking here is not the
way of the holy, righteous, and just law. Surely we recognize
here that these are Gospel words. And when God comes in the Gospel,
how He comes so graciously, and it encourages, therefore, the
response on the part of the sinner. And what do we see here? Well,
we have an invitation. God says, come now. Come now! Or go and think of the language
of the New Testament, the language of the Apostle Paul. He has said,
I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have
I succored thee. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Or what a now is this? Come now,
says the Lord God. The acceptable time. The day
of salvation. And how are we to come? Well,
we're to come just as we are. We're not to think that we have
to prepare ourselves in some way in order to respond to such
a gracious word of invitation. The Imriter says, if you tarry
till you're better, you will never come at all. Not the righteous. Not the righteous. Sinners Jesus
came to call. This is the man who receives
sinners and eateth with them. That's how the Pharisees and
the Jews mocked the Lord Jesus Christ when the publicans and
the sinners were coming to him. How they ridiculed and scoffed
and said, this man receiveth sinners. and eateth with them,
but he says he came not to call the righteous, he came to call
sinners. Now when we turn to the Gospel
and read through those Gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
we see so much the gracious ministry, the kind invitations that the
Lord is continually issuing. Come unto me all ye that labour
and are heavy laden for he invites the sinner to come take my yoke
upon you learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and you
shall find rest unto your souls all the restlessness that the
sinner is brought to feel in his conscience under the conviction
of his sins where will he find rest only by coming to the Lord
Jesus Christ he that cometh to me says Christ shall never hunger
he that believeth on me shall never And there, of course, in
that verse in John 6 we see what the coming is. It's not a physical
coming. It's a spiritual coming. It's
believing. He that cometh shall never hunger. He that believeth shall never
thirst. They are parallel statements.
The coming is equivalent to believing. And all that come to the Lord
Jesus, of course, they come by faith. And what does he go on
to say? He that cometh to me I shall
in no wise cast out. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. And he that cometh to me I shall
in no wise cast out. Oh, it's now, but it's also come.
And isn't come one of the great words of the Gospel? When we come to the very last
book, Revelation, almost the very last words, there in chapter
22. The Spirit and the Bride say,
Come. And let him that heareth say,
Come. And let him that is of thirst, Come. And whosoever will,
let him take of the water of life freely. Oh, whosoever will,
he may come. But the Lord says to men, ye
will not come unto me. that you might receive life.
Oh, what a gracious word, what a word of kind invitation is
that then that we have here at the beginning of the text. Come.
When are we to come? We are to come now. It is the
acceptable time. It is the day of salvation. But what we have here in this
word of God, this proposal from the Lord, is not only a kind
word of invitation, but it's also a promise. As come is a gospel word, so
it directs us to the promise of God. What is the promise that
God issues? Although your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool. How remarkable is this! What
are the sins that he is describing? And he likens them, you see,
to scarlets and crimson. They're deep-seated sins. All
they're deep-seated sins. As we see in the context, verse
4, our 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 into anger,
they are gone away backward. These are the very ones that
he is inviting, these are the ones he addresses this kind promise
to. So he goes on in verse 5, the
whole head is sick, the whole heart faints from the sole of
the foot, even under the head there is no soundness in it,
but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores, They've not been closed,
neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Oh, what sins
are these? Terrible sins. And here we see
something of the universality of sin. And we see that in a
two-fold sense, really. This is a sin that embraces everybody. What we read here, I know it's
addressed to the nation of Israel in particular, but it's a true
of all nations. It's a truth that applies to
all peoples. We only have to compare Scripture
with Scripture. We're told in Ecclesiastes there
is none righteous, no, not one. None righteous, not one. All have sinned, says Paul there
in Romans 3, all have sinned. and come short of the glory of
God. Oh, there is sin everywhere because
all are conceived in sin, all are shaped in iniquity. All of
us are descended from that man and that woman who fell in the
very paradise of God. Our first parents rejected the
truth of God, embraced the lie of the devil and sin has come. And who can bring a clean thing
out of an unclean? Not one, it's impossible. We
have received a fallen nature from our parents. We're born
dead in trespasses and in sins. All this condition then, it embraces
all men. Everyone that's ever been born,
bar one of course. There was one born, it was a
miraculous birth, the Lord Jesus Christ. He was preserved from
every taint of original sin. That holy thing that shall be
born of thee says the angel to Mary. That holy thing, that human
nature, that body, that soul, united to the eternal Son of
God, that holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called
the Son of God. And He's the only Saviour of
sinners. But we're speaking of men in general and all. all of
sin. It embraces everyone. And also,
I said a two-fold sense in which this sin is universal, it's not
just that that reaches all peoples that have ever been born upon
the face of the earth, it also pervades every part of a man's
nature. Every part of the man's nature. Behold, says David, I was shapen
in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Even man's will is enslaved to
sin. Man's will is not a free will.
God has created man in such a fashion that he is a rational being,
he makes decisions and so forth. he's not compelled to do things,
he makes choices but his will is in bondage to sin it's not
free, he cannot really choose that which is good he will delight
himself in evil now sin has pervaded every part of his nature if we
say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not
in us says John If we say that we have not sinned, we make God
a liar and His Word is not in us. Friends, if we are those
who embrace the Word of God and believe the Word of God, we have
to acknowledge what we are. It's everywhere, in our nature,
this sin. In me, says Paul, that is in
my flesh, there dwelleth no good thing. And yet, here is the promise. Here is the promise of God. Though
your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though
they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. I will restore
health unto thee, He says, and I will heal thee of thy wounds,
saith the Lord thy God. All those wounds that we read
of in verse 6, wounds and bruises and putrefying sores they've
not been closed neither bound up neither mollified with ointment
but God says no I will heal thee of thy wounds saith the Lord
what a word is this and is this word addressed to as I said it's
addressed to a sinful people and it is quite remarkable to
consider the way in which the The prophet speaks the word of
God. He speaks of the doctrine of the remnant. There's a little
remnant. Never was the case, of course. A very small remnant
we read in verse 9. This is God's ancient chosen
people, the children of Israel. You only have I known of all
the families of the earth, says the Lord God. And yet, there's
only a small remnant in all that nation, the 12 tribes of Israel.
Yes, they're a typical people, they're a type of the Lord's
people, but the true Israel, the spiritual Israel, was always
a very little remnant in the midst of that ethnic people,
Israel. But what does he say in verse
9? 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. They were preserved because of that little remnant.
In many ways they were like unto those wicked cities of the plain,
those people who were sunk in the most awful iniquity. Of course
the very term Sodomite is taken from that city. What perversions! And the Lord poured out a terrible
judgment upon those wicked cities. But see how it continues in verse
10. He says, we should have been like unto Gomorrah we should
have been of Sodom but then he says in verse 10 hear the word
of the Lord ye rulers of Sodom give ear unto the Lord of our
God ye people of Gomorrah he begins to address them now as
if that's what they really are they're so sunk in their wicked
iniquitous ways and those men of Sodom we're told were wicked
and sinners before the Lord exceedingly All these people are exceedingly
sinful, and yet there is a promise to the greatest of sinners. That's
the wonder of the Gospel. Or that is the wonder of the
Gospel, is it not? Those who were saved in the New
Testament under the preaching of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ, those who were in the church there at Corinth, remember
what Paul says concerning them, In 1 Corinthians 6, verse 9,
he says, Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit
the kingdom of God? Be ye not deceived. And then
it follows, Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers,
nor effeminates, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor
thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners,
shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you,
but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified
in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
Why, these very ones who could never inherit the kingdom of
God, these are the ones who are saved. These are the ones who
are washed, sanctified, justified and all in the name of the Lord
Jesus. Lord there is a great salvation
in the Lord Jesus Christ and there of course we have the most
awful sins, our sins of the flesh sins of the flesh fornication,
adultery, effeminate abusers of themselves with mankind but it's not only sins of the
flesh is it? what of spiritual sins? there are spiritual sins
and spiritual sins are awful and we have mention of them here
don't we? in the context how the prophet rebukes them
for their formalism look at what he says there at
verse 11 following to what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices
unto me?" says the Lord. Oh, they bring their sacrifices.
They have a form of religion, you see. They're doing the right
things. They're observing the Levitical ordinances, presenting
sacrifices. But what is the Lord saying to
them here? To what purpose is the multitude
of your sacrifices unto me?" says 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, you have required this at your
hand, to tread my courts. Bring no more vain oblations,
incenses and abomination unto me, the new moons and sabbaths
according 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 you spread forth your
hands, when they spread forth their hands, when they pray,
I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea, when you make many prayers,
I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.
Their religion is just a pretense. It's a form of godliness, that's
all it is. It's hypocrisy. And God utterly
disowns it. Oh, we see it later, in chapter
29 and verse 13, Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as these
people draw near me with their mouth and with their lips to
honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their
fear toward me is taught by the precept of men. Therefore, behold,
I will proceed to do a marvellous work among these people, even
a marvellous work and a wonder, for the wisdom of their wise
men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be
hid." All their prayers, you see, their prayers do not enter
into the ears of the Lord of hosts. now simply honoring Him
with their mouth but their hearts, their hearts are not in these
things how close God's word comes to us how often are we guilty
of simply observing the outward form and yet our hearts are far
far from the Lord all but the promise God gives though your
sins, even these wicked sins, these spiritual sins, this formalism
this hypocrisy, all sorts of sins there's pardon, forgiveness,
acceptance. Though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool. Lord, there's cleansing here.
We have then in this proposal that the Lord is putting before
the people that gracious word of invitation that's that sweet
promise that there is forgiveness with them that they mayest be
feared and there is also here gracious instruction as to how
they are to come take with you words says another prophet Hosea
take with you words and turn to the Lord and say take away
all iniquity and receive us graciously you see God tells them how to
come really when we look at the content, what's said in the previous
two verses, verse 16, 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. What is he saying in those previous
verses? He's telling them out to come.
How are they to come? They're to come in the way of
repentance. in the way of faith. We know
that faith has a priority. Whatsoever is not of faith is
sin. Without faith it's impossible to please God. But where there
is that real faith, that genuine faith, it goes hand in hand with
repentance. When we think of the ministry
of the Lord Jesus Christ, He comes into Galilee, preaching
the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, saying, the Kingdom of God
is at hand. Repentance, and believe the Gospel. That's the ministry of Christ.
Repentance, and believe the Gospel. And again, isn't that the ministry of John
the Baptist? He preaches the baptism of repentance in the
Pharisees' country. What does he say now to bring
forth fruits, meat, for repentance? Fruits, meat, or answerable really. Fruits answerable to repentance. And that's what we really have
in verses 16 and 17. These are the fruits, answerable,
where there's repentance. a real, genuine repentance. 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. What is repentance? It's a change really. It's a change of mind. As we
said before, that's the word that we have in the New Testament.
Literally it means a change of mind. It's as simple as that,
but it's a fundamental change. It's a great change. It's such
a change as the man's life is turned about. His life is turned
upside down, his life is turned inside out. It's a great change,
repentance. And it's the message of the Lord
Jesus as it was the preaching of The Baptist, it's a message
of the Apostles. Paul speaks of testifying both
to the Jews and to the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith
toward our Lord Jesus Christ. We see the Apostle there at Athens
preaching to all the philosophers, as it were, the great minds. And what does he say? God commanded
all men everywhere to repent. What are they to repent of? Well,
that's a turn from their idols. That's a turn from their idols.
That's a turn from all their superstitions. When Paul arrives there in Acts
17, we read of how the city was wholly given to Idolatry. The margin says the city was
full of idols. So many idols they had one to
the unknown God. An altar to the unknown God in
case some God, some idol of theirs had been overlooked. And Paul
tells them they had to turn from all this folly, this superstition,
this idolatry. He reminds the Thessalonians
that they turned from idols. to serve the living and true
God. Men have to turn from their idols. Men have their idols today,
not idols of wood and stone, but they have their idols. How
many idolize sports? How many idolize pleasures? How
many make an idol of themselves, idolize their own bellies with
them? Give themselves over to excesses. There's to be repentance
in. But that repentance always wedded
with faith. Where there is faith there will
be that repentance. And this is how we are to respond
to the gracious invitation that the Lord gives. Or where can
we find such faith and such repentance? Well we are to be looking on
to Jesus. We have to look unto Jesus, we have to look away from
all these other objects, we have to look only unto Jesus, the
author and finisher of our faith, says Paul. Him hath God exalted
with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance
to Israel and the forgiveness of sins. Oh, it's the Lord himself
who gives repentance. It's the Lord himself who gives
faith, it's the Lord who gives the forgiveness of sins. Here is the one then that we
must turn to and look to and call upon and cry to. And we
sang it, didn't we, just now in that lovely hymn of John Newton's,
O Could I But Believe. O could I but believe, then all
would easy be I would, but cannot, Lord, relieve. My help must come
from Thee. It's the Lord Himself who must
give us faith, and yet you know, to call upon Him, to cry to Him,
to ask Him, isn't that faith? We're to ask in faith. The Lord
hears the prayer of faith and answers the prayer of faith. Or that man who comes to Him
in the Gospel and cries out, Lord I believe, help thou my
non-believers. Or those apostles when they come
and make their cry, Lord increase our faith. We have to look to
the Lord for all of these things. But all the gracious words that
the Lord is speaking in this text, this great gospel text.
Come. Come now. Come now He says and
let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool. But let us turn to the second
point. How are we to respond? What is
to be our pleading? What is to be our pleading? Two
things I want to mention. When we come there will surely
be that acknowledgement of our sin. There will be that real
confession of our sin. and how this prophet was himself
made to feel what he was as a sinner before God. When we turn to those
familiar words in the sixth chapter where he sees a vision, he's
favoured with a vision, he sees something of the glory of God,
because this is in the days when God is still giving his word, We have the complete word of
God now. We don't look for for visions such as we have recorded
here in chapter 6. This is how God calls his servant
the prophet. But we have the complete word
of God. We're not to look for visions. But we can learn from
what the prophet says. The king dies and the prophet
is there in the temple. the throne of Israel, as it were,
vacated. Of course, one king dies, another
king is anointed. But there's a throne which is
never vacated at all. But he sees his throne, the Lord
sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, his train filling
the temple, and the angels round about his throne. Then said I,
Woe is me, for I am undone. Because I am a man of unclean
lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips,
for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Oh, this man,
you see, is confessing what he is, he feels it. He is to be
a mouthpiece to the Lord, and yet he has unclean lips. I am
a man of unclean lips, he says, I'm undone. And then one of the angels, one
of the seraphim brings a living coal from off the broken altar
and puts it to his mouth and cleanses him. All that cleansing
you see comes from the altar. It comes from all that is typified
in the altar. It comes from the Lord Jesus.
That's what's typified there. But there's confession. This
man has to confess his sins. And that's surely how we begin
when when we're reasoning with God.
Job, how Job had such a desire to meet with God, to speak with
God. What does he say there in his
book Job 13.3? Surely I would speak to the Almighty
and I desire to reason with God. And so it was. So it was. time and again he
expresses his desire he wants to meet with God he wants to
plead his cause before the Almighty look at the language that we
have in chapter 23 verse 3 he says, Oh that I knew
where I might find him that I might come even to his seat I would
order my cause before him and fill my mouth with arguments
I would know the words which he would answer me and understand
what he would sound to me. Will he plead against me with
his great power? No, but he would put strength
in me. There the righteous might dispute with him, so should I
be delivered forever from my judge. But he goes forward and
backwards, but he cannot perceive him. Turns to the left, turns
to the right, but he cannot behold him. Ultimately, of course, at the
end of the book we see what happens when God does speak to him. What does he say there, right
at the end of the book, chapter 42, I have heard of thee by the
hearing of the ear, but ne'er mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore
I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. He'd heard of God. He'd heard
of God. But when he comes to see and
to realize something of the glory of God, he is abhorrent in his
own sight. He has to confess what he is. That's how we have to plead with
God. We have to make our confession, if we confess our sins. Or what does David say in the
Psalm, Psalm 51, against the the only have I sinned and done
this evil in thy sight how he had sinned how he had sinned
sinned with Bathsheba adultery sinned against her husband Uriah
murder but how he feels it, he sinned against God and he confesses
it to God if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Again
Newton says in one of his hymns, With my burden I begin, Lord
remove this load of sin. This is what we do when we come
to God, when we reason with God, we have to acknowledge the truth
of what God says, and this is what we have here. God says in
verse 5, The whole head is sick, the whole heart faints from the
sole of the foot even under the head there is no soundness in
it but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores and we have
to acknowledge the truth of that what we are all we have to acknowledge
the reality of our sin all have sinned and come short of the
glory of God but how true are hearts words though all are sinners
in God's sight there are but few so in their own so such as
these our Lord was sent they're only sinners who repent sinners
feel that need to make their confession or they have to come
they have to take with them words they have to plead with the Lord
confessing their sins but in this pleading where is
it that we're to put our confidence Now, I've referred to the context. The context is important. The
opening words, Come now let us reason together, saith the Lord.
We might link those words immediately with what proceeds in verses
16 and 17, which is really, as I said, the fruits of repentance.
But God's proposal is not grounded in our repentance. Our confidence is not grounded
in any sense in what we might do. We're not hurt because of our
faith, we're not hurt because of our repentance. The only ground
of our confidence when we come before God is the person and
the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's important. It's because
of who Christ is. It's because of how God has revealed
himself to us in the person of his only begotten son. That's
the great ground of our confidence. Having therefore, brethren, boldness
to enter into that within the veil, it says, by the blood of
Jesus. How do we enter into that within
the veil? How do we come before the mercy
seat? That's where the mercy seat was.
It was beyond the veil. And what is Paul saying there
in Hebrews 10? We have boldness to enter into
that within the veil, to come before the mercy seat by the
blood of Jesus. Nothing of us. Seeing that we
have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus
the Son of God, Paul says, let us hold fast our profession,
for we have not had high priests which cannot be touched with
the feeling of our infirmities, but was tempted in all points
like us we are yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly
to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in time of need. Or do we see what Paul is saying
there at the end of that fourth chapter in Hebrews? It's because
we have this One who is the Great High Priest, the One who has
passed into the heavens. We have to hold fast that. We
have to put our confidence there, in Christ, in His person, and
in His work. We have an Advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous. and is the propitiation for our
sins, the ground of our confidency, the reason why as sinners we
can come, because of Christ. I can no denial take when I plead
for Jesus' sake. Oh, that's all our plea, that's
all our prayer. We ask God to hear us as we would
respond to this proposition. He invites us to reason with
Him. He gives the invitation. He attaches
the great promise. He graciously instructs and directs
us concerning the manner of our coming. But what is our plan?
It's simply and solely the Lord Jesus Christ. And ought to know
that boldness. that access with confidence that
is by the faith of Jesus Christ. May the Lord be pleased to bless
the text to us. Amen. Let us conclude our worship
this morning as we turn to the hymn 1067 and the tune is St. George number
59 Jesus thy light impart, and lead
me in thy path. I have an unbelieving heart,
but thou canst give me faith. 1067, June 59.