Alright, Isaiah chapter 1, we'll
begin right here at 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 you be stricken any more? You will revolt more and
more, the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From
the sole of the foot even into 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, completely vanished
from the face of the earth. Verse 10 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
offering 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
you 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. 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, I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea, when you 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 you be willing and obedient,
you shall eat the good of the land. But if you refuse and rebel,
you shall be devoured with the sword, for the mouth of the Lord
hath spoken it. How is it the faithful city become
an 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. Everyone loveth gifts and followeth
after rewards. They judge not the fatherless,
neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them." I'll stop
there, but I'm going to pick up right there a little later.
I came to this passage tonight, and if you're not happy with
it, you can blame Ray. At our meeting between services,
I guess about two months ago, Ray read a passage from Isaiah,
and it struck me just how beautiful it was and how much I was missing. So I decided to start reading
through the book of Isaiah on my own. I've not made it very
far. But just as soon as I got to
this first chapter, it struck me. And if there's been one passage
that's been on my mind for the last couple of months, it's this
first chapter of Isaiah. So when John asked me Monday
morning to try and say a few words tonight, my attention just
turned directly to here. So that's how I ended up here. And when I read this passage,
I read it through one time, And I had a response to it. But something
pricked my ear the first time through, so I read it again.
My response changed a little bit. I read it again. It changed
even more. I didn't even realize what was
going on until I tried to put a title to what I'm trying to
say here tonight. And I ended up naming this little
thing tonight, Sad and Glad. The first time I read through,
it made me sad to read these words. But like I say, a little
something caught my attention and when I finally got through,
it changed. I went from sad to glad. So that's
what we're gonna talk about tonight a little bit, being sad and being
glad. So we'll start with sad since
that's how my title starts and that was the first, I guess no
better way to put it, emotion I had. We'll start with sad. I've got a couple of scriptures
copied down so you won't even have to turn to it. There's no
one here that's not heard these words before. But from Psalm
chapter 7 and verse 11, we all know this. It says, God is angry
with the wicked every day. Not every once in a while. Not
every blue moon. Every day. Deuteronomy 4.24. For the Lord thy God is a consuming
fire, even a jealous God. Keep your hands here. Turn to
Hebrews chapter 10 for me. I do want you to see these words.
And if you want to mark your spot here in Hebrews, we might
actually... I know I'm going to quote from
it, so I might have you turn right back here a little bit
later. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 26
and 7, this first time through. And like I say, keep these two
scriptures I just read to you or quoted to you in mind. God
is angry with the wicked every day, and the Lord thy God is
a consuming fire, even a jealous God. Here in Hebrews, Paul writes,
For if we sin willfully, after that we have received the knowledge
of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. but a certain fearful-looking
form of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries."
There's that consuming fire right there for you. What's this saying? That if you turn your back on
God and His Word, Israel had done that. If you reject His
truth, And y'all remember this now, all truth is found in Jesus
Christ. So when you reject the truth,
you reject Christ. But if at your days in, you are
not found in Christ, you will face the wrath and anger of an
Almighty, a just, and a holy God. You are going to face this
God who is a consuming fire. This is the predicament that
we're reading of that the Jewish nation was under when Isaiah
starts his prophecy. If this was a court of law, this
chapter here, chapter 1, is like where the prosecuting attorney
stands up and gives his opening arguments. They lay out the crime
before the jurors. God presents His case here in
this first chapter against this wicked and perverse nation. And
then you read on throughout Isaiah, and He brings other nations under
this also, but He just lays out sin after sin that Israel has
committed, that Judah and Jerusalem have committed. And when it's
all said and done, The verdict's given, and the verdict is guilty. Punishment is due. And He did
punish them. Most of them ended up in Babylon
in captivity. But what does that have to do
with us today? Why, when I read these words,
did it make me sad? It happened so long ago, it doesn't
affect me. But it does. When I read these words, I couldn't
help but thinking about the country I live in, the USA. It just seemed
to be a description through exactly what we're living through in
this country right now. And I've told you before many
times that I try not to say anything up here that I can't get a backup
with. And if I don't have a backup,
I'll tell you that, and I'll run across one of those cases
here before long. Usually it's Gill, Spurgeon,
or Pink, Matthew Henry, someone like that, the old writers I've
got at home in my little bitty library. But tonight, for my
source, I went to a contemporary of ours. Someone's already mentioned
his name tonight, Don Fortner. Don Fortner has spoken a message
on this chapter before. And it surprised me when he did
it. It was two weeks after 9-11. He took two weeks to prepare
this message that he used from this Scripture. And he titled
that message, God's Controversy with Our Nation. He made a comment that made me
secure in my thought. And like I say, I read this going
on about two months ago, but when I started studying this
week and I was looking for some help and I ran across this, it
gave me some backbone that maybe I wasn't quite off track. But
this is how Don put it. He says, I realize that these
words were originally spoken to Judah and Jerusalem concerning
the sins of that nation and their religious practices. But I am
not preaching to Judah and Jerusalem, because that nation and people
turned away from God, despised His Word, and crucified His Son. They have long since been destroyed,
left in spiritual desolation, and forsaken by God. Because
of unbelief, they were broken off. However, these things were
not written in the book of God for them alone. They were written
for us. This is God's Word. It lives
and abides forever. Judah and Jerusalem in this text
are simply representatives of all men. They represent you and
me. This is not God's controversy
with Judah alone. This is God's controversy with
every nation in the world. This is not God's controversy
I'm sorry, I'm repeating it. This is God's controversy with
every person in the world. This is God's controversy with
our nation. I had that overwhelming feeling
when I went through that passage that first time. Time's already
getting away from me, but if you ask me later, I heard something
on the radio yesterday, and our nation may be past gone. It may
not be any help for it, except for God's step in. We know that
to be true. But I do want to give you a couple
examples here of what brought me to this conclusion. Verse 2, "...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." God has nourished this nation. Has there ever been any nation
more blessed than this one? Anything and everything we need
is right here. We have to go nowhere for anything. All the natural resources we
have. Abundance of water. If we don't have water one place,
we can easily get it somewhere else. Everything is right here. We've really got so much. We're
sending it all around the globe to other places. We are blessed
beyond more than we even need. But what do we do with it? We
just shake our hand in God's face. Give Him no thanks. Especially no love. And bringing
us up as children, think about the birth of this nation. We
were so vulnerable. The British had the strongest
nation in the world. They should have easily crushed
us. To this day, they still can't figure out why. But the British
enmity with the French had something to do with it. France come to
our aid. Is that why that enmity was there?
Because God had something for this nation? He had decided to
bless this nation? But yet, we've turned our back
on Him. Verse 2 describes the United States of America. We've
rebelled against the Lord. Just one more example. Like I
say, I think if you study it and you look at it with your
eyes open at all, you can see condemnation for this country
just verse after verse. Verse 21, How is the faithful
city become an harlot? It was full of judgment, righteousness
lodged in it, but now murderers. And remember, the first settlers They had a little too much law
in them. But they did believe in grace. The pilgrims believed
in grace. But not now. We are an idolatrous
nation. We've turned our back on God,
as I've said, and we've murdered Him in our own hearts. And now
we go about bowing to gods of all types. And we know where
it started. It didn't start in the streets.
It didn't start in the government. It started in the pulpits. And now it's spread to all kinds
of crazy things. The one that just seems to be
getting more and more common is that people do believe in
one God, but He goes by different names. To us, He goes by Jehovah. to Islam, he goes by Allah. To
Buddhists, it's Buddha. But it's just one God. As long
as you pray, that's good enough. People believe that. We have
so-called Christian preachers going to prayer gatherings with
different kinds of religions, and they're sitting there getting
along just fine. It's amazing to me how a so-called
Christian preacher could even sit down at the same table and
pray with someone of another religion. This Bible is just
replete with examples of where that was done and the condemnation
that they were under. But this country is living it
every day. There's another movement going about nowadays that people
consider themselves spiritual but not religious. But that's
just another type of self-righteousness. You know, they're not going to
church, but yeah, I'm spiritual. I'm going to worship God in my
own way. That's just really pulling a
Satan. Trying to make yourself equal with God. Self-righteousness. And look how this verse ends.
It says, God says the once faithful are now murderers. This probably
directly has reference to where Jesus said in Matthew 23, 37,
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest
them which are sent unto thee. To kill the prophets and stone
the preachers is to deny the Word of God, both the written
Word and the one true Word, Jesus Christ. But of course, they put
Him to death also. This country has put Christ to
death. As Don stated, and I quoted earlier,
this is God's controversy with every person in the world. This
is God's controversy with our nation. I don't want to spend
much time on it, but if you read through it, I think you'll see
just a little bit of what I saw. And it did, it really affected
me greatly when I read it. It made my heart very heavy to
think, This is the condemnation our country now stands under.
9-11 is just one example of the trials we're going through because
of unbelief, because we've rejected the Lord and we've rejected Christ. But I did get glad as I read
it. Verse 9. This is the first thing
that hit me. I actually called on to this
the first time through, so that's one of the reasons I read it
again, because I knew I was missing something. It's written here, 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. This word remnant, it just stood
up to me. The example I had was like you
go out to the ocean and you stand there on the sand and you watch
that sun come up in the morning, completely dark, and that sun
rises up and just takes over, moves the clouds away. I thought
about that verse and that's what it did to my attitude as I looked
at this. God has kept a remnant. So much of the Bible, and even
this chapter, it has a negative tone to it. I mean, He's listing
Israel's sin, just one after the other after the other. But
it's like, sometimes God just can't help Himself. For His people,
He's got to give them a little nugget every once in a while
where they don't lose hope. They keep looking at Him. This
one verse is what did it for me here in this passage. Except
the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant. But then I got to thinking about
this thing and I said, you know, this hope wasn't only for us
probably. Think about who else might have
found a little hope when he read this verse. Is it possible that Jesus had
hope? He got a little backbone when
He would read verses like this. In His humanity, He felt everything
just as we did. And we know the Bible tells us
that He will not be discouraged. But he couldn't help but lament
at times to look around as a man at what all was going around
him. This nation did not improve from the day Isaiah wrote these
words to the time Christ came. It did not get any better. Everything
was still true then that was true in Isaiah's day. But to
know that in leaving His glory and becoming a man and in dying
on the cross, that it would accomplish all that it would do, that He
would save His bride, that this remnant had been kept for Him
to save. His soul just had to be there
and it was satisfied. He believed God. He believed
in His promises. He had a people. God told him. Here in verse 9. In this we can
see the love of God. The love that He had for Christ.
He promised Him a people. He kept the people. And in this
we can see the wisdom of God. How can God save a sinner? Sinners
are this guilty. How can He save a sinner? Let's
look at verse 16. It says, 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. Now here God lives for us what
He requires from us. It's no less than perfect atonement
and perfect righteousness. So I ask the question, is God
giving us something to do in order to be saved here? The answer to that, of course,
is a resounding no. We are incapable of doing and
performing perfectly this list of requirements. Really, we get
right down to it, we can't even perform all of these imperfectly. We just can't do it. What God
is pointing us to in these two verses is the next verse. He's
showing us that we are incapable of doing these things for ourselves.
Someone must do it for us. So look here in verse 18. It
says, 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. Let's be honest with ourselves.
After you read these charges leveled here against man, do
you see yourself in this a little bit? Could some of these things
that God has laid out here that I've read so far and it continues
on here in Isaiah 1 to the end, could some of these things be
said about you If you do see yourself in them, and you should, as your response to that is to
say, yes, Lord, this is me. You're just and condemn me. If you're an awakened sinner,
you've been one who's been brought to the dust and to realize just
who you are, you say this to yourself. And
if you're part of this remnant, you will, if not yet, you will
eventually say that. Yes, Lord, you're just to condemn
me. But God says to this type of
person, He's not speaking to everyone here in verse 18. He's
speaking to the remnant here. He says, come now and let us
reason together. And when He reasons, He describes
our sins here as scarlet, and is read it like Clemson." Now here I told you I didn't
have any, I would run to a point where I didn't have any backup
to what I'm about to say, and this is the point to it. I've
been thinking, even when I first read this, and I've probably
even heard messages on this verse before, the only thing I could
think that these two different descriptions of the sins here
and these two different colors could mean is that we're sinners. First of all, we're sinners both
in not only in deeds, but we're also sinners in thought. Even
our thoughts are evil and wicked. But I also had the thought that
it may also have reference to both our own sins, which we all
do, but also the sin of our father Adam, which we all carry. The first time man sinned, we're charged with that same
crime. So maybe that's what it means by the two sins, but that's
just a guess on my part. Don't put any faith in that at
all. But now something here to make
us glad. Here's the good news for you in this verse. It's how
God in His wisdom can justify a sinner. A sinner who can be
described right here in this chapter with all these sins.
This is how he can justify a sinner, and he does it by the blood and
righteousness of Jesus Christ. It is Jesus and Jesus alone who
kept verse 16 and 17. This list of requirements, Christ
did those. He did them completely and perfectly. He did those and even more. And this here, It says, sins
of scarlet being made white as snow and red like crimson, they
shall be as wool. This speaks of the life and death
of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you've still got Hebrews open,
look at chapter 9 verse 26 with me. It says there in Hebrews 9 verse
26, For then must he often have suffered since the foundation
of the world. But now once in the end of the
world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself. Now here back in Isaiah 1, it
says, "...though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white
as snow." Now whether it's a lack of acknowledgement or understanding
or belief, I'm not sure. But a lot of modern day religion's
error starts right here. You ask most people what Christ
did, and they'll say, He died for my sins. But that's not true. For the remnant that God has
kept for His Son, for these people, Jesus did not die for their sins. He died with their sins. And there's a world of difference
between for and with. I've tried and tried to come
up with an example of trying to explain exactly what I mean
here, and this is the best one I can come up with, and I'm still
not satisfied with it. You should think about our soldiers
in battle, in war. We're all for them. We're pulling
for them to win that battle. But except for boosting their
morale a little bit, that doesn't really do them much good. But
think about their fellow soldier, the one that's there in the foxhole
with him. He can do some good. See the difference there? When
a person tells you that Christ died for their sins, it's almost
as if he's helping them along. He's giving them an opportunity
to do something. He's all for them. But when I say Christ did you,
died with the remnant sins. He died with my sins. This is
what I mean for it. He's with us in the foxhole.
He took on flesh. He walked this earth. Suffered everything I've suffered.
Everything you've suffered. And then He gets to Calvary. We're walking side by side with
Jesus. He's with us. He's in this battle
till we get to Calvary. But then when you get to Calvary,
He says, hold. What He did at Calvary was He
took the sins off of this remnant, of these people
He came to save. He took the sins off of them
and put them on Himself. He carried those sins with Him
to the cross. He didn't die for the sins. They
were with Him. And when He died, He paid the
punishment for those sins. I hope you can see what I mean,
the difference there. It's a fine line in using little
words, but it is all the difference in the world. He suffered the
justice of God so that his people could go free, so the captives
could be set free. He took the scarlet sins away
and left behind not a single one so that each and every one
of the remnant are as clean and as pure as white snow. But it
doesn't stop there. Jesus not only took the sins
to the cross, but Jesus also gives. Hebrews 10, 12-14, But
this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever,
sat down on the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting
till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering,
this is the verse I want you to hear, For by one offering
he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Here in
verse 18 it's stated this way, though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool. When he got at Calvary and he
took those sins off of the sinner's back and laid them on himself,
he took his perfect righteousness and laid it on the sinner. I was going to take us to Revelation
and read, but we don't have to go there. You all know that.
How is the bride, what is the attire that they're described
in Revelation as wearing? Robes of white washed in the
blood of the Lamb. That's exactly what Isaiah chapter
1 and verse 18 is telling us. Christ took the sins to the cross
and He put that perfect righteousness that He lived Never sinning. Never even getting close to it.
He put it on all of His bride. And now, in the final days, they
will stand and spend eternity in the sight of God. Alright,
let's pick up a reading back at verse 24. Therefore saith the Lord, the
Lord of hosts, the mighty one of Israel, Ah, thou wilt ease
me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine 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 first, and thy counselors 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." So let's look once again here
in just these few verses what God says He will do for the remnant
and I'm going to do it real quick. It says here in verse 21, I told you wrong verse, verse
25, I'm sorry. He says, "...and I will turn
my hand upon thee." This is the picture of the gentle
hand of a father as he holds his newborn child. And it says, "...he will purge
away thy draughts." That is to mean to remove their sins and
wickedness. Christ did that at the cross. And that may also speak to the
new heart that's given to every new believer. And it says, "...and I will take
away all thy tin." This gives us the idea of comparing tin
to silver. It looks like it, but it's not
the real thing. This is talking about self-righteousness. We all have some self-righteousness
in it. God will take that away. He said
He will restore the judges and counselors. He will turn them
to the Word and He will give them preachers. It says, Zion
will be redeemed with judgment and righteousness. I'll let the
Apostle Peter tell us this. It says 1 Peter 1 verse 18-20,
For as much as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible
things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received
by a tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of
Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, who
verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world. I brought you to these last verses
to make this one point, and here it is. Salvation is of the Lord. Look at those verses again. I
will, I will, I will, I will. How is a sinner saved? It is
God's work. A saved sinner is not one who
works. He is one who has been worked
on. So I told you I started out reading
this chapter, and it did, it made me very sad. And I do worry
for my country, and I pray for my country, and I suggest you
do the same, because I fear for my country. I'm not happy with
what I'm leaving behind for my children. But, for my country, I do hope
that a remnant remains. Because when the remnant's gone,
the preachers are going to be gone. That means the Word's going
to be gone. Both this Word and the true Word,
Jesus Christ. But my spirits got better when
I read it and I started seeing Christ. And as I was looking over this
thing yesterday, and as y'all can tell, I'm nowhere even close
to making coherent sense out of some of this. Let's see if
you understand what I meant by this. All of a sudden, I looked
at this chapter and I saw Christ everywhere. I saw Him everywhere. I saw Him listed even in these
catalogs of sins here. And what do I mean by that? I
mean, I look at that and I say, that's me. I'm guilty. That's
me. I'm guilty. I can't do that. I've never done
that. I'm guilty. But like I hinted before, though
I haven't, there is One who has. There is One who has, and His
name is Jesus Christ. Think about it. We're picking
up there at verse 11. God's not satisfied with our
sacrifices anymore. But there is one sacrifice He's
satisfied with. There's only one He's satisfied
with. The Lord Jesus Christ. Christ
is in every verse. I guess it's my contrarian nature
that I have, but I like what I picked up on yesterday. Even
in the bad, I saw Christ, because He kept it all. Christ came to
save a people, folks. God kept that people. He called
it a remnant here. He's still got a people, because
we're still here. Praise God for that. Thank you.