Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. And if you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles with today's message, I'll be preaching from Isaiah
chapter 1. Isaiah 1 in the Old Testament,
the prophet Isaiah, chapter 1. And my main text is verse 18,
which reads, 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. Now, the title of the message
is, Come Let Us Reason. Come Let Us Reason. Now, I'm
gonna make a statement that may shock some of you, but I want
you to hear me out on what I mean by this statement. Man by nature,
all human beings by nature, men and women, and when I say man,
I'm talking about mankind, man by nature, and nature means as
we are naturally born, is spiritually insane. Man by nature, and I'm
including myself, as we're naturally born, we're spiritually insane.
Now what does that mean? Does that mean we're all raving
lunatics and going about to kill each other and just rioting in
the street, anarchists? No, it doesn't mean that at all.
Even man who has a conscience is spiritually insane, you know
what a conscience is, that's our sense of right and wrong. So we know some things about
what's right and we know some things about what's wrong. For
example, God revealed that by His Spirit to the Apostle Paul
and to the Roman church, the Romans, in Romans chapter two. Even the Gentiles who didn't
have the law of Moses, they still had a conscience by which they
accused and excused one another. But what I said was, and that's
what I wanted you to be careful. Now listen to what I'm saying.
Man by nature is spiritually insane. Now when I say spiritually,
I'm talking about when it comes to the things of God. the things
of how a right relationship with God. And what I'm saying is this,
is that by nature, we don't know right from wrong when it comes
to a right gaining and maintaining salvation and a right relationship
with God. That has to be revealed. And
it has to be revealed by God. You see, the gospel which reveals
the way of salvation by God's grace through Christ is a revelation. It's not something that we figured
out on our own. Man hasn't figured this out. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 is clear
about that. The things of the gospel and
salvation and how to have a right relationship with God. These
are things that have never entered into the mind of man, even the
most noble, the noblest people, the princes of this world, hasn't
even entered their mind. But it comes to God's people
who are true believers by revelation. And when God reveals his way
of salvation, when he reveals his glorious character, as the
God of justice, who's holy. Remember in Isaiah chapter six,
holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. You ever sing that hymn, holy,
holy, holy? Do you realize how holy God is?
He's a purer eyes than to behold evil. He must punish sinners
to whom he imputes or charges sin. Now, somebody says, well,
he punishes sin, but not sinners. No. The Bible says that those
who live and die in unbelief, they perish and go to eternal
damnation. He doesn't just send some substance
there and call it their sin. He sends them to eternal damnation. God judges sinners and he must
punish sin. He must damn sinners. to whom
he imputes, charges, sin. That's why David said in Psalm
32 and verse 2, blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth
not iniquity. Charges not with sin. So God
reveals himself as a just God who must punish sinners where
sin is imputed, where sin is charged. And then God reveals
the reality of who we are, that we're by nature totally, totally,
totally depraved. spiritually dead in trespasses
and sins. That we can do nothing to please
God in ourselves. That we can do nothing to save
ourselves or to make ourselves righteous. We can do nothing
to wash away our sins and make an atonement for them. We're
in a mess, aren't we? But God also reveals to his people
the glory of his salvation by his grace through the Lord Jesus
Christ, the sinner's substitute, the sinner's redeemer, the sinner's
savior, the sinner's righteousness. Now what I'm talking about here
is what we could call spiritual reasoning. And that's what this
verse is all about. You have to understand, as Isaiah
opened his prophecy, that God showed Isaiah the reality of
the people to whom he was preaching. Judah, that was the southern
kingdom of Judah. You see, you know it at this
time. Isaiah prophesied about 700 years before Christ, and
yet he prophesied of Christ. But he did so in the light of
the sinfulness of Judah in Jerusalem. But there was sin, the sinfulness
that he's talking about was their religious sins. And I'm afraid
a lot of people missed the boat on this. But if you'll read the
whole first chapter of Isaiah, he talks about them as a sinful
people. He says in verse four, a 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. They were separated, alienated.
And he goes on to describe them in metaphorical language as almost
like lepers, spiritually speaking. Well, what were they doing that
was so bad? You know what it was? It was
their false, self-righteous worship and religion. Listen to this. He says in verse 11 of Isaiah
1, to what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? They were sacrificing according
to the terms of the old covenant law. They were required to sacrifice
the blood of animals, the blood of lambs, the blood of bullocks,
the blood of goats. They had the sin offerings and
the thank offerings, all of those. But he says, here's the key,
verse 11. Now this is what the reasoning is. Come, let us reason
again. What purpose is the multitude
of your sacrifices unto me, saith the Lord? I am full of the burnt
offerings of rams. He said, in other words, he said,
I've had enough. He says, and the fat of fed beasts.
And I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or
of he-goats. Well, now wasn't there a time
that God told Israel, he said, when I see the blood, I'll pass
over you. Wasn't he pleased with the blood
then? Yes, he was, but here he's not. He says, to what purpose
is the multitude of your sacrifices? Look at verse 12 of Isaiah one.
He says, when you come to appear or to be seen before me, who
hath required this at your hand to tread my courts? Now here's
what they're doing. They're coming to worship. And
God says who's required is verse 13. Bring no more vain oblations. Now oblation is an offering.
And what he's saying is worthless offerings. He says incense is
an abomination unto me. Remember the altar of incense
which went up before the Lord of smoke. from the coals off
the altar of burnt offering, and that was representative of
the intercessory work of Christ, the prayers of the saints going
up and down. He says the new moons and Sabbaths,
they're feast days. He said the calling of assemblies,
your worship assemblies. He said I cannot away with. In
other words, I can't get rid of this fast enough. It is iniquity. Think about that. It is iniquity.
It doesn't measure up. Even the solemn meeting, even
when you meet together to worship. Verse 14, your new moons and
your appointed feasts, my soul hateth. Think about this. He
says, there are trouble unto me. I am weary to bear them.
In verse 15, when you spread forth your hands. You ever seen
people in a service do that? They spread forth their hands?
Praying or praising? That's what these folks were
doing. He said, when you do that, I'll hide mine eyes from you.
Yea, when you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are
full of blood. Now, what's the problem? Well
now, most people today would say something like, for example,
they just weren't sincere in their religion. First of all, I would ask you
this. Where do you see that in Scripture? What makes you think
that? Here's what I would tell you.
I want you to think about this very carefully. When you do whatever
you do, call it worship, are you truly sincere? You say, yes,
I'm sincere. Let me ask you this. Are you
sincere enough? to please God? Well, I think
so. Well, how do you know that? How
much sincerity is required to please God? Now think about those
things. Well, that's not their problem.
The sincerity here is not their problem. There may have been
some insincere folks here. There are insincere people today
who call themselves Christian. You know what I'm talking about.
But that's not their problem here. Well, what is their problem? Well, look at verse 16 of Isaiah
1. He says, wash you, make you clean,
put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes, cease
to do evil. And then he says in verse 17,
learn to do well, seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge
the fatherless, plead for the widow. Now what he's talking
about there is acts of charity that have to do with taking care
of people who can't take care of themselves. But he's not saying
that's their salvation. He's requiring them to do that.
The Bible requires Christians, God requires his people to help
their neighbors and especially their brethren in Christ who
are in need of help. But that's not our salvation. That's a fruit
of salvation. But remember what he said, he
said, I cannot away with it, it's iniquity, it doesn't measure
up. And then he says, learn to do
well. You remember back in the book
of Genesis chapter four, the story of Cain and Abel? How Abel
brought the blood of a lamb before God and presented it and God
accepted Abel and his offering. Well, these people here were
bringing the blood of the lamb too, the blood of Bolex and all
of that. But now Cain, he brought the fruit of the ground. He brought
the works of his hands and God rejected him. And when Cain,
when God spoke to Cain, when the Lord spoke to Cain, he says,
he says, if you do well, Cain, you'll be accepted. Well, what
does it mean to do well in the eyes of God for salvation? Well, do what Abel did, bring
the blood of the lamb. But here's the point. The Bible
tells us that the blood of bulls and goats can never take away
sin. And the problem that these people
were having is they trusted in their works. for salvation. They trusted in the fact that
they were worshiping, they were praying, they were bringing these
sacrifices, and they missed the whole point of that whole system
of worship, which was to do what? Now listen to me. It was to do
two things, mainly. There was a lot of other benefits
from it, physically and temporally. But spiritually speaking, that
whole system of worship through the blood of animals, and the
altar and the tabernacle, all that, and the temple here. The
two things, main two things that those things were to teach is
number one, that man is sinful and cannot make himself righteous
before God. And the blood of animals wouldn't
do it. The blood of bulls and goats, the blood of the lamb
was never meant or intended to be a means of washing them from
their sins spiritually and eternally. The blood of the lamb, the blood
of the animals was a picture, a prophecy of one who was to
come, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, by whose blood their
sins would be put away. They missed Christ, that's what
they missed. They miss salvation by grace
in all of their religious efforts, in all of their sacrificing,
in all of their praying. They thought that those were
the things that made them righteous before God and cleansed them.
They weren't doing well. Their works were iniquity. My
friend, you can pray on your knees for weeks on end and never
let up. That's not going to make you
righteous. That's not going to wash away your sins. You can
offer the sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving. That's not
what makes you righteous. That's not what saves you. Now
those who are made righteous by God and who are washed clean
from their sins, who are right with God, they should offer sacrifices
of praise and thanksgiving. They should pray. But those things
themselves do not make a sinner righteous. Those things themselves
do not put away our sins. It's the blood of Christ. It's
his righteousness imputed. And that's what the reasoning
here is about. Come, let us reason together.
Verse 18, saith the Lord. This is gospel reasoning. This
is showing us who are by nature spiritually insane. We think it's right for God to
accept us based upon our sincerity or based upon our works or our
efforts. Well, that's wrong. That's iniquity.
And by nature, we don't know that. That's why I said at the
beginning, we're spiritually insane. We don't know the difference
between right and wrong. Here's the right when it comes
to a right relationship with God. God must have a perfect
righteousness. that cannot be contaminated,
that cannot fall short of the perfection of the law that he
requires because he's holy. Where am I gonna find such a
righteousness? Not by my works, not in myself,
not in going to church, not in lifting up my hands as sincere
as I can be. The only way I'm gonna find that
kind of righteousness is in the glorious person and the finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's his spiritual reasoning,
and that's why he says, come now, let us reason together,
saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet,
even your religious sins, he's saying. He's saying, listen,
here's how bad it was. Look at verse nine of Isaiah
one. He says, 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. In other words, what he's saying
is this. If the Lord had not chosen a very small remnant of
people and saved them by his grace and brought them to faith
in Christ, we'd be just like Sodom and Gomorrah. The whole
kit and caboodle would perish in our sins. But God has a people
whom He chose before the foundation of the world and gave to Christ,
and He brings them to faith in Christ and repentance of dead
works. That's what He does. And that's
what he brings them to reason with him. Though your sins be
as scarlet. You see, Abel, when he brought
that lamb, the blood of the lamb, he knew it was a picture of the
Messiah to come. His faith was not in his worship
or the animal. His faith was in Christ who was
to come. How do you know that? Well, Hebrews
11 tells us, by faith, Abel brought his sacrifice. Well here, in
verse 18, he says, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall
be as white as snow. They're gonna be washed clean,
washed away. Though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool. Now this, again, this is symbolic,
metaphorical language showing how the blood of Jesus Christ,
not the blood of the animals who pictured him, as some of
them thought. That's why in Hebrews, you read
passages like in Hebrews 10, where it says, the blood of bulls
and goats will never take away sin. They had to be taught, the
priesthood, the high priest and the other priest, they could
not make the worshipers perfect. Because if they had, they would
have ceased to offer the sacrifices. It's only by Jesus Christ, by
the grace of God, that sinners are made perfect. Hebrews 10,
14 says, for by one offering, not the many offerings under
the old covenant, which pictured him, but by one offering, he,
Christ, hath perfected, hath finished, completed, made righteous,
hath perfected forever them that are sanctified, those who are
set apart. Now, who are those who are set
apart? Well, they are those whom God chose before the foundation
of the world, and gave to Christ in electing grace. They are those
whom God has justified. See, God justifies the ungodly. He forgives their sins on a just
ground. What is the just ground? Not
the blood of animals, not the human priesthood, not the prayers
of the saints. The just ground is the blood
of Jesus Christ. That's what God meant when he
said, when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. There was a physical
application to the Hebrews in that day in Egypt, but it was
meant to picture a greater deliverance based upon the precious blood
of a greater sacrifice. The surety, the substitute, the
redeemer of God's elect, Jesus Christ, the righteous. Where
am I going to find the righteousness that God requires? Only in Christ,
not in me. Not in my works. Even my works
that I do in sincerity and aimed at praising and glorifying God
have to be presented before God through the blood of Christ or
they cannot be accepted. There can be no communion or
fellowship. Now, he says, and you know that verse 18 there,
that word crimson, I mentioned this last week in translating
from Job 25, the word worm, the second word worm in Job 25 six,
that's the tola. That was the worm that they used
to get the red dye. They crushed the worm, the tola,
get the red dye that would be used to color the red curtains
of the tabernacle, anything that was red on the high priest, and
it represented the blood of Christ. So though your sins be as scarlet,
red like crimson, They'll be white as snow. What is it to
be white as snow? It's to be justified before God,
based upon Christ's righteousness, imputed, charged, accounted to
me. And then he said, and what is
it to learn to do well? Well, look at verse 19 of Isaiah
1. He says, 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 has spoken it. If you be willing. Now by nature,
the Bible teaches us that none of us are willing. But the Bible
also teaches us that if we're one of God's people, chosen before
the foundation of the world, justified by his righteousness
imputed, redeemed by his blood, called by His Spirit, regenerated
by the Spirit, that God makes us willing in the day of His
power. Now let me just show you that
over in the book of John. John chapter one. Now it's speaking
of Christ as the word, Christ as the light that came into the
world. And it says that He came into the world, but the world
knew Him not. But it says in verse 11, this is John 1, 11,
he came unto his own and his own received him not. Now that's
us by nature. Verse 12, but as many as received
him, believed in him, rested in him, submitted to him as their
righteousness, to them gave he power. Now that word power is
the right and privilege, it's not the ability. but he gave
them the right and privilege to become the sons of God, to
be called the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.
Now look at verse 13, which were born not of blood, in other words,
it wasn't physical descendancy or pedigree that brought them
to receive him, nor of the will of the flesh, I believe that
means really the works of the flesh, nor of the will of the
flesh, nor of the will of man. It wasn't because of their free
will choice. They received him because they
were born but of God. Born of God. When a sinner is
born of God by the Holy Spirit, the resurrection life of Christ
is given to that sinner, spiritual life. He's born again, raised
from the dead, and he's brought to be willing and obedient. Willing
to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as his whole salvation
and his whole righteousness, as his whole forgiveness, and
reject everything else. And obedient to follow Christ,
to obey him. Not in order to be saved, but
because we've been saved by the grace of God and the power of
God, made willing in the day of God's power. and to be saved
by His grace through the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what it
is to do well. That's what these people in Isaiah
1 were missing in their worship. And I'll tell you what, that's
what a lot of people are missing today in their worship. Their
worship is not Christ-centered. It's man-centered. It's all about
man and what he can do for God. That's a Pharisaical religion.
You remember the Pharisee in Luke 18? He said, I thank God
that I'm not like other men. I thank God that I do this. But it's all by what you do,
what you've done. People's testimonies is all about
bragging on themselves. Some preacher called them bragamones.
And then, the worship is not Christ-centered. It's not grounded
in the truth and the Word of God. It's mainly just entertainment
and emotion. But my friend, we need to be
Christ-centered. We need to be built upon the
rock Christ Jesus, who is the hope and the consolation of his
people. There's no other way. Now come,
let us reason together. But let's reason spiritually
in God's Word. What does God's Word say? When
the opinions of men will do no good, the reasoning of men will
do no good because by nature we're spiritually insane. But
let's reason upon God's Word. Hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia, Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
or email us through our website at www.TheLetterRofGrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.