So far, we’ve spent five weeks in the Book of Isaiah, focusing on how Isaiah describes the “Day of the Lord”. As I’ve pointed out during that time, much of what Isaiah writes deals with various aspects of the “Day of the Lord”, so all we’ve really been able to do is to look at a few brief snapshots that give us a pretty good overall picture of Isaiah’s perspective. We’re going to wrap up our look at Isaiah over the next two weeks by looking at the last two chapters of the book – chapters 65 and 66.
But before we dig into those passages, we need to make sure that we set the stage properly by understanding the context. Beginning in Isaiah 63:7, we find a prayer of Isaiah that is offered up to God in response to all that has been revealed about the “Day of the Lord”. Isaiah ends that prayer with a plea for God’s mercy at the end of chapter 24:
8 But now, O Lord, you are our Father;
we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
9 Be not so terribly angry, O Lord,
and remember not iniquity forever.
Behold, please look, we are all your people.
10 Your holy cities have become a wilderness;
Zion has become a wilderness,
Jerusalem a desolation.
11 Our holy and beautiful house,
where our fathers praised you,
has been burned by fire,
and all our pleasant places have become ruins.
12 Will you restrain yourself at these things, O Lord?
Will you keep silent, and afflict us so terribly?
Isaiah 64:8-12 (ESV)
Given what we’ve seen about the “Day of the Lord” in Isaiah, this prayer is certainly appropriate. Isaiah has frequently described the “Day of the Lord” as the “day of vengeance” and we’ve seen the utter destruction and desolation that is to occur as the result of God’s judgment. So Isaiah pleads for God’s mercy and asks that God would restrain Himself.
Chapters 65 and 66 are God’s answer to that prayer. We’ll look at chapter 65 this morning and chapter 66 next week.
Chapter 65 contains three major sections which we’ll examine one at a time.
FICKLENESS OF MAN (vv. 1-7)
God responds to Isaiah’s prayer by pointing out that the people do not deserve to experience the mercy of God because they have been fickle and rejected Him repeatedly:
1 I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me;
I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me.
I said, “Here am I, here am I,”
to a nation that was not called by my name.
2 I spread out my hands all the day
to a rebellious people,
who walk in a way that is not good,
following their own devices;
3 a people who provoke me
to my face continually,
sacrificing in gardens
and making offerings on bricks;
4 who sit in tombs,
and spend the night in secret places;
who eat pig’s flesh,
and broth of tainted meat is in their vessels;
5 who say, “Keep to yourself,
do not come near me, for I am too holy for you.”
These are a smoke in my nostrils,
a fire that burns all the day.
6 Behold, it is written before me:
“I will not keep silent, but I will repay;
I will indeed repay into their bosom
7 both your iniquities and your fathers’ iniquities together,
says the Lord;
because they made offerings on the mountains
and insulted me on the hills,
I will measure into their bosom
payment for their former deeds.”
In these verses, God reveals what He has done in order to establish a relationship with His people, and how the people responded to his actions:
• God initiated the relationship with His people
In verses 1 and 2, it is obvious that God is the one who initiated the relationship with His people. Even when His people weren’t seeking Him out, He was seeking them. In other words, even though the people had done absolutely nothing to try and develop a relationship with God nor had they done anything to even merit the possibility of such a relationship, God had done what was required to provide the means for a relationship.
God had done that because it is His nature to do so. But God didn’t just do that for the people of Israel and Judah, He has done the very same thing for us by sending His Son, Jesus, to this earth in order to provide the means of a relationship with Him:
In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
1 John 4:9, 10 (ESV)
Because of His love for us, God, through Jesus, has initiated the relationship with us.
• God was persistent in making Himself available
Not only had God initiated the relationship, but He had also been persistent in making Himself available to the people. That is the picture we get in verse 2 when God reveals that He spread out His hands “all the day.” In other words, His offer of a relationship hadn’t been a “take it or leave it” offer. We see that confirmed in many of the Old Testament accounts where God had frequently given His people the opportunity to repent and turn back to Him. Again we see this same aspect of God’s character confirmed in the New Testament:
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
2 Peter 3:9 (ESV)
Even in spite of man’s consistent fickleness and rebellion, God is persistent and patient in order to provide abundant opportunities to enter into a relationship with Him. But in spite of God’s initiation of the relationship and His persistence in making Himself available…
• God’s people continually rejected God
In verses 2-5 Isaiah pictures a people who have not just rejected God once or twice, but a people who have developed a lifestyle in which they consistently and continually chose to follow their own ways rather than to obey God. In fact they didn’t just quietly reject God, they threw it back in His face, intentionally violating His commandments and even having the unmitigated gall to claim that they were “too holy” for God.
Jesus condemned that kind of self-righteousness frequently in the gospels. For example, almost all of Matthew 23 is devoted to seven woes that Jesus pronounced against the scribes and Pharisees because of their self-righteousness.
• As a result, everyone deserves judgment
Because they have rejected God’s provision for a relationship with Him and insisted on following their own ways instead, God leaves no doubt that the people do not deserve the mercy that Isaiah has prayed for, but rather judgment. Although He had been patient with His people up to that point and He has been patient with us for over 2,500 years since then, there is going to be a time when the people are going to get exactly what they deserve for rebelling against God.
This is exactly the same message that we have seen consistently proclaimed by Amos, Joel, Obadiah and now Isaiah. God is extremely patient, but there is going to come a time when it will no longer be possible to repent and turn back to God and the people who have rejected God will be paid back for their rebellion as they experience God’s judgment.
But even though God makes it clear that no one is deserving of His mercy, the middle part of the chapter serves as a transition or a bridge between the obvious fickleness of man in the first part of the chapter and God’s faithfulness that will be on full display at the end of the chapter – the bridge of God’s grace.
THE BRIDGE - GOD’S GRACE (vv. 8-16)
8 Thus says the Lord:
“As the new wine is found in the cluster,
and they say, ‘Do not destroy it,
for there is a blessing in it,’
so I will do for my servants’ sake,
and not destroy them all.
9 I will bring forth offspring from Jacob,
and from Judah possessors of my mountains;
my chosen shall possess it,
and my servants shall dwell there.
10 Sharon shall become a pasture for flocks,
and the Valley of Achor a place for herds to lie down,
for my people who have sought me.
11 But you who forsake the Lord,
who forget my holy mountain,
who set a table for Fortune
and fill cups of mixed wine for Destiny,
12 I will destine you to the sword,
and all of you shall bow down to the slaughter,
because, when I called, you did not answer;
when I spoke, you did not listen,
but you did what was evil in my eyes
and chose what I did not delight in.”
13 Therefore thus says the Lord God:
“Behold, my servants shall eat,
but you shall be hungry;
behold, my servants shall drink,
but you shall be thirsty;
behold, my servants shall rejoice,
but you shall be put to shame;
14 behold, my servants shall sing for gladness of heart,
but you shall cry out for pain of heart
and shall wail for breaking of spirit.
15 You shall leave your name to my chosen for a curse,
and the Lord God will put you to death,
but his servants he will call by another name.
16 So that he who blesses himself in the land
shall bless himself by the God of truth,
and he who takes an oath in the land
shall swear by the God of truth;
because the former troubles are forgotten
and are hidden from my eyes.
• Even though no one is deserving, God will preserve a remnant consisting of:
In verses 8-10, God reveals that even though no one deserves His mercy, He is going to demonstrate His grace by preserving a remnant. In the same way that the owner of the vineyard wouldn’t destroy the entire cluster of grapes if there was the possibility of producing new wine from even a few good grapes on the cluster, God wouldn’t destroy the entire nation of Israel because there would be a small remnant of those who had remained faithful to Him.
Just as we have seen previously, God promised that Israel and Judah would be rejoined into the commonwealth of Israel and God would bless them by returning them to the land He had promised to them and making them fruitful once again. Sharon and the Valley of Achor represent the western and eastern boundaries of the land that God had promised to His people, so the picture here is that Israel will at last possess all the land that God had promised to Joshua before the people entered into the Promised Land.
We’ve explored this idea of the remnant previously, but Isaiah adds to our understanding here by describing two important characteristics of the remnant.
o Seekers
At the end of verse 10, God describes the remnant as “my people who have sought me.” This is in sharp contrast to the description of those who are not part of the remnant, as we’ll see in just a moment.
Interestingly, the prophet Jeremiah also connected this idea of seeking God with the commonwealth of Israel being brought back into the land:
You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.
Jeremiah 29: 13, 14 (ESV)
That prophecy certainly had a near-term application related to the southern tribes of Judah returning to Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile, but it is also consistent with the far-term fulfillment during the end times here in Isaiah.
The picture here is that those who are part of the remnant will not be those who just casually encounter God on their own terms, but rather those who earnestly seek after Him. The Bible is filled with admonitions for His people to seek God and His kingdom.
As Paul pointed out in his address to the people of Athens, God is not far away, but He is only found by those who seek Him.
And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,
Acts 17:26, 27 (ESV)
o Servants
The first thing that really stood out to me as I read the passage for this week is that God refers to His people as “my servants” seven times in this section. It is certainly significant that God chose to focus on this characteristic of the remnant. Let’s think for a moment about a servant. What is it that primarily defines someone as a servant? It is that the servant carries out the desires and commands of his master. And, as we’ll see in a moment, one of the primary ways that the remnant distinguishes itself is that it is obedient to God as its master, which is quite a stark contrast to those who choose to be their own masters.
The problem with many of the people in Isaiah’s day is that they wanted God to save them, but they weren’t willing to be His servant and obey His commands. Things really haven’t changed all that much today, though. In this self-centered culture of ours even the church has diminished the significance of the need to make Jesus our Lord, or our Master, as well as our Savior. But when Peter preached his sermon on the Day of Pentecost, he certainly confirmed the need to make Jesus our Lord as well as our Savior.
Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.
Acts 2:36 (ESV)
Peter makes it quite clear that we don’t get to pick and choose which aspects of Jesus we believe in. We either accept Him as both Lord and Christ - a reference to His role as Savior – or we don’t get Him at all.
But, just as we’ve seen previously, the remnant will consist of only a small portion of those who claim to be God’s people. And the picture for the rest is not very pretty.
• Those who forsake God will get the judgment they deserve
In verse 11, we notice that there is a drastic change as Isaiah begins to describe the judgment that will come upon those who are not part of the remnant. And in that section, we find a description of the character of those people:
o Refuse to listen to God
In verse 12, God brings his charge against those who had forsaken Him. When he called, they did not answer and when He spoke, they did not listen. In other words, even though, as we have seen, God did everything He needed to do to initiate a relationship with them, they chose not to listen or respond to God.
But before we’re too quick to condemn them, perhaps we need to take a closer look at our own lives. How many times do we fail to listen to God? Perhaps we’re too busy to take the time to read His Word and pray so that He can speak to us. Or perhaps we hear, but we’re too busy to listen. Or possibly, we just think that we’re capable of handling things on our own and that we don’t really need to hear God. That was certainly the case for Isaiah’s audience and that leads us directly into the second characteristic of those who will not be part of the remnant:
o Choose their own ways rather than God’s
Notice that in verse 2, God reveals that these people are “following their own devices” and then at the end of verse 12, this idea is reinforced when God says that they “chose what I did not delight in.” In fact, as you read the entire first 12 verses of the chapter, the one thing that separates these people from the remnant is the fact that they choose to follow the god of self rather than the one true God.
This part of the passage is quite helpful in answering the question that is often asked – “Why would a loving God send anyone to hell?” And the key word that helps us to answer that question is the word “chose”. Although God is sovereign, He has determined in that sovereignty to give man volition – the ability to make choices. And one of those choices that we can make is whether to obey the God of self or to obey the Lord. And when we choose the former – to serve the god of self – there are serious consequences that go along with that choice. One of those consequences is the kind of punishment that Isaiah describes here in this chapter.
So the answer to our question is really quite simple. God never sends anyone to hell. We do that ourselves when we choose not to commit our lives to Jesus and make Him our Lord as well as our Savior.
James provides us with some further insight:
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.
James 1:7 (ESV)
We can’t blame God when we sin and choose to serve the god of self. God never entices us to sin. It is our own sinful desires that lead us to sin, so we can’t blame God.
We don’t have time to look at them this morning, but verses 13-16 describe a series of contrasts between the blessings that the remnant will experience and the judgment that will be incurred by those who are not part of the remnant.
One of the things that I really like about this chapter is that it ends on such a positive note. Even though man is fickle, God is still faithful. And we’re going to look at the evidence of God’s faithfulness next week…
When I got to this point in my sermon preparation this week, I realized I needed to make a choice. I could just keep on plugging along with a sermon that would be so long your eyes would glaze over and you wouldn’t get anything out of the message. Or I could just kind of give you a brief overview of the last part of the chapter and throw in a brief application or two. Or, as I finally decided, we’ll come back and wrap up this chapter next week so that we can do it justice. And if we have time, we’ll venture into chapter 66 as well. If not, we’ll just spend an extra week on Isaiah.
So with that in mind, let’s take a few minutes to close with some applications that we can draw from the first 16 verses of this chapter. I’m going to take a little different approach to those applications this morning. Rather than phrase them as statements, I’m going to leave you with a couple of questions to ponder. And in order to help you answer those questions honestly, I’m going to give you a few Bible passages that will provide you with some guidance. I’m not even going to comment on the verses, but I’ll just let God speak to you through His Word.
TWO QUESTIONS TO ASK:
1. Am I really seeking after God?
But from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.
Deuteronomy 4:29 (ESV)
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity;
there is none who does good.
God looks down from heaven
on the children of man
to see if there are any who understand,
who seek after God.
Psalm 53:1, 2 (ESV)
Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.
Daniel 9:3 (ESV)
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Matthew 6:33 (ESV)
2. Is Jesus really my Lord?
Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.
John 14:21-24 (ESV)
Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?
Luke 6:46 (ESV)
No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money
Matthew 6:24 (ESV)
