Isaiah 1:18
“come now”
I. The PEOPLE WHICH ARE SOUGHT in the invitation
A. Plagued with stupidity
B. Permeated with iniquity
II. The PLEA WHICH IS SIGNIFICANT in the invitation - “come now”
A. Significant because of the person initiating the invitation
B. Significant because of the period indicated in the invitation
III. The PROBLEM WHICH IS STRESSED in the invitation – “though your sins be as scarlet , they shall be as white as snow: though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool”
A. Sinner by birth (nature)
B. Sinner by behavior (practice)
1. The problem of every man concerns
the presence of sin.
2. The problem of every man concerns
the power of sin.
3. The problem of every man concerns
the penalty of sin.
IV. The PROMISE WHICH IS SURE in the invitation – “though your sins be as
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as
wool”
A. Here is an offer that is amazing
B. Here is an offer that needs acceptance
There are many words in scripture that carry a great message. There is an inevitable word, one that everyone faces – “Death.” There is a mysterious word - “Why.” There is a sad word - “Sin.” There is a dangerous word - “Tomorrow.” There is a beautiful word - “Forgiveness.” However it seems to me that the favorite word of the God is the simple word “COME.” Even a child can understand the simple words COME. God’s invitation is so easy. He made it that way so that the old, young, middle and the elderly could understand it.
We have looked over the past several weeks at the some of the times God has used the word - COME. This morning we will look at another of those instances where God says, “COME.”
In the midst of the Old Testament prophets, we have what some have called the Gospel of Isaiah. There cannot be found any brighter gem of Gospel truth anywhere in the Old Testament. That gem is found in verse 18. God made an amazing offer to sinners in verse 18.
God is speaking, and He makes an offer to humanity. He offers to save, forgive, and cleanse man from all his sin. You cannot read this verse without being in awe with how much God love us and how much He longs for salvation.
Surely we cannot read this verse and not feel the love God has for us.
Notice the graciousness of God’s invitation. He says "come." God’s word of invitation to lost men and women is "come." There are 642 personal invitations in the Bible to "come," and it is God who gives the invitation every time. Why does God invite us to come? Not only because He loves us, but because we need to come. The earlier verses of Chapter One indicate we are a sinful and rebellious people, yet He is a gracious and loving God and He invites is to come.
I. The PEOPLE WHO ARE SOUGHT in the invitation (who is being invited)
This is an imperative sentence; as a result, we have to look back to proceeding verses to see who the “YOU” (which is understood) is being invited.
The people being invited to come were
A. Plagued with stupidity - “Israel doth not know …my people doth not consider”
Though Israel and man does not know yet the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib.
The ox and ass know more than man. Animals sometimes seem to have more sense than people.
Are you aware that to due to their alertness to natural phenomena, they have at times helped man avoid disaster. By their abnormal behaviour, they have indicated when an earthquake may be imminent.
In northeastern China, officials were able to warn and evacuate people from high-risk areas hours before a killer earthquake struck years ago. They were alerted to the disaster by cattle that mooed more than usual and chickens that refused to roost.
Years ago in Japan, 20 small quakes within a few months were accurately forecast because observers noted that catfish swam frantically, as if chased by sharks.
From the prophet Isaiah we learn that observing animals can even teach us much. Isaiah noted that an ox knows its owner, and a donkey knows where its food comes from . These animals know who takes care of them.
God’s creation, however, often aren’t smart enough to remember their Creator.
God Himself is making this assessment. God’s indictment contrasts His own creation (man) with "dumb" animals who are actually "smarter" than we are. He says that even these dumb animals know , but man does not know. God says with what seems a sense of amazement that His people have behaved worse than these dumb brute beasts of burden!
Jeremiah makes a similar allusion (speaking of Judah) when he wrote, “ Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of the LORD.”
Men are more brutish than the beasts that perish. The lower animals, as men contemptuously call them, acknowledge the hand that feeds them; but men receive the bounty of God through long years, and yet live as if there were no God at all, and feel no gratitude to Him whatsoever. “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.”
This verse is a splendid piece of satire. The two animals that are used for illustrations do not have a reputation for being very intelligent. Neither the ox nor the long-eared donkey has a very high l.Q. The expression “dumb as an ox” is still often used. However, these animals have intelligence enough to know who feeds them.
In Haifa, the largest city in northern Israel, a policeman, who knew his Bible, got on the trail of a gang of smugglers. The smugglers had used an donkey-drawn caravan to escape from the police, but the policemen managed to capture some of the donkeys. The clever officer let the beasts of burden go without food for several days, and then he turned them loose. And just as he predicted from Isaiah 1:3, “the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib,” the starving animals led the police directly to the smuggler’s hide-out!
Take a lesson from the animals Isaiah says.
B. Permeated with iniquity - “a people laden with iniquity”
“Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.”
Every thought, word, and action is polluted by sin. Sin is a disease which pervades and runs through every part of our moral constitution and every faculty of our minds.
Man is so sinful. Man is so depraved. Man is so wicked. Man is totally depraved.
"There is no beast in wolf, or lion, or serpent that is so brutish as the beast in man,” C. H. Spurgeon once said.
According to the Levitical law (Leviticus 11:29 with Numbers 19:11), we find that a man that touched a dead animal was unclean till evening, but he that touched a dead man was unclean seven days. Man is a seven times
more polluting creature than any of the beasts of
the field which God has created. Man is completely
depraved. Man is depraved through and through. Man is depraved to the core.
Paul put it this way “ in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing.”
I could understand it more if the verse had said DEPART, but instead it said COME.
II. The PLEA WHICH IS SIGNIFICANT in the invitation - “come now”
God is reaching out to sinners, pleading with them to come.
A. The person initiating the invitation
God the one who has been offended against is extending His hand to man.
What a demonstration of divine compassion
that God should be willing to hold a conference with man. The first person to ask for meeting ought to have been the offending party; but, instead of man seeking God, it is God who comes seeking man
If God had meant to destroy man, he would not have said, “Come now, and let us reason together.”
God knows all about the sins in your life and mine. He knows how far down into the cesspool of sin we have sunk. He knows that we are wicked, evil and utterly depraved. Yet, He loves us, in spite of our sinful condition, and He calls us to come to Him.
What proof this is of God’s loving kindness and graciousness that He invites us to reason with Him!
“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance,” 2 Peter 3:9.
B. The period indicated in the invitation - “now”
God’s invitation demands a response NOW.
Proverbs 21:1
“now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”
A streamlined train was rushing over the rails, speeding madly to its destination. A passenger asked the porter, "Does this train stop at the next town?"
"No, sir," he replied. "It doesn’t even hesitate!"
God is calling man to make a decision for Him without hesitation. For if you put it off you may pass up your pardon forever.
III. The PROBLEM WHICH IS STRESSED in the invitation
“COME… …though your sins be as scarlet….though they be red like crimson”
The problem is a sin problem! A double metaphor is often used in Scripture to add emphasize a great truth.
Scarlet and red are colors that stick out. Why do you think a stop sign is red?
Bottom line was sin is great and heinous!
Scarlet and crimson were shades of red drawn from the same source, the crushed body of an worm. Isaiah chose the image not because of the color, but because this was the most securely fixed dye then known. No launderer could remove that color from cloth. I read to make these colors the fabric was dipped twice, and once the fabric had been stained twice with the dye, the stain was set.
You can immerse a cloth in any other color and the stain can be removed. Once red dye has been thoroughly set in a piece of goods, no method known to man in that that could successfully eliminate it without damaging the fabric. Even if the material is rubbed and scrubbed until threadbare, the fibers that are left will still retain their crimson tone.
A. Sinner by birth (nature)
“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”
Man is not a sinner because he sins. Man sins because he is a sinner.
B. Sinner by behavior (practice)
We choose to sin as well.
1. The problem of every man concerns
the presence of sin.
2. The problem of every man concerns
the power of sin.
Sin will ruin a man. Sin will destroy
a man.
C. The problem of every man concerns
the penalty of sin.
Romans 6:23
IV. The PROMISE WHICH IS SURE in the invitation
“though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as
snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as
wool”
Isaiah then tells us that God can do the impossible and cleanse the sinner, even though the stain of sin is fixed as firmly as crimson in the sinner’s soul.
Sin as far as human efforts to remove it are concerned is impossibility. God alone has the power to erase the terrible stain of our sin.
What is impossible in chemistry is possible in grace.
Though the evidence is bad, the prognosis is good.
Man may whitewash himself, but only God can wash him white.
O, the attractiveness of God’s offer!
Thank God, we may come as we are, but although we may come to Him as we are, we cannot stay as we are.
A. Here is an offer that is amazing
It is an offer of cleansing.
In ancient times once a garment was stained, it could never be made perfect again. Yet, if they would just respond to Him and repent of their sins, He had the power to make them “whiter than snow,” and as pure as “wool.” He had the ability to take the stain of their sin away and make them clean again!
It is a scientific fact that red over red always appears white. So that our scarlet sins when washed by the blood of Christ immediately fade from God’s sight.
A missionary in Africa once roped off a plot of ground and began to build his home. The little African children gathered. The looked with open- eyed wonderment upon a man whose face and hands were white. They had not seen a white man before. One little fellow crept up to the missionary and asked. “Won’t you please tell me the name of the river where you washed your face and hands?”
How pleased the missionary was to tell him about Jesus who came to seek the lost ones and cleanse them from their sin.
Away in the far North, on the brow of a hill covered with snow, illuminated by the light of the Polar Star, a member of an arctic expedition lies buried. A large stone covers the dead, and, on a copper tablet at the head of the grave, are the words inscribed: "Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."
God has the power to cleanse away forever the stain of our sins! He is able to take our sins and put them away from us as “far as the east is from the west.” He is able to wash us in the precious blood of Jesus and declare us holy and clean. He is able to cleanse us from all sin. He is able to deliver us from condemnation and the threat of Hell we were under.
He is able to make us perfectly, utterly, eternally clean, through the blood of His Darling Son!
B. Here is an offer that needs acceptance
In order to have this cleansing you must come.
Here is God’s amazing offer to sinners. Have you accepted His offer, have you come to Him and received His pardon and His cleansing, and are you rejoicing in the fullness of His grace and love from day to day?
Conclusion
Philosophy would say: Think your way out.
Politics says: Spend your way out.
Science says: Invent your way out.
Industry says: Work your way out.
Militarism says: Fight your way out.
God says: "Come unto me"
