The Advantage of Repentance
(Isaiah 1:1-20)
Isaiah is often considered the most important of the prophets, and his book is sometimes called the “Fifth Gospel” because it so frequently predicts the Person and Work of Jesus Christ.
Being a prophet meant being both a forth-teller and a foreteller, but, contrary to what we commonly hear, it was more about being a fore-teller, whether of God’s judgment or blessing.
Introduction to Isaiah, quoted from David Guzik [https://enduringword.com]
… This book contains the prophecies of Isaiah…, who ministered from about 740 to 680 B.C. For about 20 years, he spoke to both the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. After Israel’s fall to the Assyrians in 722 B.C., Isaiah continued to prophesy to Judah.
i. This period of Israel’s history is told in 2 Kings 15 through 21 and 2 Chronicles 26 through 33. Isaiah was a contemporary of the prophets Hosea and Micah. By the time of Isaiah, the prophets Elijah, Elisha, Obadiah, Joel, Jonah, and Amos had already completed their ministry.
ii. By this time, Israel had been in the Promised Land for almost 700 years…
iii. Up until the time of Isaiah, the kingdom of Israel – the northern ten tribes – had some 18 kings, all of them bad and rebellious against the LORD. The kingdom of Judah – the two southern tribes – had some 11 kings before Isaiah’s ministry, some good and some bad.
iv. [Judah] was a little nation often caught in the middle of the wars between three superpowers: Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon.
v. … The superpower of Assyria was about to overwhelm the [northern] kingdom of Israel…the southern kingdom of Judah was faced with repeated threats from the larger surrounding nations.
vi. Many modern scholars think that there was more than one author to the book of Isaiah.. However, the New Testament indicates that there was only one author of Isaiah. In John 12:37-41, John quotes from both the “first” part of Isaiah and the “second” part of Isaiah – the parts supposedly written by two or more different Isaiahs – and John specifically tells us it was the same Isaiah. The New Testament quotes Isaiah by name more than all the other prophetic authors…
…There is “a strong Judeo-Christian tradition that … [Isaiah] was sawn asunder by his [Hezekiah’s] successor Manasseh … after the prophet had hidden himself in a hollow tree from the angry king.” … Many think Hebrews 11:37 (they were sawn in two) is a reference to the martyrdom of Isaiah.
The Advantage of Repentance
(Isaiah 1:1-20)
1. I am recirculating some jokes I told years ago that are so old they may have been forgotten. Frankly, some of them should be forgotten.
2. Johnny the painter, was big on cutting corners so he could make more of a profit. So when a church hired him to paint their wooden building, Johnny submitted the lowest bid, and was hired. As always, he thinned his latex paint with water to stretch it.
One day while he was up on the scaffolding -- the job almost finished -- he heard an oppressively loud burst of thunder, and it began raining cats and dogs.
The torrential rain washed the thinned paint off the church while intense winds blew Johnny off his scaffolding to the church graveyard, surrounded by puddles of thinned paint.
Johnny interpreted this as a warning from God above, so he got on his knees and cried: “Oh, God! Please forgive me! What should I do?”
God’s voice thundered from heaven: “Repaint and thin no more!”
3. Sadly, we live in a day where people do not repent of their sins, they just learn from their mistakes. The God whose wrath is incurred by sin has been replaced by a God who does not judge. God is no longer the great judge, and sin is not something we take responsibility for.
4. Even many Christians do not understand the importance of repentance – at the point of conversion and throughout our lives.
Main Idea: Repentance is a firm theme throughout both testaments because it is crucial and essential.
I. REPENTANCE in OT: It Precludes God’s Judgment (1:1-20).
A. Rebellion against God results in RUIN (1-9).
1. The heavens and earth are called upon to give testimony to Judah’s sin.
2. Like reared children that chose to go astray. Some of you know the pain.
3. Even animals are more loyal to the hand that feeds them (story of our pig).
4. Israel and Judah are like a brood of evildoers, inciting God’s anger.
5. They were spiritually sick, from head to toe.
6. God’s judgment was inevitable, almost as severe as Sodom and Gomorrah.
7. For a time, people or societies think they are getting away with something, but God is not on man’s timetable. None of us can evade His judgment.
B. Mechanical religion cannot substitute for heartfelt OBEDIENCE (10-15).
1. The practice of religion without reformation of heart is hypocrisy.
2. Becoming more religious while living defiantly neither fools nor impresses God.
3. Even Christians need to realize that more is not always better.
4. Will Rogers: “The government taxes us to build roads, and the Baptists wear them out going to meetings.”
5. Even prayers and sacrifices are a waste of God’s time if our hands are bloody.
C. Individuals need God’s cleansing via REPENTANCE (16-20).
1. To repent means to return to God. It suggests a humbling of ourselves as we regret our godless living and behaviors. God gives grace to the humble (repentant).
2. It also means a change of mind about sin: to make serious effort to turn away from sin, seek God’s help to overcome sin, and a desire to live to please God.
3. This is what should happen when we come to Christ; there is the initial repentance of salvation, but there is an on-going repentance…
4. God responds to repentance! Even sinful Nineveh was spared when they repented.
II. The NT ELABORATES and Applies these Concepts.
A. If we judge ourselves, we will ESCAPE God’s judgment (I Corinthians 11:31)
I Corinthians 6:9-11, “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
I Corinthians 11:31-32, “But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.”
B. God will keep His promises, even if the remnant grows THIN (Romans 9:27-29).
Isaiah said Israel would have a remnant, unlike Sodom & Gomorrah.
Romans 9:27, “And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved.”
C. Intensified “religion” is no substitute for TRUE repentance resulting in obedience.
• Parable of the Tax Collector and the Pharisee
Proverbs 15:8, “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is acceptable to him.”
I Timothy 5:8, “But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.“
I Peter 3:7, “Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.”
Titus 2:4-5, “train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.”
D. God wants our HEARTS.
Romans 1:28-29, “For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.”
E. We must wash ourselves in the BLOOD of the Lamb (Revelation 7:14) .
I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
F. We LEARN to do good (Isaiah 1:17 with Hebrews 5:14).
1. Have you ever thought of doing good or evil as a habit?
“But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”
2. Routines are not always ruts; we operate best when we develop good routines.
3. We might compare the Christian life to cognitive spiritual therapy. We learn and apply the Word of God a bit at a time. We learn to do good.
4. But this is not just self-help. If you are a genuine Christian, you have had a change of heart, regeneration, new birth, by repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
CONCLUSION
1. As believers, repentance includes confessing our sins and restoring fellowship.
2. It does not mean promising never to sin, but recalibrating our course with God a return.
3. It means developing habits that tend toward godliness, and breaking habits or choices that take us in an opposite direction.
4. For an unbeliever, it means taking responsibility for our sins, changing our mind about our lost condition, about Jesus and choosing to trust Him, and wanting God to help us align our lives with His will. We want to work with God instead of going our own way.
5. Repaint, and thin no more.
