“Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes. Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; Seek justice, Rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless, Plead for the widow. “Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the Lord, “Though your sins are like scarlet,
They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool. If you are willing and obedient, You shall eat the good of the land; But if you refuse and rebel, You shall be devoured by the sword”; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
Isaiah 1:16-20
In our legal system and specifically regarding our system of incarceration of criminals we have a means of exempting a guilty person from punishment for the crimes they have committed. We call this a “pardon”. In the United States that ability is given to the Governor of the state where the guilty party was convicted of the crime, and in the governors, hands lay the ability to allow the execution of the punishment as called out by the court system or to set the offender free, exempt from the punishment of the crime. For federal crimes, only the president can issue a pardon for the convicted person. Although God has given power to the governments of this world to extract judgment, we will see in our scripture for today that God holds the final say regarding execution of judgment, and whether we are pardoned from our sins…and the interesting point to all of this is that He gives us the opportunity to be part of that decision. So, let us go back and look closely at the verses we have just read, to see how God lays out His terms for us to be pardoned, and how we can be part of the pardoning process.
In verse 16 we are told this:
Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes. Cease to do evil
In the verses leading up to this verse the prophet Isaiah had addressed the people of Judah and compared them to the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. Calling out their sins of “hypocritical worship”, where they were doing all the things that tradition held but was not doing it from the heart. So, in verse 16 the phrase wash yourself was not an indication that the person could wash themselves clean of the sin that lives within them, but an invitation for the sinner to come to the only One who could wash them clean. And in this verse, we see the first pardon from God in this message. God asks the sinner to accept His terms by putting away their evil ways and not allowing those ways to surface again.
The end of verse 16 has God making an important distinction between falling upon sinful situations, and outright doing sinful things. God says to cease to do evil, a point being made that we stop going out of our way to do sinful things.
Upon the death of Pope John Paul II, Rogers Cadenhead, a self-described “domain hoarder,” registered www.BenedictXVI.com before the new pope’s name was announced. Cadenhead had the name before Rome knew it was needed.
The right domain name can be lucrative. Another name, PopeBenedictXVI.com, secured $16,000 on eBay. Cadenhead, however, didn’t want money. A Catholic himself, he was happy for the church to own the name. “I’m going to try and avoid angering 1.1 billion Catholics and my grandmother,” he quipped.
He did want something in return, though:
1. one of those hats
2. a free stay at the Vatican hotel
3. complete absolution, no questions asked, for the third week of March 1987
Makes you wonder what happened that week, doesn’t it? It may even remind you of a week of your own life. (Imagine a criminal walking into a police station and saying, I will tell you about someone else’s crime if you allow me to commit a crime)
Although Isaiah spoke this some three thousand years ago it still has a place in the life of the believer today. So, let us look at our worship of God. Are we doing so out of obligation or out of a sense of not wanting to not look like a believer; just playing the part, or are we bringing forth our first fruits from the heart, giving your all to God?
There was a New York Times article titled: For a Fee, Chinese Firm Will Beg Pardon for Anyone.
“As a society, China lacks the spirit of apologizing,” says Zhou Xiaozheng, a sociology professor at people’s University in China. That difficulty has given rise to the Tianjin Apology and Gift Center, a company that delivers apologies and attempts to facilitate reconciliation. The company’s motto is “We Say Sorry for You.”
An apology in China involves a formal procedure and is a very stressful process for all concerned. Hence Zhou isn’t sure how long the Tianjin Apology and Gift Center will last. “In our increasingly commercialized society, people have the idea that you can pay money to others to do your work for you, and that includes apologizing,” he says. “But if you are sincere, you should go and apologize by yourself.”
We here in the United States are just as guilty of getting a company to deliver our bad news, relationship breakups, and fake apologies…we use the singing telegram, and yes, there are several companies that will do the dirty deed for you.
When it gets to the point where we cannot muster the effort to personally apologize to others, we run the risk of falling into sin and not receive a pardon from God, because in a way you have not shown remorse for what you’ve done, but instead cover it over by faking forgiveness.
"Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets,
that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.
“And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room,
and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly."
Matthew 6:1-6
And 1 Samuel 12:24 tells:
Only fear the LORD, and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things He has done for you.
Let us do well in our deeds toward God and repent of our sins and He will wash you and pardon you from them.
Paul tells us in Romans that we are all guilty of sin and fall short of God’s glory. Do you want to be pardoned?
In verse 17 of Isaiah 1 we find the following:
Learn to do good; Seek justice, Rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless, Plead for the widow.
By turning to God and His word the people will come to a knowledge of the God of Israel that will give them redemption from their past evil ways. And in turning to the Lord we see that the people are told to, in short, to show love and compassion for those less fortunate then themselves. The word judge as used in this verse in Hebrew means to show great concern for the poor. And I say great concern because it also includes the fact that they were to also deliver the poor from any injustice or harm.
And this scripture applies to us today, just as it applied to the Israelites all those thousand years ago. We also need to learn to do well, and we can accomplish this by staying in the Word of God and in prayer, allowing Him to teach us how we should go about our daily life. And the Psalmist puts it this way in Psalm 25:5:
Lead me in Your truth and teach me, For You are the God of my salvation; On You I wait all the day.
And we need to know that God’s word is true, and His truth has been proven from the beginning of time until now. Science with its great think tanks has been over the many years trying to disprove the Word of God; but for everything they try to disprove they end up proving that the Word of God is true and unbreakable. And God sent use His truth in the form of a man so that we could learn from His examples, the examples of Jesus Christ, because in Him was truth and that truth will set use free.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14
Through Christ Jesus we are set free. Through Him we have a pardon from the Father, and the Father’s terms for a pardon from our sins are simple. Jesus tells us how simple they are in John 5:24.
Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.
So, do you want to be pardoned? If so, then believe on Christ Jesus who is the way, the truth, and the life. The only means currently for us to come to a saving knowledge of the Father, who is both, capable of redeeming you into heaven and condemning you to hell, is by way of Christ Jesus who has come not to destroy folk’s lives, but to save them.
Now looking again to our opening scripture and verse 18 we read this:
“Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the Lord, “Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool.
The prophet Isaiah now appeals to the people to come and reason together. In this verse we can see God’s invitation of a pardon for all mankind. And the nation of Israel is asked to come together with one mind and one heart to plead their case before the Lord so that a pardon can be handed to them for their sins. In this verse the prophet uses red to indicate the sinful nature of the people and how the use of the word scarlet indicates a colorfast dye that cannot be removed by human hands. And the colors used are an indication of the blood guiltiness of the nation of Israel. But Isaiah also lets the people know that all is not lost, because the God who saves is able to remove the colorfast strain from the people, He is able to change it from red to white as snow, which talks of the life-changing grace of God who stands ever-ready to cleanse them and make them whole again. And again, His terms are simple:
If you are willing and obedient, You shall eat the good of the land; But if you refuse and rebel, You shall be devoured by the sword”; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
God today is still ever ready to cleanse us from our sins and transgressions and His terms are just as simple today as they were thousands of years ago. But alas, some of us refuse this pardon from God and elect to take the death sentence that lay over the head of the non-believer. We reject this pardon from God when, either we don’t understand why we are pardoned or out of stubbornness to do what is right. A legal example of this is presented here:
In 1833 the Supreme Court heard the case of the United States v. George Wilson. On May 27, 1830, Wilson and co-conspirator James Porter were both sentenced to death after being convicted of robbing a U.S. postal worker and putting the carrier’s life in jeopardy. While Porter was executed just over a month later, on July 2, 1830, Wilson managed to escape the sentence. President Andrew Jackson decided to pardon Wilson for the death penalty charge on the understanding that he had yet to be sentenced for other crimes (for which he was looking at a minimum of 20 years). For some reason Wilson waived the pardon, possibly because of confusion about what case he was being tried for at the time and what cases the pardon was for.
In 1833, the Supreme Court ultimately weighed in on the issue, ruling “A pardon is a deed, to the validity of which delivery is essential, and delivery is not complete without acceptance. It may then be rejected by the person to whom it is tendered, and if it be rejected, we have discovered no power in a court to force it on him.”
God sent His son who came to earth so that we could live life to its fullest. God sent His son to buy our pardon so that we could have everlasting life. Christ Jesus is that son who came and died for us so that we could be washed as white as snow. It is by the works of Christ Jesus that we can come to the Father in spirit and in truth so that we can be pardoned from our sinful ways. Look upon Christ Jesus today…let us all reason together with one mind and one heart…a oneness that glorifies the Father in our actions and deeds…let us learn to do well and be compassionate to those less fortunate than ourselves…come and let us be of a like mind, and that being the like mind of Jesus. Let us run the course looking to the prize…that is to be in heaven so that we can see Jesus.
To be pardoned in our legal system, the one presenting the pardon has noticed in a change in the convicted person, a change for the better, a change that shows the person is now a benefit to society. Well, guess what folks…God pardons in the same way…has a change occurred in you where you are now a benefit to society of this life and the next in eternity, and that change is in how you view Christ Jesus…do you now love Him?
Do you want to be pardoned?
