Isaiah-1v16+
Isa. 1:16-17 – Invitation – God’s true way is announced…
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, 17 learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.
“Wash” refers to cleansing – make yourself clean – God is encouraging an internal change of the hart that is revealed in the symbolic outward action of washing.
Calls for social justice and defense of the fatherless. Especially how the leaders treat the weak and vulnerable in society.
The treating people well beautifies our worship to him. “Remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes”.
V.18 – “Come on, let’s talk this over.” Isaiah refers to the possibility of settling the conflict between God and Judah before there is a complete separation between the covenant partners. Is Judah willing to change? God is not have an agenda to end the relationship with punishment. The key is “atonement” that would remove the sin stain from the people.
Many areas of the church which contain a great deal of legal thunder and lightning, exposing at least the surfaces of sin, are full of desperately anxious and bitterly contentious people. Law without grace provokes sin … and aggravates it into some of its ugliest expressions.… Psychoanalysts speak of the “resistance” patients have toward the discovery of traumatic material hidden in the unconscious. The same automatic fear of having repressed problems uncovered will grip and bind Christians unless they are deeply assured that they are “accepted in the Beloved,” received by God as if they were perfectly righteous because their guilt is canceled by the righteousness of Christ laid to their account.… God simply wants honesty, openness and a trusting reliance on Christ our Savior. ( Quote by: Richard Lovelace)
V.19, 20 – Decision “Are you willing and obedient,…?”
God only wants us to be open and responsive. Only God can remove the stain of their sins. It deals with a human choice to submit and follow God. People have to choose and their choice will determine their eternal fate.
Isaiah 1:21-31 – The Unfaithful City
V.21-26 – the purification of Jerusalem
V.21-23 – their sins
V.24-26 – their purification
V.27-31 – The fate of the righteous and the wicked
V.27 – Redemption for the righteous
V.28-31 – Destruction for the wicked
What is redemption? – Redemption explains how God saves us. God offers to get us out of trouble at His own expense. God has paid the price and then He reaches down and help us up.
V.21-31 Isaiah laments our corruption. ?s asked: What have we become and what does God do with people like us? My, how the holy have fallen! – V.22 both products have a deterioration in quality because impurities have diluted them.
The leaders loved money and thus they stole and accepted bribes in the courts. Those seeking favors brought gifts and such an oppression against the poor widows and orphans who couldn’t stand a chance in winning a court positive decision in their favor.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote, “Every institution tends to produce its opposite.” Look at the church’s record. Again and again it has produced the opposite of what God wants. When the church is not “full of justice”—modeling the way human life is meant to be—we hear a heart-cry of sorrow from Heaven.
V.23 – “Your rulers are rebels, companions of thieves; they all love bribes and chase after gifts…”
“Targum” – “The targumim (singular: “targum”, Hebrew: תרגום) were spoken paraphrases, explanations and expansions of the Jewish scriptures that a Rabbi would give in the common language of the listeners, which during the time of this practice was commonly, but not exclusively, Aramaic.”
A Targum: “All of them love to accept a bribe, saying—a man to his neighbor—‘Assist me in my case, so that I will repay you in your case.’
” Today we say, “You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.” It seems to be a practice in the business world of today.
The outcome is that man fail to recognize that God loves everyone they have no logical reason to care about anyone else. We fail to believe that the very hairs of mankind’s head are numbered by a loving God. Matthew 10:29-31 (ASV)
29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? and not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father: 30 but the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.
WHAT is the lesson here? This is why the most important thing about us is our sense of God.
Gods purposes are threefold:
- To satisfy his holiness V.24b
- To remove impurity V.25
- To restore his city of righteousness V26
The implementation of divine justice on his own people in Jerusalem.
V.26 – His action of redemption…. “I will restore your judges as in days of old,…”
The discipline of God achieves just what he intends, in purification and in restoration. When he turns his hand against us to purify us, let’s trust him to restore us.
The church’s glory is not passing; it’s her corruption that is passing. We will dare to follow God into the refining fire and stay long enough to have his purpose fulfilled in us.
The hope in redemption v.27 – “Zion shall be redeemed by justice and those in her who repent, by righteousness.”
Isaiah is trying to convince the audience to choose obedience.
A day will soon come when God will transform this world, remove all sin, replace all evil leaders, and rule his kingdom in righteousness and justice. Leaders beware as they are held accountable for their leadership or lack thereof.
V.27+ – God’s wonderful plan:
We need to repent of our fifth-rate righteousness every day. We will repent and be redeemed or rebel and be consumed. If we decide for repentance we will be redeemed.
V.29-31 – “You will be ashamed because of the sacred oaks…”
They were worshiping idols of wood rather than commit their lives to the redeeming power of God.
The lush gardens and sacred groves were an integral part of the Canaanite fertility religion. (Manasseh promoted it.) THUS, a substitution of worship for the creation instead of the creator.
In the Canaanite belief system that plants in these gardens represented life and fertility that the god Baal could provide its worshipers. However, these would wither and die without water. This failure to sustain life should have demonstrated to them the foolishness of their worshiping the false god Baal.
V.31 – they would become like ‘tinder’ that would easily burn. Tinder was what people used to start a fire with an easy combustible substance. It takes only a mere a ‘spark’ to ignite it! – demonstrating the value of dependence on Baal. 
The failure to sustain life demonstrates the powerlessness of these gods. Trusting in them will lead to disgrace and shame. In the end they will realize they placed their trust in something what has no power to nourish or protect them.
There are theological implications in this scripture for the audience there and now for us. They heard the message but did not perceive its importance and need for repentance. Isaiah’s message is to open people’s heart.
Two Groups: 1) those that rebelled and forsook their covenant promise 2) those that could read this account still miss the understanding
One could say: Isaiah’s theological perspective demarcates people into two groups: the rebellious people who forsake God and the redeemed people who trust God.
In this text – what is to be seen (understood) by them and for us today?
- God’s view of the sinful people of Judah
- God’s offer of grace
- The seriousness of God’s judgment on those refusing to worship him his way.
- God wans us to practice a worship that is acceptable to Him without a spirit of rebellion.
- Is our heart attitude and practice of worship acceptable to God?
- In our worship time is it just repetition of a series of deceptive rituals?
- Do we find a need to request God’s forgiveness for any sin? (v.18-20)
- What is our spirit today? – Are we repentant of our lingering sin.
God’s penetrating standards of justice and righteousness will uncover a veneer of piety and religious intentions hiding a life of selfishness, rebellion, and unwillingness to trust God.
Why are these verses so confrontational? God isn’t slapping us around. He is pressing his point. We think, “It doesn’t matter. My decisions, my attitudes and thoughts and feelings—do they really make that much difference?” But God is saying, “Every moment of your life matters to me. Your choices have lasting repercussions. That’s why I am confronting you with the truth.”
If we set the course of our lives by the earthly things we foolishly desire and choose, we will end up with nothing. The key to the metaphors in verses 29, 30 is verse 31: “the strong … and his work.” The “oaks” and “gardens” are metaphors for human strength and potential and preference. The point is that our own brilliance and desire will be the death of us. But repentance opens up life. In the ways of God, the weakness of repentance is how we experience the power of redemption.
Conviction of sin, repentance, and redemption—this is the way into salvation. It’s a good way, because there is a Redeemer. Whatever gets us closer to him can only be good. Quote: Raymond Rortlund