6. The Vision of Isaiah

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Hymns: RHC 309 Thank You, Lord 310 Glorious Freedom 318 Blessed Assurance

Isaiah 1

1 The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. 2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. 3 The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. 4 Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. 5 Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. 6 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. 7 Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. 8 And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. 9 Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. 10 Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. 11 To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. 12 When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? 13 Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. 14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. 15 And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. 16 Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; 17 Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. 18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. 19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: 20 But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

The Vision of Isaiah

OUTLINE

(1) The Failure (v1-4)

(2) The Faintness (v5-9)

(3) The Falseness (v10-17)

(4) The Faith (18-20)

INTRODUCTION

The “Vision” speaks of supernatural perception, inspiration, revelation, prophecies, put here collectively the Prophecies, the son of Amoz, which he saw (perceived, received by inspiration) concerning Judah (the kingdom of the two tribes which adhered to the theocracy after the revolt of Jeroboam) and Jerusalem (its capital, the chosen seat of true religion), in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. The prophecies relating to the ten tribes and to foreign powers owe their place in this collection to their bearing, more or less direct, upon the interest of Judah. [Joseph Addison Alexander, Isaiah – Translated and Explained]

The design of this chapter is to show the connection between the sins and sufferings of God’s people, and the necessity of further judgments, as means of purification and deliverance. 

It is the desire of Isaiah and the heart of God that His people will turn back to Him in true piety and worship. He has seen through their outward religion as false and hypocritical. He abhors their pretence and falseness. 

The popular corruption is first exhibition as the effect of alienation from God, and as the cause of national calamities (v2-9).

It is then exhibited as coexisting with punctilious exactness in religious duties, and as rendering them worthless (v10-20).

The Prophet first describes the moral state of Judah (v2-4) – 2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. 3 The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. 4 Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. 

And then the miseries arising from it (v5-9) – 5 Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. 6 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. 7 Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. 8 And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. 9 Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.

It is finally exhibited in twofold contrast, first with a former state of things, and then with one still future, to be brought about by the destruction of the wicked, and especially of wicked rulers (v21-31).

(1) The Failure (v1-4)

1 The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. 2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. 3 The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. 4 Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.

He invites attention, firstly, by summoning the universe to hear the Lord’s complaint against His people, who are first charged with filial ingratitude.

The first part of the chapter describes the sin and then the suffering of the people. The former is characterized as filial ingratitude, stupid inconsideration, habitual transgression, contempt of God, and alienation from Him (v2-4). 

(2) The Faintness (v5-9)

5 Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. 6From 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. 7 Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. 8 And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. 9 Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.

The suffering is first represented by the figure of disease and wounds, and then in literal terms as the effect of an invasion, by which the nation was left desolate, and only saved by God’s regard for his elect from the total destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (v5-9).

This second part is connected with the first by the double allusion to Sodom and Gomorrah with which one close and the other opens. If this part the Prophet shows the utter inefficiency of religious rites to counteract the natural effect of their iniquities, and then exhorts them to the use of the true remedy. [J. A. Alexander]

This intimates what a righteous thing it would have been with God to make them like Sodom and Gomorrah in respect of ruin (v9), because that had made themselves like Sodom and Gomorrah in respect of sin. The men of Sodom were wicked, and sinners before the Lord exceedingly (Genesis 13:13), and so were the men of Judah. When the rulers were bad, no wonder the people were so. Vice overpowered virtue, for it had the rulers, the men of figure, on its side; and it out-polled it, for it had the people, the men of number, on its side. The streams being thus strong, no less a power than that of the Lord of hosts could secure a remnant (v9). The rulers are boldly attacked here by the prophet as rulers of Sodom; for he knew not how to give flattering titles. The tradition of the Jews is that for this he was impeached long after, and put to death, as having cursed the gods and spoken evil of the ruler of his people.

His demand upon them is very reasonable: “Hear the word of the Lord, and give ear to the law of our God; attend to that which God has to say to you, and let his word be a law to you.” The following declaration of dislike to their sacrifices would be a kind of new law to them, though really it was but an explication of the old law; but special regard is to be had to it, as is required to the like (Psalm 50:7-8. “Hear this, and tremble; hear it, and take warning.” [Matthew Henry]

(3) The Falseness (v10-15)

10 Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. 11 To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. 12 When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? 13 Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. 14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. 15 And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.

Under the former head, addressing them as similar in character as Sodom and Gomorrah, he describes their sacrifices as abundance and exact, but not acceptable; their attendance at the temple as punctual, and yet insulting; their bloodless offerings as abhorrent, and their holy days as wearisome and hateful on account of their iniquities; their very prayers as useless, because their heads are stained with blood (v10-15). 

He justly refuses to hear their prayers and accept their services, their sacrifices and burnt-offerings, the fat and blood of them (v11), their attendance in his courts (v12), their oblations, their incense, and their solemn assemblies (v13), their new moons and their appointed feasts (v14), their devoutest addresses (v15); they are all rejected, because their hands were full of blood. 

The most pompous and costly devotions of wicked people, without a thorough reformation of the heart and life, are so far from being acceptable to God that really they are an abomination to him. 

It is here shown in a great variety of expressions that to obey is better than sacrifice; nay, that sacrifice, without obedience, is a jest, an affront and provocation to God. The comparative neglect which God here expresses of ceremonial observance was a tacit intimation of what they would come to at last, when they would all be done away by the death of Christ. What was now made little of would in due time be made nothing of. “Sacrifice and offering, and prayer made in the virtue of them, thou wouldest not; then said I, Lo, I come.“

Their sacrifices are here represented:

(1) As fruitless and insignificant – They are vain oblations (v13). In vain do they worship me – Matthew 15:9 (KJV) But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

(2) As odious and offensive – God did not only not accept them, but he did detest and abhor them.

They pray, but God will not hear, because they regard iniquity (Psalm 66:18); he will not deliver them, for, though they make many prayers, none of them come from an upright heart. All their religious service turned to no account to them. [Matthew Henry]

That sin is very hateful to God, so hateful that it makes even men’s prayers and their religious services hateful to him. That dissembled piety is double iniquity. Hypocrisy in religion is of all things most abominable to the God of heaven. 

Jerome applies the passage to the Jews in Christ’s time, who pretended a great zeal for the law and the temple, but made themselves and all their services abominable to God by filling their hands with the blood of Christ and his apostles, and so filling up the measure of their iniquities. [Matthew Henry]

(4) The Faith (v16-20)

16 Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; 17 Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. 18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. 19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: 20 But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

As a necessary means of restoration to God’s favour, he exhorts them to forsake their evil courses and to exercise benevolence and justice, assuring them that God was willing to forgive them and restore the advantages which they had forfeited by sin, but at the same time resolved to punish impenitent transgressor (v16-20).

There is a way by which sins can be cleansed. This is the sacrificial system that pointed to Christ’s sacrifice which if appropriated would restore them back to God’s favour. They must come to the realization of their utter failure in forsaking the LORD and God’s fear coming in their hearts and His judgments heeded.

The words of Solomon complement the thoughts of Isaiah here.

Proverbs 1:22-33 (KJV) How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. 24 Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; 25 But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: 26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; 27 When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD: They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.

Choose the fear of the LORD, choose understanding and wisdom, choose life. There is no sin that the blood of Christ cannot cleansed. 

The book of Proverbs teaches us the life of godliness. It does so often times by contrast and comparison showing to us the ungodly ways, pointing to us the godly ways and teaching us to choose wisely the way of blessing.

In Jesus Christ is true wisdom. Just as Jesus said at the end of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7:13-14 urging the multitude sitting there to make a choice when he said “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”

There is that way that leads to life. It is called the narrow way and it is through the strait gate, that narrow gate. This narrow gate does not look that promising and convincing but that’s the right way, Jesus calls out to the people, this is the way that leads to eternal life. 

Indeed, without the Holy Spirit to bring conviction to our hearts, the truth cannot have a foot hold in our hearts but when the Holy Spirit brings conviction to the sinner’s heart, it can give no rest until the sinner surrenders. Then there are those whose heart the Lord hardens who rejects the convicting work of the Holy Spirit. These the bible says will receive no salvation. We can be listening to God’s Word, day in day out, month in month out but ear in, ear out. The message is urgent because these simple ones, these scorners and fools need a change of heart. We often share the truth with our loved ones but they reject it. Often we come to our wits end. We don’t know what to do anymore except to kneel before the throne of grace to plead for God’s mercy to come upon them to open their hearts to the truth. 

God’s longsuffering and patience for the sinner has an end-point. If we spurn the grace of God and convicting work of the Holy Spirit and keep on sinning, judgement will ultimately come and then it’s too late. When their iniquity is full, judgement will come swiftly. 

When Noah was building the ark, God has already pronounced his judgement. But he will save all who will take heed to wisdom’s warning. Is God happy to judge sinners? Of course not. The Bible tells us in Genesis 6:5-6 “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.” Is God happy to judge sinners? No. It grieves his heart.

Just as the believer who sins wilfully, the Bible says grieve not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is pure and holy. By our evil thoughts, conversation and conduct we quench the Holy Spirit. Quench has the idea of putting out a fire. We are not to extinguish the influences of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.

The Word of God is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. It gives to us doctrines, principles derived from God’s revelation to help us, teach us what to do in all facets our lives, reproof – to show as a warning – here the word repeated in our text is reproof, counsel. 24 Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded;

The people in Noah totally disregarded his admonitions. There is that much we can do. Instead of turning to God they are turning from God. They are indeed guilty, a wilful choice has been made to disobey the clear warnings of God.

26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; 27 When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. 28 Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:

When the door of the ark was shut and the rain started to fall, it was too late. All the opportunities have been given but they were spurned. When the rain started to fall, they moved to higher ground but soon the highest ground was covered with water. There was no escape. All outside the ark perished.

Remember the rich man who fared sumptuous and dressed in purple died and found himself tormented by the fires of hell, it was too late. On the other hand, Lazarus, who did not have many things in this life, had the most important, he believed in Jesus Christ. When he died, he was transported to heaven. 

27 When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. 28 Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: 29 For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD: 30 They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof. 31 Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.

They did not have any regard for wisdom’s warnings. No regard for their well-being. There was no fear of the LORD in their hearts. They bear the brunt of their own folly. Notice the most important word in verse 29, the word “choose”.

They choose not to walk with God. They choose to fulfil the lust that is in their own hearts. Truly, the fear of God is the beginning of knowledge. The fear of God in the heart will cause us to want to take heed to God’s Word and cause us to choose the step of obedience, just as Noah did. He has not seen a flood. There was no rain upon the earth before that time. He had to take God at His Word. What is saving faith? We need not just knowledge of the truth, and not just to agree with the truth but to form a conviction in the heart to trust in the truth, this is seen in a change in our conversation and conduct. What we used to do in the old man, we no longer will do. We have put to death the old man and put on the new man in Christ.

32 For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. 

They look at their company on the broad way and say, they are all doing this and still nothing happen to them, they are still prospering. That is the trap.

The call to embrace God’s Wisdom (v20-23) if not heeded, a stronger dosage of warning must be given, v24-32, the Calamity of Rejecting God’s Wisdom, verse 33, the Comfort/Confidence or Complete Protection of embracing God’s Wisdom. 

33 But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.

The blessing of the obedient is not only safety but also a peaceful heart. 

Hebrews 11:7 “By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.”

Noah and his family of 8 survived the global deluge. Jesus is coming again. This time He will come as a Judge. All who do not know Him will not be found with Him. This is a grave warning for us living a generation where our Lord can return any time. All the signs of the 2nd Coming have been fulfilled in our time. As the Lord tarries, may the Lord help us to reorder our lives and those of our family so that when our Lord comes, we shall be with Him. May the Lord help us!

CONCLUSION

This is a clear warning for God’s people to be true to their profession. Amen.