Repentance is often defined as “a change of the mind.” Is a change of mind all that repentance entails? Through the Lord’s words to the prophet Isaiah we see that obedience plays a critical role in repentance. God calls for a change of mind as well as a change in our actions. Isaiah 1 shows us how our lack of obedience can be a reason for God hiding His face from our worship, prayers, and corporate gatherings. God gives a gracious promise of reconciliation and hope to those who walk in righteousness as He says, “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”
Well, good morning. It's good to be here together. I don't know about you, but this weekend has been pretty amazing to hear God's word opened and to see the doctrine of repentance from many different facets like the beautiful jewels of Scripture and pray that through the work of the Holy Spirit we can see another aspect of that today. Let's pray as we begin. Our gracious Heavenly Father, Lord we confess Lord that we do not have truth in and of ourselves.
Lord, we are by nature lawless, that we are opposed to anything of your word, but thank you, Lord, that you've given us your revealed Word. Lord, through the faithfulness of the generations of passing down your Word, we have what Paul says is a more sure Word, and to the day we open it, Holy Spirit, we ask that you would teach us, that you would instruct us in these things. Lord, that we would not just have more information in our minds, but Lord, that you would allow us by your grace to put it into practice. Lord, we pray that through the work of this weekend, through the proclamation of Your Word, through the edification of saints, Lord, that Your church would be strengthened, it would be expanded, and that You most of all would be glorified. Lord, we ask for your blessing in Christ's name.
Amen. Well, if you would turn with me to Isaiah chapter 1. I've been given Isaiah 1 and As we have been considering this topic of repentance, often the thought comes to our mind of repentance is a change of mind or as often I love talking with my kids and I'm grateful that they're beginning to catch this picture, the picture of a U-turn. That it's not just something in our minds, but it's something that has to happen in our lives. I appreciated Dr.
Beeky and showing how simple repentance is, but yet how comprehensive it is. Again, repentance is something that sometimes will make us a little uncomfortable, But it is often a message that is clearly proclaimed throughout all of the New Testament. The prophet Isaiah had the job, a prophet was to speak on behalf of God to man. The message coming from God through him to the people. The prophet Isaiah ministered probably 50 to 60 years proclaiming God's Word to the southern kingdom, to Judah.
Specifically to Judah and Jerusalem. The northern kingdom had been taken away into captivity and the kingdom of Judah was battling the sin that was coming in, but also the Assyrian invasion from the north. They faced many challenges. And God would bring difficult words through Isaiah to Judah through his ministry. Sometimes as a pastor You bring messages that are words of encouragement.
But as we're teaching, sometimes there's those passages that are those heavy passages that we can't shy away from, that we need to hear those rebukes from the Lord. In Isaiah 1, from the beginning of this book, it does not begin with words of affirmation and encouragement. It is an immediate affront. Amazingly, the prophet Isaiah is quoted more than any other prophet in the New Testament. We see his words ring true throughout the New Testament.
And chapter 1 is somewhat of an overview of the whole book of Isaiah. We don't have time to even talk about all 66 books, but there's two sections in Isaiah. And those two sections are almost an outline for our time together today. Chapters 1 through 39 compose what often is called the Book of Judgment. God's bringing judgment upon not just Judah, but also the nations around.
In chapters 40 through 66 is the Book of comfort, that there would be a restoration that happens through the coming promised Messiah. Let's look at our text for today and let's actually begin at verse 10. Thus says the Lord, Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom, give ear to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? Says the Lord, I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle.
I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or goats. When you come to appear before me, who is required this from your hand to trample my courts? Bring no more futile sacrifices, incenses and abomination to me. The new moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feast my soul hates.
They are a trouble to me. I am weary of burying them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.
Wash yourselves. Make yourselves clean. Put away the evil from 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, 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. How the faithful city has become a harlot! It was full of justice, righteousness lodged in it, but now murderers.
Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water, your princes are rebellious and companions of thieves. Everyone loves bribes and follows after rewards. They do not defend the fatherless, nor does the cause of the widow come before them. Therefore, the Lord says, the Lord of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, I will rid myself of my adversaries and take vengeance on my enemies. I will turn my hand against you and thoroughly purge away your dross and take away all your alloy.
I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward, you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed with justice and her penitence with righteousness. The destruction of transgressors and of sinners shall be together and those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed for they shall be ashamed of the terebinth trees which you have desired and you shall be embarrassed because of the gardens which you have chosen. For you shall be as a terebinth whose leaf fades and as a garden that has no water.
The strong shall be as tinder and the work of it as a spark. Both will burn together and no one shall quench them." As we consider our text today, really there's two sections here. There's the the comments to Judah but also the comments to Jerusalem and we could look at those separately but as Mr. Brown gave me this text together it caused me not to just look at them as individual texts but to see the themes that are consistent between the two. To see the consistency of how God works with us as his people.
How he did it with the nation Israel. God speaks through Isaiah to these people. He calls them to repent. Let's first of all look at God's rebuke. God's rebuke.
First of all to Judah, verses 10 to 17. Notice he begins in verse 10, You rulers of Sodom, you people of Gomorrah. Now Sodom and Gomorrah have been long destroyed, but he's using this as a indictment against them for their actions are just like Sodom and Gomorrah. What an offensive word that would be. For everyone knew that Sodom and Gomorrah had been destroyed for their wickedness yet God is pointing out and saying but you're no different people.
So those times when God's Word cuts us to the heart and shows us our sin it lays us bare And God is pointing out the seriousness of their sin, yet in the midst of the seriousness of their sin, they are worshiping Him. But Notice what he says about their worship. He's had enough of burnt offerings. He does not delight in the blood of bulls. They trample his courts, verse 12.
The sacrifices he calls in verse 13 are futile incense is an abomination. The new boons and Sabbaths he cannot endure the iniquity. His soul hates the keeping of the feasts. They trouble him, they weary him. He has hidden his eyes in verse 15.
He will not hear. These people were not the ones that were off living and doing everything that the world did. These were the people who were seeking to walk in faithfulness. They were worshipping the Lord. They were giving the fat calves.
They were following the law as it had been inscribed. Notice they're keeping the new moons and Sabbath, the appointed feasts. They weren't just kind of keeping the law, But they were walking in a lot of obedience. They were doing a lot of good things. But yet God hated their worship.
What a warning that is to us that obedience can be happening, yet something can be happening that has caused God to say, you worship me with your lips, but your heart is far from me. These are not just the others. These might be people like us who go through the steps, who are seeking to do things, but they're blind to something that is causing not to hear their prayers. I wonder if they, as they heard these words, if it was discouraging. Maybe they had been spending time in prayer and Isaiah saying, God doesn't hear your prayers.
Imagine that today. If God spoke audibly to us and said, you're praying but I don't hear you. How discouraging that would be. And yet we could stand in our discouragement or we can hear the Word of the Lord and change, and to see what's different here. Now again we kind of have these two passages.
Let's jump to verse 21. Notice the word of the Lord comes to Judah in verses 10 through 20. But in 21 we look and we see Jerusalem. It says, how the faithful city, and notice the indictment against Jerusalem, had become a harlot. It was full of justice and righteousness, but now murderers lodge in it.
There's dross in the silver, there's water mixed with the wine. Companions of thieves and lovers of bribes and followers after rewards and do not they don't defend the fatherless nor do they care about the widows again notice that they were faithful. This was not just the sinful people who continued in their sin, it was the people who had been walking in faithfulness. It's a good reminder to us that as we're seeking to walk in faithfulness, as we remember the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, that one of the things that came out of the Reformation is semper reformanda. Always reforming.
Continuing not to change for change's sake, but to continue to conform to the image of Christ as we see the Scriptures come to bear in our lives. A city that had been faithful, a people that was worshiping, and yet God says they've lost it. So what was taking place? The problem was their responsibility was lacking because they had partial obedience but not full obedience. Though they had been doing some of the things in worship there was an underlying issue that was causing the separation that God would not hear their prayers.
Their worship was an abomination to Him. And the issue was their heart, and also their actions. Their problem wasn't necessarily their worship, It was what was happening before their worship. Their lives were lacking obedience in some areas, but they thought that, hey, I'm partially obeying here, I'm doing some of these outward things. Yet God points out they're lacking.
What we do during the week matters to God. We can't just live one life six days a week and on the first day of the week come and just think everything's fine with God. He cares about our life throughout the week. Because notice the things that he begins to point out in verses 16 and 17 are things that are not necessarily done in the assembly. They are things that are to be done outside.
And they're not the things that are only to be done outside, but that are to be a picture of their love for him. We saw the definition of repentance the other night with Dr. Beekie. Question 92 in the Baptist Catechism, what is repentance unto life? Repentance unto life, notice, is a saving grace by which a sinner out of true sense of his sin, so there's a acknowledgement of sin, an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, a looking to God and realizing the need and hoping in Christ does with grief and hatred of his sin turn from it with full purpose of and endeavor after in new obedience.
Again, repentance is a change of our minds. When God is bringing this indictment to them, he's saying, hey, yes, you need to acknowledge your sin, but There's a change that needs to take place after this. There's an endeavoring, but wouldn't it be nice in God's kindness to just kind of give it to us? But then we wouldn't need to depend upon Him for the strength. As the writer of Hebrews says, the sin that so easily entangles us, it's not just kind of this one-time thing, but it's continuing to set our feet in the right paths.
The psalmist in Psalm 119, verse 59, he says, I thought about my ways and I turned my feet to your testimonies. It's not just turning away from sin but it's turning to obedience. It's turning to walk in God's ways. And as Samuel said, to obey is better than sacrifice. Let's not twist those words and to say, under the Old Testament law, that sacrifices were unimportant, but the heart of obedience was to show a heart for God.
And that sacrifice was just the outward workings. It wasn't the showing of the heart. But notice what God calls Judah to do. Verse 16, wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, Put away the evil from your eyes. Excuse me.
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. We see the Apostle Paul speak about putting away the deeds of flesh. But we don't just put away, we have to put on. It's as if we're pulling a weed out and there's a hole that's left in that where that weed was.
Something's gonna fill that and we have to be intentional to replace those negative with a positive. To put away certain things and to do certain things. And this is what God calls them to do. Put away the evil, cease to do evil, and learn to do good, to seek justice. And then he says to rebuke the oppressor, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.
These verses are a reminder that We can come together on the Lord's Day gatherings and we can have what we think is a great act of worship to God. And yet the words in verses 10 through 15 can be what God is actually thinking about our worship. That we have neglected the deeds of righteousness to walk in obedience throughout the week, but we think that our obedience on Sunday God is pleased. Sadly, I think some in the modern church have taken this too far. That seeking to do good, seeking justice, defending the fathers, pleading for the widow, That has then become the mission of the church.
We need to be careful not to swing the pendulum too far. But it's an outworking of the people of God. We should be defending the fatherless. We should be seeking to rebuke those who are oppressing. We should be pleading for widows.
It's a both-and, not an either-or. God has not called us to just live in our protected world. But didn't we see that in the picture of Christ? Seeking to care, a compassion for the lost. For he said they were like sheep without a shepherd.
Those are the litmus tests of where our heart is. Whether our obedience is just because we think these are the right things to do, but doing these things is the harder things, or are the harder things. For they're the things that are messy in ministry life. Getting involved with people who maybe are a little different than us. Pleading for a widow, defending the fatherless, rebuking the oppressor.
And notice when it says seek justice, it means to seek righteous things, to see things as God does. John in his epistle in 1 John 4-20 says, If someone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he does not love his brother whom he has seen. How can he love the God whom he has not seen? Notice it's not just this worship of God, but there's this how is our life and our actions going with those around us?
Let us not be fooled that God is pleased just because we do some right things on Sunday. In speaking at this conference, Sometimes you don't want to step on other speakers, but I was realizing the gentleman speaking on Revelation is speaking right now. So Revelation 2 kind of points these things out. God is speaking to the church and he says, I know your works, your labor, your patience, you cannot bear with those who are evil and you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not and have found them liars and you persevered and have patience and have labored for my name's sake and have not become weary." What a great affirmation from the Lord. Yet verse 5 says, I have this thing against you, that you have left your first love.
Notice there was a lot of obedience, but there was not full obedience. He continues in verses 5 and 6 remember therefore from where you have fallen repent and do the first works or else I will come quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent." It is so easy to become blind in our lives And to kind of feel like, okay, I'm doing the obedience thing, check. But yet we're blind to a whole area of what God has commanded us to be doing and being as followers of Him. God is saying that judgment and discipline was coming because they were not fully following him. What a humbling thing because we can rest in a few works of obedience and be wrong.
Again as Mr. Brown has pointed out in the the third of Martin Luther's theses, he says, yet it does not mean solely inner repentance. Such inner repentance is worthless unless it produces various outward mortifications of the flesh. Do we see various outworkings of the repentance to turn and to follow God's ways. But there's a connection here.
Repentance and full obedience, we'll see, brings blessing. But non-repentance and false actions brings judgment. But as we read verses 16 and 17, we have to be careful. Notice God's words, wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, put away evil from doing of your doings from before my eyes. Let us not take this out of the context of the rest of Scripture and to think that this is what can accomplish our forgiveness.
To say that we are able to fully obey is wrong. But God calls them to obey. But notice 16 and 17, then comes verse 18. That is God's people as we seek to walk in obedience we cry out for mercy. Our Repentance does not achieve forgiveness.
Let me say that again. Our repentance does not achieve forgiveness. Our repentance and our turning from our sin, we fall onto Christ for hope of forgiveness. God does not look at us and forgive us because of what we are doing. We might say, well, I know we're not saved by good works.
We're not continuing to be saved by good works. But I love how Dr. Beeke said the other night, at the crossroads of necessity and inability, we find our need to cry out to God for mercy. And this is what we need to do. We need to realize that full obedience is not in our own ability.
I grew up in a Christian home and I thought I had obedience down. I on the outside had all of these good things going on. Yet we must remember full obedience is not in our strength. The psalmist in Psalm 13 5 says, but I have trusted in your mercy. That's what we have to do.
That even in our obedience, we're trusting God's mercy. We turn from our sin and fall before God, like Paul says in Philippians 2, therefore my beloved as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only but now much more in my absence, Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. But it doesn't stop there. Just like here in Isaiah 1, God's not saying, hey, go do this in your own strength. Because verse 13 says, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for his good pleasure.
I don't want you to walk away from saying, okay, obedience is part of repentance. I can accomplish this in my own strength. We'd be lost. We'd be walking in error. But also we can be in error to say, well, obedience isn't that important.
Cause I can't achieve my forgiveness. No, God has called us to walk in obedience. We just have to understand that it doesn't earn us anything. But because of the mercy of God, the promise that we'll see in just a moment, our hearts should desire to turn from repentance and walk in obedience because we love our God and Savior. Last week ago Sunday, I was preaching in Luke 18, the Pharisee and the tax collector.
The Pharisee is standing in all of his outward actions, and the tax collector falls in God's mercy when he says, God be merciful to me, a sinner. Let us not think that just because we're doing some things that we're deserving of God's mercy. But God so graciously promises His mercy. His promises are here in this text that should cause our hearts to yearn. Notice verse 18, Come now, 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." When I was assigned this text, I started just about every morning using an app on my phone to listen to Isaiah 1. And verse 18 just became kind of like the mountain peak of this. Because God is bringing all these judgments against Judah. Judgment, judgment, judgment.
But here's a promise. That we don't have to be left in this guilt of, wow I've been doing things wrong. But God has given us this promise of his cleansing. Yes, as Spurgeon eloquently has said, the Lord does not deny the truth of what the sinner has confessed, but he says to him, though your sins be as scarlet, I met you on that ground. You need not try to diminish the extent of your sin or seek to make it appear to be less than it really is.
No, whatever you say it is, it is all that and probably far more. Your deepest sense of your sinfulness does not come up to the truth concerning your real condition. Certainly you do not exaggerate it at the least. Your sins are scarlet and crimson. It seems as if though you have put on the imperial robe of sin and made yourself a monarch of the realm of evil.
That is how a man's guilt appears before the searching eye of God. Yet God in his mercy says, I will make your sin as white as snow. That's how the Apostle Paul can say in Philippians 3, forgetting those things which are behind and pressing on toward that which is ahead. The nation Israel could look and they could say, woe is us, we can't obey, I guess we'll just sit here and wallow in our self-pity. Because we battle that often when we have that Romans 7, that battling of, well, I know I should be doing this but I'm not doing this and and I want to do this but I'm not and maybe it's just me but sometimes I can become weary at trying to obey because of the guilt of past.
I keep failing. But let us not forget God's promise of cleansing. In Proverbs 28, 13, he who covers his sins will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will have mercy. There's certain sins that are more tangled in us. There's certain actions of obedience that are more difficult.
Yet as we saw last night with Psalm 51, notice in verse 2, David's words, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. It's actually kind of the words of Isaiah here. He's calling them to wash but in recognition they actually need God to wash them. There was a cleansing that David longed for when he says, purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. And trusting God for that cleansing and a true and complete cleansing from God.
What's interesting is we see these words here, wash yourselves, make yourselves clean. In Jeremiah 2 22 it says, For though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, lye not lying but lye is the cleansings, yet your iniquity is marked before me, says the Lord. Notice we must see this text with the rest of the text of Scripture. That we must fall in the mercy of God for the cleansing. Yes, there are outward actions that we are called to do, but we must turn and trust God.
But notice we aren't left wondering, well, does God do this? Look at verse 24. Again, This is looking at Jerusalem. They were unfaithful. They were doing all these things, but notice verse 24.
Therefore the Lord says, the Lord of hosts, the mighty one of Israel. Look at how powerful God is. He says, ah, I will rid myself of my adversaries. Verse 25, I will turn my hand against you and thoroughly purge away your dross and take away all of your alloy. Verse 26, I will restore your judges as at the first.
And your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city. Look at the change that happens between 21 and 26. Verse 21, how the faithful city has become the harlot, the unfaithful. You're filled with dross, you have all these things, but notice God gives them in 24 to 26 his promise of restoration.
He will restore us. He will restore as at the beginning, as at the first, verse 26. And afterwards you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city. That's the work that God does in our lives. When we see our ways of obedience that are lacking, He is kind to set us upon that path and to call us again as a faithful one.
But again, let us not look at that happening in our own strength. Notice those words, I will, meaning God will do it. And the means by which he does is as we walk in his obedience. Sometimes I think in the church, obedience can be like a curse word. But yet obedience can be a great thing of blessing when we understand it in the proper biblical context.
Ezekiel, in speaking about in the new covenant in Ezekiel 36, just before kind of that famous Ezekiel 36 26, he says in verse 25, then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. When we have sin that's entangling us, when we're indicted like Judah and Jerusalem, our hope is God to restore us. I'm thankful. I'm thankful.
Like that hymn, not in me, no works of mine. It's not in our own strength. As we remember the Reformation, Luther's great hymn, A Mighty Fortress is Our God, our striving would be what? Losing. But let us not say that striving is unimportant.
No. We're to press on toward the goal. But to remember that in it all we trust God's great mercy. For He is gracious and kind. Look back at verse 19 again back to Judah.
The promise of they shall be is wool. Verse 19, if you are willing and obedient. Is that us today? It's not just the willingness of, well, I want to, but it's the actual actions as well. There can be that guilt in us that says, oh Lord, I see this sin that's in my life.
I see your word. And then we just stay there. But this passage is helping us to see that there's a difference between just the intellect and the actual action. But it's a conditional statement. If you are willing and obedient, then you shall eat the good of the land.
This promise was given to Judah. And there's not a land promise to us. But the character of God is still here in this passage. This principle that we can look and to see that God brings blessing when we follow in His ways, as we're willing and we're obedient. But there's that warning.
But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword. Sadly we know the rest of the story. And Israel is devoured. But God restores. He brings people back.
Because, verse 21, He is the mighty one of Israel. And it is for His glory. Notice verse 27, again looking back to Jerusalem. Zion shall be redeemed with justice and her little, literally her repenters with righteousness. What a great promise.
But there's a great warning as well. If we're willing and obedient, there's blessing, but if we don't, there is judgment. Therefore, as Jesus says in Matthew 3, 8, bear fruits worthy of repentance. We are like Judah in Jerusalem. We do not act as if we should, and judgment is coming, but where are we?
Are we willing and obedient? But again, it's not just partial obedience, it's full obedience. And even in our obedience saying, Lord, I stand in your mercy. There's a consequence for either action. The passage ends with talking about the terebinth tree whose leaf fades and has no water.
It shall be strong as tinder And the work of it is a spark. You can see the power of tinder and a spark in Northern California in the last few weeks. The devastation of fire that brings. One picture of the coming judgment that would come if they did not walk in faithfulness. But God is merciful.
Let us not ever forget that. And let us not forget Isaiah. His name literal means, Yahweh is salvation. God's called us to walk in obedience, But as we do, may we trust Him and not in our own good works for our salvation. Let's pray.
Father, thank you for your word. Lord, we confess that Just like Judah, as we saw the other day. We are full of sin. And we are like the nation Judah. Sometimes we can have the outward reflections of godliness, but Lord, you know our hearts.
Lord, we pray that you would cause us to walk in your ways. Lord, show us our places of error And thank you, God, that you are a God of mercy, that you restore us as at the first. Lord, that you would be able to look at us and to call us faithful. That as we stand before you, that you would say, well done, good and faithful servant. Lord, we thank you for these words.
May you impress them upon our hearts. May you cause us to walk in obedience and in action, all the while giving you praise and thanks for how you work. We pray in Christ's name, Amen.