Presented to
Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army, 12 Jan 2014
by Captain Michael
Ramsay.
Isaiah Chapter 1
has often been compared to a courtroom scene as Isaiah uses much of the same
language that one would hear in an ancient near east indictment. As a parent of
three children, this passage reminds me of a child coming before their parents
or a student coming before the principal in the days before they banned the
strap[1]
– which is surprisingly not so long ago in Saskatchewan here. The exasperated
parent in the opening verses (1:2ff) calls out:
Hear me, you heavens! Listen, earth!
For the Lord has spoken:
“I reared children and brought them up,
but they have rebelled against me.
The ox knows its master,
the donkey its owner’s manger,
but [my daughter] Israel does not know,
my people [my children] do not understand.”
Mom or Dad
continues,
Woe to the sinful nation [family],
a people whose guilt is great,
a brood of evildoers,
children given to corruption!
They have forsaken the Lord;
they have spurned the Holy One of Israel
and turned their backs on Him.
Now this is where
it gets interesting. God is obviously being compared to a judge ordering
corporal punishment or more likely - with this language of the family here - a
parent who physically disciplines his children.[2]
God is portrayed as one who has been provoked to this quite severely. Isaiah
says, Verses 5-6:
Why should you be beaten anymore?
Why do you persist in rebellion?
Your whole head is injured,
your whole heart afflicted.
From the sole of your foot to the top of your head
there is no soundness—
only wounds and welts
and open sores,
not cleansed or bandaged
or soothed with olive oil.
And then Isaiah
tells us what he means by this analogy of God having the transgressor beaten.
He says:
Your country is desolate,
your cities burned with fire;
your fields are being stripped by foreigners
right before you,
laid waste as when overthrown by strangers.
Daughter Zion is left
like a shelter in a vineyard,
like a hut in a cucumber field,
like a city under siege.
Unless the Lord Almighty
had left us some survivors,
we would have become like Sodom,
we would have been like Gomorrah.
Let’s stop and
think about this for a while because it raises a number of really serious questions:
- Does God condone beating children or other offenders?
- Does God beat us into submission through events in our life?
- Is God picking on Israel? Does He pick on us?
There will be a
fourth question that we will look at too:
- Does God want more from us than just to worship Him?
We will come back
to these questions but first let us look a little bit at the historical context
of this text. Isaiah the prophet lived in the 8th Century BCE. He
lived 700 or so years before Christ. He and his wife were both prophets (8:1-4)[3]
and he had a number of disciples who worked with him (8:16-22) and they
probably carried on his prophetic work long after he had received his
‘Promotion to Glory’. Isaiah is mentioned elsewhere in the books of 2 Kings and
2 Chronicles in our Bibles (2 Kings 19:1-7, 14-37; 20:1-11; 2 Chronicles 26:22,
32:9-33). And Verse 1 of Chapter 1 of Isaiah tells us that the part of the book
to which we are referring is ‘The vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that
Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah,
kings of Judah’.
At this time in
history the regional superpowers are Egypt to the southwest and Assyria to the
northeast of Israel and Judah who are, with others, stuck right in the middle
as they vie for military, political, and economic power in the area. Israel and
Judah, as this prophecy is being spoken to them, are extremely vulnerable to
attack. Israel will actually be wiped out by the Assyrians right around this
time, in 722 BCE. This brings us back to Isaiah’s prophetic warning to the
people of Israel and Judah.[4]
As we have said,
Isaiah uses the language of a parent applying corporal punishment – spanking or
more – to his children. From this language arises then our first three
questions that we are looking at:
- Does God condone beating children or other offenders?
- Does God beat us into submission through events in our life?
- Is God picking on Israel? Does He pick on us?
Does God here
condone beating children or other offenders (like they cane people in
Singapore, for example)? No, He doesn’t. But neither does He condemn it here
either. God isn’t actually addressing the best way to discipline your children
at all in this pericope; God, through Isaiah, is merely drawing an analogy that
everyone listening to his prophecy at this time and place would understand. If
this pericope were penned in our contemporary Canadian culture, Verses 5 and 6
probably could read:
O Canada, why should you be in timeout anymore?
Why do you persist in rebellion?
Your whole day is spent in that timeout chair,
You are grounded for a week
From the time you get up in the morning until the time you go to bed
there is no TV, video games or friends—
only sitting in the timeout chair
not moving or talking
or doing anything but homework.
God is not
addressing corporal punishment specifically here. He is talking about the
importance of a parent disciplining his children. And we know that a loving
parent does teach his children right from wrong. A loving parent does
discipline her children. Proverbs 24:18, which my mother used to quote for me
many time growing up, reads:
Whoever spares the rod hates their children,
but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.
[Spare the rod and spoil the child]
The parent who
loves their children disciplines them. The one who hates them does not. This is
what God is talking about in our text today. God says to the people of Israel
and Judah: 'Look at all of these things that are happening to you now', Verse
7:
Your country is desolate,
your cities burned with fire;
your fields are being stripped by foreigners
right before you,
laid waste as when overthrown by strangers.
Take this as a
warning, God says. Like a parent, He says, ‘now think about what you have done.
This should be an opportunity for you, my children, to think about what you
have done and make the necessary changes before it is too late and something
really drastic happens.’
God isn’t beating
His children into submission; God is disciplining them before they - through
their actions - cause real problems for themselves. God is warning them and
hopefully they will heed His instruction so that they will not force their own
destruction upon themselves. What Israel and Judah are experiencing is a direct
result of their blindly acting out on their own without taking care of their
little brother or sister. God isn’t picking on Israel at all; as a matter of
fact He is telling Israel to smarten up and to stop picking on her little
sister or there will be real problems.
God doesn’t pick
on us either in our lives. Many times, if the hardships in life that we are
experiencing are the natural results of our own actions, then indeed we should
take them as an opportunity to change before our own actions result in our own destruction.
However, we must not forget that when in the New Testament Jesus’ own disciples
make the theological error of the prosperity heresy, asking, John 9:2, “Rabbi,
who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” When they say
that sin is the reason the boy is blind; when they imply that anything and
everything that we don’t enjoy in life is condemnation from God, Jesus rebukes
them. John 9:3, “‘neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Jesus, ‘but
this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.’”
God doesn’t punish
us ‘willy, nilly’. He isn’t a vengeful God like the mythological Zeus sitting
on a cloud with a thunderbolt waiting to zap us whenever we do something wrong.
Quite the opposite; in our pericope today, God is compared to a loving parent
who needs to discipline His own children before they race off to their own
destruction.
That brings us to
Verses 11-17. My own children of course are very near perfect and almost never
ever need correction or discipline…but occasionally if Susan or I pull one of
them aside and have to discipline them, she may protest: What did I do? It was
my sister that did that. I didn’t do anything wrong! It isn’t my day to unload
the dishwasher or do some other chore that isn't done! It’s not my fault! She
hit me first... She told me to do that… I didn’t do anything wrong! I was just
nicely doing my chores, doing my homework, minding my own business when all of
a sudden that favourite mug of yours just jumped off the cupboard and broke all
by itself. I didn’t do anything wrong! It's not my fault! You're picking on me!
It’s not fair!
Israel’s
complains: ‘Why are you disciplining us? We didn’t do anything wrong: we always
observe the Sabbaths and other occasions, we always come to the Temple, we
always offer You sacrifices, we always pray; so why are you picking on us, God?
It’s not fair. That brings us to our fourth question: does God ask more of us
than just to worship Him? Do You, God, always appreciate our worship even?
God’s reply, Verses 11-15:
“The multitude of your sacrifices—
what are they to me?” says the Lord.
“I have more than enough of burnt offerings,
of rams and the fat of fattened animals;
I have no pleasure
in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.
When you come to appear before me,
who has asked this of you,
this trampling of my courts?
Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—
I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.
Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals
I hate with all my being.
They have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I hide my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
I am not listening.
Your hands are full of blood!
This is
significant. The children of Israel are praying; they are going to church,
going to the Temple; they are offering sacrifices; they are spending time with
God; so, is praying, reading your Bible and worshipping in church enough to
experience God’s salvation? God says ‘no’.
Many times in the
Scriptures God tells us that He doesn’t want a proverbial Christmas card from
us if we are going to refuse to be nice to our sister. He says, ‘don’t give me
a hug if you are just going to turn around and bop your brother on the head’.
He says, ‘I don’t want your praises if you are going to keep picking on your
little brother and your little sister.’ He says, ‘You say you love Me but that
is not true; if it were true that you love Me, you would be nice to my children;
if it were true that you love Me, you would love your brother. If it is true
that you love Me, stop picking on your sister![5]
Verses 16 and 17:
Wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
stop doing wrong.
Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow.
This I think is
very important for those of us who are here today. Jesus says, Matthew 22:37-38
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with
all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.” But He doesn't end
there. Verses 39 and 40, Jesus says, “...‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All
the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Jesus says,
Matthew 5:23-24, “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and
there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave
your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then
come and offer your gift.”
Jesus says, in the
Lord’s Prayer, Matthew 6:12, ‘forgive us our sins, as we also have forgiven
those who have sinned against us.’ And Jesus says, Matthew 6:14-15, “For if you
forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also
forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not
forgive your sins.”
Jesus says again,
Matthew 25, just like in Isaiah 1, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do
for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did not do for
me (v.41).’ So ‘…depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire
prepared for the devil and his angels (v. 45)’. But “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who
are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you
since the creation of the world (v.34).’” For, ‘truly I tell you, whatever you
did do for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did do
for me (v.40).’”
This is very
important for us in the churches: when we gossip about others, when we complain
about others, when we won’t sit with others, when we won’t talk to others, when
we won’t go to church or to a certain event because someone else is there; when
we are mad with our brother; when we don’t forgive our Christian sisters, when
we do this, God can’t be expected to forgive us now can he?
It is my hope then that in these last few minutes as we sing our songs of response to today's
message, that if there is indeed any sin that you need to get rid of; if there
is anyone you need to forgive so that your Father in Heaven will forgive you,
it is my encouragement that you will do that now even before you leave this
room. And, of course, if you would like to come up to the front for prayer
support before we leave, that is what the Mercy Seat here is for - it is a
place to meet God and God is always available and God wants to love us and to forgive
us and Isaiah 1:18-19a,
“Come now, let us settle the matter,”
says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
they shall be like wool.
If you are willing and obedient...
Let us pray.
[1]Cf. Alec Motyer, J.: Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary.
Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1999 (Tyndale Old Testament
Commentaries 20), S. 50
[2] Cf. Gene M. Tucker, NIB VI: The Book of Isaiah 1-39,
(Abingdon Press, Nashville, Tenn: 2001),53.
[3] But Cf. John H. Tullock and Mark MacEntire, The Old Testament
Story, (Pearson Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, NJ: 2006) 214 where they
argue that Isaiah 8:3 may not be designating his wife as a prophet but rather
as the wife of a prophet.
[4] Cf. By
Captain Michael Ramsay, Isaiah 1-39: 1st Isaiah, Later the World.
Presented to Swift Current Corps on January 10, 2010. Available on-line: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2010/01/isaiah-1-39-1st-isaiah-later-world.html
[5] Cf. Walter Brueggemann, ‘Isaiah 1-39,’ Westminster Bible
Companion (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, Kentucky, 1998), 17-18
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