Isaiah - Verse By Verse

Scripture:  Isaiah 1:23 (NIV):  " 'Your rulers are rebels, companions of thieves; they all love bribes and chase after gifts.  They do not defend the cause of the fatherless; the widow's case does not come before them.' "

Thought:  To me, the values and morals of a nation, and particularly its leaders, define whether or not there is loyalty to God.

Question:  Have I recognized the need to kneel and confess today?

Here is the injustice.  Those who rule and should be caring for the victims of society are instead totally self-centered, functioning in the system only to acquire for themselves--and corruptly at that.  Human greed has taken over.  The privilege of high position has become a god and fueled even more selfishness.  The needs of others do not even enter their minds or pass into their field of vision.  Godly motives are non-existant.  Self takes precedence. 

Jerusalem has completely corrupted.  It has abandoned the ways, the selfless, loving ways, of God.  Those who govern are full of rebellion, thievery and bribery.  They care not for the needs of others who are helpless:  the orphans and widows, for whom government was originally created.  They do not serve the heart of God.  Everything has gone from bad to worse.  What will God do now?

Is our current western society anything like this?  Is this scripture of any relevance to us today?  Oh, my, yes!  Will we take heed?  Will you?

Prayer:  Dear God, help me to clearly determine whether or not I have abandoned Your ways, and if I have, show me the first steps of return to You.  Amen. 

Scripture:  Isaiah 1:22 (NIV):  "Your silver has become dross, your choice wine is diluted with water."

Thought:  To me, the sooner we realize how much we lose when we rebell against God, the better.

Question:  Am I in denial regarding how much difference God's rule over me can make in my life?

We see deterioration in Jerusalem.  Things are worsening, cheapening and weakening.  This is always the case when we distance ourselves from God.  We should not settle for second best.  Much of the time we do.  We's rather have independence with a tacky quality of living, than commitment to God and the best of everything.

To me, the "dross" could refer to a drop in economy.  when God is removed from money decisions, poor choices are made and unwise efforts only make things worse.  And the "choice wine", the fruit of the harvest, is "diluted", or of a lower quality than usual.  The removal of allegiance to God eats away at every part of our society:  financial, agricultural and relational, as we saw in verse 21.

Prayer:  Lord, I pray against the deterioration that the enemy wants to bring into my life.  Help me acknowledge my need for You.  Help me serve You in love that Your blessings may be mine.  Amen. 

Scripture:  Isaiah 1:21 (NIV):  "See how the faithful city has become a harlot!  She once was full of justice; righteousness used to dwell in her--but now murderers!"

Thought:  To me, God must be so saddened by the changes in many of His people who were once following Him but who have now rejected His ways.

Question:  Am I faithful to God or have I decided to disregard Him?

Here are some opposites:  faithfulness vs. harlotry and righteousness vs. murder.  Perhaps the latter contrast would not occur to us.  How is murder the antithesis of right-doing?  Righteousness is always lived out toward others.  The complete opposite of loving and ministering to others would be to eliminate them through murder.  Remember Cain and Abel:  God told Cain, "If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?  But if you do not do what is right, sin is croucing at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."  (Genesis 4:7)  Cain's hatred for Abel mastered him and he committed murder.

Jerusalem is, no doubt, "the city" here mentioned.  Once she was God's vessel--now she is Satan's.  It forces the question, whose vessel are we?  Let us be faithful to God, though pushed and tempted otherwise.  And let us be just and righteous toward others, though through forbearance and patience we must work at it.  There are always the two arenas:  1)  how we are toward God, and 2) how we are toward others.  This verse shows the outcome of the lack of faithfulness, justice and righteousness toward others:  it inevitably leads to murderous hatred.

Prayer:  My God and King, forgive me for any disloyalty toward You at all.  Give me strength to remain faithful to You and to behave righteously toward others.  Amen. 

Scripture:  Isaiah 1:20 (NIV):  " 'but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.'  For the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

Thought:  To me, resistance against God is "futile"--so why start?

Question:  Have I confessed any rebellion I may have had against God?

Unfortunately there is always room for a wrong choice.  And God makes it very clear that if we choose wrongly we are the ones who suffer.  How we suffer is at the hands of "the sword" of the Lord, which, to me, refers to the Word of God.  God's spoken truths will cut the rebellious ones down.  They will have no footing in their lies before a God Who utters only truth.  Isaiah says they "will be devoured."  To me, this means that God's truth, and power in that truth, will wrap around or overpower these rebels, winning out over the evil of lies in them, and consuming them completely.  They will lose their identity.  Just as eaten food is digested and changed from its original form into something producing strength and growth in us, so God will consume the rebellious with His truth, changing them by devouring them, overcoming evil with His good, and standing ever stronger in His truth.  The famous Bible Commentator, Matthew Henry, used to teach that unrepentant sinners would become the fuel for God's judgment fires. 

Here we see resistance and rebellion, two words that characterized Satan in his bid to become equal with God.  We join his kind of reasoning when we, too, make a choice to stand up against God in defiance.  How foolish we are when we do this!  God's promise to devour the disobedient is backed up with His "mouth"--His spoken Word.  Nothing is more sure than God's Word.  Nothing can alter it.

We are either cleansed and filled by choosing God or we are devoured and consumed away by rejecting Him.  These two extremes are poles apart.  The consequences are as far apart as life is from death and heaven from hell.  Who would be stupid enough to willingly choose having their identity devoured away in death and their soul sent to hell?  They say the door to hell has its lock on the inside.  God, in other words, is not an oppressor Who has imprisoned anyone there against their own will.  People in hell choose to be there because they do not want to be with God.  I can't understand them.  I really want God!  Don't you?

Prayer:  LORD Almighty, forgive me for any resistance and/or rebellion I may have had against You.  I don't want to be devoured by Your truth--I want, rather, to live in it every day and forever.  Amen. 

Scripture:  Isaiah 1:19 (NIV):  " 'If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land;' "

Thought:  To me, the mystery of the resistant heart and will of man is much less plumbed than many of the mysteries of God's ways.

Question:  Have I become "willing and obedient" to God?

All God requires in order to drown us in blessing, is our cooperation.  When the will of man is yielded up to God, all the goodness and blessings we ever craved will be opened up to us.  When we obey His Word, "the best from the land" will be ours.  Why do we hesitate? 

God takes care of His own.  "I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread"--Psalm 37:25 (NIV).  The righteous are not forsaken.  And the reference here in Isaiah to eating points out that God intends to meet all our basic needs--needs He created in us--when we are properly "aligned" with Him, that is, "willing and obedient."

Prayer:  Good Father, help me to yield up my will to You.  Help me to obey all of Your commandments.  It is all for my best!  Amen. 

Scripture:  Isaiah 1:18 (NIV):  " '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 as crimson, they shall be like wool.' "

Thought:  To me, the world desperately needs to "get together" with God!

Question:  How do I "reason with" God?

First, and most importantly, "come", says God; then "reason" with Him; then experience cleansing.  There is huge value and importance to first coming.  Now we begin to see all that He can do with that simple, trusting act.  Step forward to God.  Begin to talk with Him.

He then "reasons" with us, which I take as meaning He persuades us in His truth.  To be persuaded in God's truth means we have to look to His Word, the Holy Bible.  What we will find in His Word, if we give it a thorough chance, is that nearly every page reveals Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ is the embodiment of Divine Truth.  Then when we yield to His truth, believing fully, His Son's blood is available to us for complete cleansing and healing. 

If, however, in "reasoning" with God, we argue with Him, preferring to listen to some lie or other, then the cleansing is not available--the reasoning has become our rejection.  But God will bless us with cleansing if we come wanting it.  Let's "get together" with God!  All the goodness of the universe, and more, is there for us in Him if we would only "come".

We may often feel badly that we don't desire more of God.  The solution is not to become self-condemnatory; but to talk to God about it.  When we tell Him we're frustrated that our will may be unwilling, or that our desires are too selfish, it is a humility and an honesty He will not reject.  He doesn't expect us, in and of ourselves, to reach perfection; He wants us to come to Him--just as we are.  Our "perfection" can only be in our coming to God through Christ.  And if we come even when we're uncertain about coming, God knows that and is happy to see our choice.

In so turning and coming and choosing God, we may, by process, become more desirous of Him.  Exert your will and your desires whould follow.

Once we approach God, we will NOT be disappointed.  Within God is an immeasureable resource of ability to deal with our sin problems!  "Though your sins are like scarlet", "though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool."  Once processed by God, through the cleansing wash of Jesus' blood, they will no longer stand between us and God, they will no longer be sources of unending guilt, they will no longer haunt us, trouble us or bring despair.  They will be gone!  Praise the Lord!

Prayer:  Great God, thank You for calling and inviting us to You.  Thank You for being "reasonable."  Thank You for receiving us--any of us--all of us.  Thank You for cleansing us thoroughly and effectively.  Amen. 

Scripture:  Isaiah 1:17 (NIV):  "learn to do right!  Seek justice, encourage the oppressed.  Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow."

Thought:  To me, happiness would abound if we learned how to serve one another.

Question:  Have I learned to "do right"?

The changed behavior we need to "learn" is the doing of good things in the place of the bad things.  There is no middle ground in God's presence:  we are either "bad" or "good."  We are either needing forgiveness or we are forgiving someone else.  We are either part of the problem or actively helping with the solution.  Doing good things, righteousness, is the way to cleanse away the bad things, sinfulness.  Scripture says "overcome evil with good", Romans 12:21. 

Doing these good things is what the life of Christ was all about, and when we receive Christ into our being, we can have Him living His life through us.  Finally then, and only through Christ in us, we will be pleasing to God, The Father.  It is by allowing Christ to live in and through us that we will "learn to do right".

In this verse we see some basic, Christian values desired by God, found in Christ and commanded by God for us to live out as well:  1)  justice  2)  working to ease the burden of the oppressed  3)  aiding orphans, and,  4)  sticking up for widows who, in the age of this culture, were without income or support of any kind.  These works please God!

Prayer:  Holy God, help me to catch the vision of Your causes among mankind.  Enable me, through Christ, to "go about doing good" as Jesus did.  Amen. 

Scripture:  Isaiah 1:16 (NIV):  "Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean.  Take your evil deeds out of my sight!  Stop doing wrong."

Thought:  To me, we need to grasp how important it is to be acceptable to God.

Question:  Do I want to change?

What God wants, which ought to be our central desire as well, is sinlessness (holiness).  He does not want the system of sacrifices to be an "enabler" of more sinning.  Therefore He commands that cleansing, true cleansing, be desired and accomplished.  Then He commands that the sinning cease.  To the adulterous woman He said, "Go, and sin no more."  Israel needed to stop sinning.  What possible good was there to their system of sacrificing if it did not produce change in their behavior?  God is trying to get this idea across!

As Christians we understand that sinlessness is impossible in our own strength, however.  That's why we treasure the blood of Christ so very much!  We need to utilize His blood every day, if necessary, thus keeping ourselves clean before God, The Father.  This is how we can "take" our "evil deeds" out of God's "sight."  Then, as we grow in maturity in our relationship with Christ, He anables us, ideally, to sin less and less.  How we need Our Savior, Jesus Christ! 

Prayer:  Father God, it is only through Jesus that we are made clean enough to stand before You.  Thank You that Jesus' blood cleanses my blood-guiltiness and washes it away!  Amen. 

Scripture:  "When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen."

Thought:  To me, people need to understand what kind of attitude of prayer really breaks through to God.

Question:  Are my prayers heard by God?

God looks straight at the heart.  Religious forms mean nothing to Him.  Persons that want for themselves will not be considered by God; but God will listen and answer hearts that want what God wants.

It is not that God hears only a certain kind of prayer but that He looks upon and listens to only a certain kind of heart attitude.  And what attitude is that?  To me, it is the heart that agrees with God regarding its own sin and humbly pleads for purification and strength to do God's will.  Prayers from only personal agendas, even though numerous, will not be heard.  Prayers from the lips of rebellious people will be disregarded unless they are prayers of confession and repentance.  

Prayer:  Father, purify my motives in prayer.  Cause me to know my sin and what offends You, Lord.  Amen. 

Scripture:  Isaiah 1:14 (NIV):  " 'Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates.  They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them."

Thought:  To me, God's anger should motivate changes in us!

Question:  Are my organized, social activities pleasant or burdensome to God?

Isaiah writes of human emotion in God's character here:  we ought to be moved to some action or change of behavior when we know God is hating our activities and our times of celebrations are burdensome to Him.  We ought to be able to identify with these feelings in Him and then be moved to change what is in us.  Is He not our Creator and are we not His creatures?  Have we lost all respect for God?

Have I considered whether or not my so-called celebrations are a burden to God?  They would be if, as a Christian, my relationship with Christ was tainted by unconfessed sin.  God longs for "truth in the inward parts", that is, from the very deepest part of my being.  If I am honest and frank with God, vulnerable enough to face reality, I will NOT be rejected!  But if I carry the charade out more and more, God will automatically react with hatred, weariness, destestability and a sense of burden regarding me and my soul.  Why?  Because God abhors evil and sin of all kinds.  May it not be that I bring these things between myself and God!

Prayer:  Lord God, help me to inspire joy in You and not weariness.  Help me to incite love from You and not hatred.  Lord, may I be a pleasure to You and not a burden.  Amen. 

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