Isaiah was on a roll this morning. Well, I was reading him this morning; he got on his roll almost 3 millennia ago. Writing to the Southern Kingdom of Judah, Isaiah warns against the very sins that would cause the Northern Kingdom of Israel to be destroyed by Assyria. In fact, Isaiah’s words to Judah in Isaiah 1 sound almost identical to the condemnation Amos directs at Israel in Amos 5. They both condemn a religiosity that focuses on ritual and ignores holiness and helping others. Compare Isaiah 1:10-17 with Amos 5:21-27. Both guys are using the same sermon outline here. Both guys probably had veins bulging and spit flying as they preached it! Get that way myself sometimes… which explains why our folks never sit on the front rows!
Unlike Amos, Isaiah turns on a dime and sounds more like Jesus in Matthew 11:28-30. His voice and his face soften (at least in my staging of the scene) and he offers the quintessential Old Testament invitation in Isaiah 1:18—
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 as crimson, they shall be like wool.
There was a time when preachers went soft on the soft and gentle invitation of God. The fear factor of hell-fire and brimstone was too useful. You keep your people scared straight and smelling the sulfur. Today, most of us are too soft on the brimstone and seem to portray God as a cosmic grandfather with lots of goodies and few expectations.
I think we need both pictures! God hasn’t gone soft on His expectations; it’s still as Hebrews 10:31 suggests, “a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Isn’t Hebrews in the New Testament). But God is the God of Calvary; the cross is His invitation of love. He still promises “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” This message of judgment and forgiveness are two sides of the same coin.
2 comments:
All that was said in the Law of our Creator (points to a brighter day) that has been preserved and kept in reverence, handed down and translated from the original scripts, that we know today and can read in the Holy collection of books that has been kept for thousands of years; whole and Holy complete. Attempts have been made; some have tried to twist and alter it over the years, all those that put forth such effort will get theirs. There are those who don’t get and there are those who will never get it and some are full of envy of those who do (in that state they never will). The inspired writings (of the Holy and completely parallel script of Isaiah and Amos) have been recorded for and written about and studied for many years. By those who get it (know and believe it) and even those who don’t. We are very fortunate that some devoted their entire lives to living to feed us from the living words of our great and heavenly father.
Tuck, Really good of you to include clickable bible verses, saves so much time. Efforts can be more effectively channeled and directed toward the searching of the true and simple meaning of scriptures even if we can’t always find what it is that we want to say or that others need to hear. Isaiah 1:18 says it all and points to that brighter day foretold of . . . the rest of the chapter is not so soft, it is for our learning and understanding, teaching and edification etc. etc... even if it was directed toward the people of that day who needed to hear it and did almost 3 thousand years ago. . . it’s chopped full of truth justice and points toward. . . ‘the only way’.
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