Isaiah (3)

Listen, O heavens, and hear, O earth;
For the Yahweh speaks,
“Sons I have reared and brought up,
But they have revolted against Me.
“An ox knows its owner,
And a donkey its master’s manger,
But Israel does not know,
My people do not understand.” Isaiah 1:2-3.

The heavens and the earth are called to bear witness to God’s Word through Isaiah the prophet. Isaiah is not selecting twelve citizens of Judah to act a a jury, he is calling the entire universe to witness what God is saying and to judge the actions of Judah and Jerusalem. Isaiah is not going through a jury selection process, he is bringing the heavens and the earth into the courtroom - for the truth of God’s Word will be apparent to those who can still see clearly, who have not been intoxicated by rebellion, who still remain in harmony and accord with their Creator.

Even in our own violent times, most of us are repelled at reports of patricide and matricide; to kill one’s own parents is beyond what we can comprehend. We are also puzzled when children hatefully rebel against parents who we know to be kind and giving and loving; taking advantage of their parents, perhaps stealing from them, maybe even robbing them of all they have - be it large or small. It is as if the children have repudiated their parentage, denied their father and mother; going so far as to abuse their parents for the children’s gain and benefit.

Rebellion breeds rebellion - we reap what we sow and we cannot control the harvest of hate and violence that springs up when we sow rebellion - those who plant seeds of rebellion will not eat the harvest...the harvest will eat them.

In our passage the heavens and earth are witness to the centuries-old love and kindness of God toward Judah; He has been their father and they have been His sons and daughters. He has cared for them, delivering them from the slavery of Egypt, making provision for them in their Wilderness wanderings, making further provision for them in Canaan, and continuing to care for them through the centuries...even when they have rejected Him and aligned themselves with other gods, with other “parents”.

But enough is becoming enough, for God is a holy Father, a righteous Father, and a just Father. As God was rearing His son Israel He laid out what the future would look like if Israel were obedient and faithful to His ways, and also what the future would look like if Israel repudiated the ways of God’s family. (See Deuteronomy chapters 28 - 31). Throughout the Bible we see that God disciplines those He loves (Revelation 3:19; Hebrews 12:4 - 11), and we also see that those who reject God’s progressive discipline, that those who refuse to say to God, “Thy will be done,” will suffer the consequences when God says to them, “Since you do not want my will, I will allow your will to be done.”

Judah the son had rejected Yahweh the Father - Judah repudiated its Divine parentage, its birthright, its blessing. Even an ox and a donkey know better, they know where they belong, they know their master - they understand more than Israel and Judah. And I think they understand more than we probably do today.

God has been good to all the peoples of the earth (Acts 17:24 - 28; Psalm 104); His common grace and goodness have been showered on us all, whether we are thankful or unthankful (Matthew 5:45) - but sadly we take the life-giving sun and the refreshing rain for granted, we take this marvellous planet we live on for granted, we do not recognize the providence of God in our lives; we think we are here to take, take, take and then take some more. We will take as individuals, as families, as nations - we are like the two-year old who thinks, “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine.” What is amusing in a two-year old is toxic in adults. We may make rules to govern how we take things, but in the end they do not curb our appetites; the farther we are from God the more insensible to goodness and charity we become.

As we shall see, Judah made idols, and we have made our own idols - they are a bit more sophisticated than Judah’s, and perhaps for that reason they are more insidious.

I imagine that every people group has experienced the grace and mercy of God, not the least of which is the USA; and yet “American does not know, America does not consider.” The same can be said for many nations, perhaps for most nations, for God is not a respecter of persons. When a people reject the image of God as the West has done, what is left? How much further can we go in our rebellion before enough is enough?

Ah, but then there is the professing church. While God is the Father “from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name” (Ephesians 3:15), He is the particular Father to His sons and daughters in Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29; Hebrews 2:9 - 13). Just as ancient Israel wanted a king so that it would be like the surrounding nations, so much of the church wants to be like the world, the present age, so that it will blend in and not be distinctive, not be identifiable. We do not want others to know who our Father is, we may huddle together on Sundays and sit around His Table, but when we leave our gatherings we are careful to identify with the parents of the world, the gods of the world, and are careful not to mention who our Father is - we want to blend in, we want to be accepted, we are ashamed of our Father’s House, we are ashamed of our elder brother Jesus Christ.

Perhaps we have forgotten Peter’s words that judgment begins with the house of God (1 Peter 4:17). God is not like an earthly judge who might make judicial exceptions for his own family while judging others according to the law - we must not make God in our image and we are fools if we attempt to do so - God is altogether righteous and just and holy - He is not to be manipulated and He will not conform or bow to our wishful thinking. If God judged Israel He will judge us. If God judged the nations around Israel He will continue to judge the nations of the world. If God judged Israel - Judah He will judge His New Israel, the Church (see Revelation chapters 2 - 3 as an example).

The ox and the donkey get it - they know who their master is, and in some degree they know who they are; and they certainly know where they belong.

What about us?

Isaiah (2)

What Do We See?

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.

What do we see when we look around us? When we read, listen, or watch the news? What do we see in the workplace, in community, in school, in government? The fact that we “see” different things is demonstrated in any number of ways; some “see” gun control, others don’t. Some see universal medical coverage, others don’t. Some see liberal immigration policies, others don’t. Some Christians see the Great Commission, others don’t. Over and over again we “see” that we don’t all “see” things the same way.

In some instances whether or not we see things the same way doesn’t matter; some of us just can’t see having anchovies on pizza , many of us would probably take a pass on liver and onions; if you are not a fan of the New York Yankees you probably can’t see how anyone can root for them and if you are a fan you can’t understand why everyone doesn’t see the light and support the greatest baseball franchise in history.

However, there are times when not seeing things the same way really does matter. If you are approaching a traffic signal and you have a green light and the driver on an intersecting street doesn’t “see” his red light and runs the light and hits you - then how we see things will matter very much. When the driver at fault stands before a judge and says, “Your honor I didn’t see the red light,” he will find himself accountable for not seeing what he should have seen.

When motorcyclists are hit by cars it is often because the driver of the car didn’t see the motorcycle; so a smart motorcyclist learns to ride as if no automobile driver sees him; he has to ride based on what he sees while also riding with the assumption that no one sees him.

When we are focused on ourselves we are less likely to “see” the pain of others, less likely to see their needs. Perhaps one reason the church in the West does not share Jesus is that it is self-centered, we don’t see the need in others, we don’t see that people need the Lord. It is as if we have a cure for cancer but refuse to share it - we value our comfort too highly. People with full stomachs tend not to think about those starving; people who are healthy often aren’t concerned about the sick; people in nice houses aren’t often thinking about people living under an overpass. This is the nature of who we are outside of Christ, it is the human condition. We ought not to trust our vision, our way of seeing things. If we are honest with ourselves we can hopefully say that we’ve been wrong more than once, that we’ve not always seen things clearly. The Bible tells us that the heart is deceitful above all things, the same is true for our vision, our way of seeing.

Isaiah “saw” a vision in Isaiah 1:1, and as we read Isaiah Chapter One we can note that what he “saw” was the true condition of the people of Judah and Jerusalem. In ancient Israel prophets were once known as “seers”, they were called seers because they saw things that others didn’t see, they saw things as God saw them. God gives us His Word so that by and through the Word and the Holy Spirit we can learn to see as God sees, but when we abandon His Word we consign ourselves to blurred vision, even blindness; we might call it hallucinogenic blindness because we think we see things as they are but we don’t - to see things as they are is to see them (in a measure at least) as God sees them, anything else is blurred vision, a hallucination, smoke and mirrors.

Isaiah saw a sick people because God saw a sick people. They were a religious people (see verses 14 & 15), but they were not a godly people. We can allow our religious practices to blind us, we can go through the motions with our bodies and words but our hearts can be far from God. We have the amazing capacity to deceive ourselves in order to justify our sin and we can arrogantly claim that God is blessing us and will bless us and that He will protect us - this is what the people of Judah and Jerusalem were doing, singing “God bless Judah, land that I love,” at every baseball game. They did not “see” that they had departed from the true and living God, and consequently they did not see the judgment of God that was happening to them, even as Isaiah spoke and wrote the vision that he saw.

We see this phenomenon in the Major and Minor prophets. God’s prophets see what others don’t see, including what the rulers and religious leaders don’t see; many of the kings and religious leaders and other “prophets”  attacked and persecuted God’s prophets; killing some, ostracizing others, and even viewing the Word of God through the prophets as treasonous - after all, prophesying God’s judgment can be demoralizing to a nation - at least a nation that refuses to repent.

When the writer of the NT book of Hebrews talks about the men and women of faith in Hebrews Chapter 11, he points out that these women and men saw life differently than their contemporaries; an essential element of faith is seeing the invisible, having a different kind of sight; it is wearing corrective vision and not looking at what is apparent but at what is not apparent - to the point where what is not apparent to others becomes apparent to the men and women who are pursuing God and His ways and His Word. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians Chapter 4, we are looking not at the visible but the invisible, for the visible is temporal while the invisible is eternal.

God through Isaiah paints a bleak picture of Judah and Jerusalem, He paints a picture that few people saw, a picture that most people rejected when they heard it. Isaiah was in the minority but he was not afraid to speak God’s Word and live according to that Word.

What do we see today? As we read Isaiah Chapter One, are there similarities between what Isaiah saw and what we see in our nation, in the world?

Oh God, help us to see as You see, and to live according to Your Word in Jesus Christ.