Isaiah 1:1-9 Click here for Bible Verses
Hi GAMErs!
there are at least four reasons why the book of Isaiah is special and worth studying:
1. There is probably no book in the Bible that gives a more complete view of who God is than Isaiah.
2. Isaiah is like a mini-Bible in itself, covering the entire Biblical story.
3. Isaiah gives us some of the most important prophecies about the Messiah.
4. You could use to the book of Isaiah to explain the entire gospel message about Jesus Christ.
If you want to get to know God, Jesus or the Bible better, Isaiah is an excellent and important book to study.
Today’s passage is Isaiah 1:1-9. Let’s go!
Isaiah 1:1 (NIV)
1 The vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
On verse 1: Isaiah’s ministry as a prophet spanned the reign of 4 kings of Judah: Uzziah (790-739 BC), Jotham (750-732 BC), Ahaz (735-715 BC) and Hezekiah (715-686 BC). If King Uzziah died in 739 B.C. and Isaiah lived to report the defeat and death of Assyria’s king Sennacherib in 681 B.C., that means Isaiah’s ministry lasted at least 58 years.
Isaiah’s light didn’t burn bright for a moment only to flame out after a few years. Isaiah served God with great longevity. I pray that, like Isaiah, you and I would serve God with longevity as well. May we not burn bright for God for a season, only to flame out and disappear. Rather, for as many as years God gives us on this earth, may we live out our calling to worship Jesus, to grow more like Him, to serve Him, to lead out others to Him, and to love the church family He gave us.
Isaiah 1:2-4 (NIV)
2 Hear, O heavens! Listen, O earth! For the LORD has spoken: “I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me.
3 The ox knows his master, the donkey his owner’s manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.”
4 Ah, sinful nation, a people loaded with guilt, 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.
On verses 2-4: Here God calls heaven and earth to witness how the nation of Israel, whom He calls His children, have rebelled against Him. In verse 3 God laments about how broken is His relationship with His people (“The ox knows his master, the donkey his owner’s manager, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand” – v3). In verse 4 God expresses His complete dismay at how the children He loves have turned their backs on Him and given themselves over to sin and corruption.
What can we learn from this? God sees us as His children whom He loves. As wayward and rebellious as we can be, because of love God can’t easily let go of us and say “To hell with them.” Thus our sin causes a tremendous emotional struggle for God, angering and breaking His heart.
Isaiah 1:5-9 (NIV)
5 Why should you be beaten anymore? Why do you persist in rebellion? Your whole head is injured, your whole heart afflicted.
6 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 oil.
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.
8 The Daughter of Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard, like a hut in a field of melons, like a city under siege.
9 Unless the LORD Almighty had left us some survivors, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah.
On verses 5-9: Here Isaiah pictures the nation of Judah as unhealthy, sick and beaten up from head to toe because of their sin (v6). That’s what sin does to us – to us as individuals and to us collectively. Sin causes us to become unhealthy, sick and beaten up in all sorts of ways. For example:
– “…Your whole head is injured, your whole heart afflicted.” (v5) Sin is something that poisons our minds and hearts, causing us to think, want and move in ways that are opposite to the direction God wants us to go in.
– “Your country is left desolate” (v7) – “Desolate” means empty of inhabitants. Sin empties us of life, spiritually and emotionally.
– “Your cities burned with fire” (v7) – Sin destroys the communities and relationships we try to build.
– “Your fields are stripped by foreigners right before you” (v7) – Fields represented wealth in Isaiah’s time. Sin strips us of our resources. When sin is in control of our lives, we end up giving our money, our bodies and our time to things that do not help us but only hurt us, to things that should never have had access to us in the first place. So we see in just verses 5-7 alone how sin affects us spiritually, emotionally, relationally and financially.
– “The Daughter of Zion [that’s another word for Jerusalem] is left like a shelter in a vineyard, like a hut in a field of melons, like a city under siege.” (v8) In other words, sin reduces us to a shell of ourselves (“a shelter in a vineyard, a hut in a field”), such that we’re no longer truly living but merely existing. Sin causes us to stress, fear, panic, worry and bite at one another like “a city under siege” (v8) such that it’s just a matter of time before it depletes us of all our resources and strength.
Most of all sin brings God’s judgment. God is a holy God. Nothing with sin can stand in His presence. God’s natural, instinctive, inevitable response to sin is to cast it out of His presence and destroy it. That’s why verse 9 says, “Unless the LORD Almighty had left us some survivors, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah.”
In other words, if it were not for God’s mercy, God’s judgment against our sin would have completely destroyed us, just like it did the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Those are the problems sin brings, unless something is done about our sin problem.
It’s no wonder Isaiah writes in verse 5: “Why should you be beaten anymore? Why do you persist in rebellion?”
What can we do about our sin problem? Nothing. No matter how hard we try, we can never completely get rid of our sin. That’s why God sent Jesus Christ. When we were lost to sin, Jesus came and lived a life without sin, a life that only God in the flesh could live. In doing so he fulfilled all of God’s righteous requirements for us. And then Jesus did the unthinkable: Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. Since sin separates us from God, Jesus allowed himself to be separated from God through his death on a cross. In doing so, Jesus paid the penalty that we were supposed to pay.
When we trust not in what we do but in what Jesus has done for us, God credits Jesus’ righteousness to us and declares us blameless and acceptable in His sight. When sin, like a bully, was beating us up, Jesus came and defeated sin.
It’s because of Jesus that now we can stand in God’s presence, forgiven of our sins, and reconciled to God as His children again.
God, thank You that despite all my rebellion and waywardness, You have yet to give up on me. I agree with You that sin destroys me emotionally, spiritually, relationally, in every way. Thank You that when I was lost in my sin condition, You sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross for me so that through Jesus my sins could be forgiven, I am a new creation and I am restored in relationship to You. Thank You Jesus for overpowering all my sin! In Jesus’ name, AMEN!
