Our sermon text this Sunday will be Isaiah 1:
2-31. I invite you to read it as you
prepare for worship this week. Through this text “The LORD has spoken”. Everything we read in Isaiah is spoken from
the Lord. Throughout the entire Old
Testament, including Isaiah, the Hebrew name for Yahweh (YHWH) is translated
with capital letters as LORD. It occurs
in Isaiah over 400 times (It occurs 7765 times in the ESV Bible according to blb.com). Every time we see the name LORD we should
recall Exodus 3:13-15 where we hear God declare, “I am who I am”, signifying
his unchanging character and nature. The
LORD is consistent, eternal. He can
always be relied upon to be the same, now and forever. “When we see ‘the LORD’,
we should always think covenant, think of the God who makes and keeps his
promises, and reckon on the rock-solid certainties of his word and his will,
rooted in his very nature.” (David Jackman) The rock-solid certainty of God’s
word based on the rock-solid certainty of God’s character is what Isaiah is
declaring to the people of Judah and to us.
“Hear, O heavens and give ear, O earth; for the LORD has spoken.” God has and is speaking - but we don't always hear. God’s apparent silence can be confusing, and
for some, misleading. Many unbelievers
note God’s apparent silence in the face of sin and evil and think he is
nonexistent or uncaring or unable to do anything even if he wanted to. Is it because of my long silence that you no
longer fear me? (Is. 57:11 NLT)
Even believers cry out for God to break his silence, to speak in the face
of brokenness and unexplainable sin. To you, O LORD, I call; my rock, be not deaf to me, lest, if you
be silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit. (Ps 28:1) But God is not silent. “The Lord has spoken” (Is 1:2).
The question we must as ourselves as we prepare for worship is “am I
listening?” As you pray and prepare for
worship this Sunday ask God to give you the heart that longs for Him and ears
that are open to hear Him.
Isaiah saw, by divine revelation, what was going on in the hearts of
people and in their land. The context of
God’s spoken word in this beginning section of Isaiah is a divine
courtroom. God is summoning heaven and
earth as witnesses against the unnatural rebellion his people against their
covenant Redeemer.
This rebellion is seen in several ways, not the least of which was their
empty religion. In Isaiah’s day the
people didn't miss a church service; they were always at prayer meeting and
never missed a sacrifice. In the eyes of
their community they must have appeared faithful. In God’s eyes they were a “sinful nation, a
people of iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly.” Instead of seeing them as faithful, God saw
then as rebels who had forsaken and despised Him (1:4). In Isaiah 1:11 we see that all their
religious activity was meaningless to God (What
to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?), useless to Him (I have had enough), and did nothing for
God (I do not delight). The
people of Isaiah’s day loved religion, but they also loved their sin. They prayed, but did not live holy
lives. They spoke about God and to God,
but did not listen to Him or heed His Word.
We must be careful; religious appearance and practice is an easy trap to
fall into. Alec Motyer asks, “Isn’t
there a disciplined habit to be cultivated if we are to get to know our Bibles
like Jesus knew his? Yes, indeed. But isn’t it easy for the habit to become an
end in itself, a pride in moving the book-marker on the requisite number of
pages per day? But no pondering the
Word, no making sure its truth is reaching from the page to the mind and so to
the heart, no concern for the Word to change us into the likeness of our
Saviour. Over everything the Bible would inscribe the words: ‘These things I
write to you so that you may not sin’ (I Jn 2:1). (Isaiah by the Day, p. 15)
As I prepare for worship this is my prayer: “O my God, Heaven is your
home and the earth is your footstool.
There is nothing that escapes you gaze, including the deepest recesses
of my heart. Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my
anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the
path of everlasting life. (Psalm
139:23-24 NLT) Holy God, this week in your Word you
command me to wash myself and be clean; to remove the evil from before Your
eyes, to stop sinning and to start doing good.
But Lord, you know I can’t do that myself. And you know that more often that not I don’t
want to. I confess that to you and ask
for your forgiveness. Only through Jesus
can I be clean; only in Him can I have my sinful heart changed and my can I
live for you. Gracious Father, thank you
for Jesus! Thank you doing for me what I
could never do for myself. Thank you for
saving me and making me your child.
Thank you for the opportunity to come into your presence with my
brothers and sisters in Christ this Sunday to worship You! Thank you for inviting me to “come”. Holy Spirit, prepare my heart for
worship. Reveal what’s in my heart the
sin that needs to be confessed. Fill my
heart with praise. Burden my heart for
someone who needs to know you, who needs to hear from you, and enable me to
invite them to come to church with me.
This is my prayer as I prepare for worship. I invite you to make it yours, too. I look forward to seeing you Sunday!
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