Isaiah 1:18-20

c. JEHOVAH'S CALL

TEXT: Isaiah 1:18-20

18

Come now, and let us reason together, saith Jehovah; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

19

If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:

20

but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it.

QUERIES

a.

Is God's invitation to reason together an invitation to us to help Him decide our means of being saved?

b.

Does obedience save a man?

PARAPHRASE

Come! Think about this matter! says the Lord; no matter how deep the stain of your sins, I can take it out and make you as clean as freshly fallen snow. Even if you are stained as red as crimson, I can make you white as wool! If you will only be willing to let Me help you, if you will only obey, then I will make you rich. But if you keep on turning your backs and refusing to listen to Me, you will be killed by your enemies; I, the Lord, have spoken.

COMMENTS

Isaiah 1:18 THE INVITATION: Come is in the imperativea command. The invitation is to thinknot to make any decisions about the means of one's salvation. God alone can lay down the arbitrary conditions for salvation, for He is infinitely knowledgeable, wise, loving and powerful. On the basis of past historical demonstrations of God's omniscience and omnipotence, man is commanded to come and use his mind to remember, to think, to reason. If God has been absolutely faithful in keeping His word in the past, it should stand to reason that He will do so in the future. Man must think God's thoughtsman must conform his thinking to the revealed thoughts of God in order to be reasonable. To be reasonable is to obey the commands which God has given and the promises He has made. All sin and rebellion, whether in deed or thinking, is unreasonable. Come to your right mind, and sin no more (1 Corinthians 15:34).. they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. claiming to be wise, they became fools. (Romans 1:21-22).. irrational animals. (2 Peter 2:10-13). In the light of the historically established evidence and the pragmatic proof of the commandments and promises of God's Word, unbelief is irrational, unreasonable and immoral. Only God knows where man came from, what man's purpose in existing is, and what man's destiny is. All other thinking about these ultimates, unless conformed to God's revealed thinking, is irrational and untrue.

Isaiah 1:18 THE PROMISE: The bloodiest sin can be erased and the sinner transformed into such purity as the whitest snow or wool. God pardons the penitent sinner vicariously and judicially. That is, the sinner does not merit his own pardon. When the sinner turns to God in faith, trust and repentance, God forgives and erases his past and pronounces him righteous, even though the sinner himself could never do enough or be perfect enough to earn this forgiveness. Lest anyone should think, however, that this was an offer of unconditional pardon, whether there was faith or repentance or obedience on the part of the sinner, the Lord immediately calls the attention of the nation to the need for repentance and obedience.

Isaiah 1:19-20 THE ALTERNATIVE: The alternative to blessing is curse! God wants willing obediencenot the obedience of force. One translation has it: If ye be willing and hearken. To hearken is to obey. If any man hears these words of mine and does them, he is like the wise man.. Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man. (Matthew 7:24-27). The alternative to salvation is destruction. Such alternatives are inevitable in a moral universe!

QUIZ

1.

Is God inviting man to help Him figure out how to save man?

2.

What is God inviting man to do?

3.

Why is sin unreasonable?

4.

How is man pardoned from his sin?

5.

What is the alternative to pardon?

6.

Does one have to obey the Word of God to truly hear it?