Introduction
At the end of a wedding, the minister or justice of the peace says, “By the power vested in my by the state of , I now pronounce you man and wife.”
This is an end to the wedding ceremony, but it marks the beginning of a life of matrimony for the newlyweds. The anticipated moment that they have been dreaming of has now become realized – the two have become one.
Life will end for every person in one way or another. And when life is over, it marks the beginning of eternity for that soul.
Results of Rejection (Isaiah 65:1-16)
1)Judgment Awaits All Who Reject God's Grace (Isaiah 65:1-7)
Those Who Don't Seek Found (Isaiah 65:1)
1 Peter 2:10 – Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Romans 9:25, 26 – 25 As he says in Hosea:
“I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people;
and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,”[a]
“It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them,
‘You are not my people,’
they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’
The Danger of Hearing Without Heeding (Isaiah 65:2-5)
No one will ever stand before God and say there was not enough evidence of His existence.
I dare say, there will be many that stand before Him and acknowledge His out-held hand of grace that they rejected.
In speaking to Israel, Isaiah is contrasting those in verse 1, a nation, to those whom God had held out His hand to all day long. He had been offering His grace to Israel all day, yet how did they respond?
Jesus put it this way:
Matthew 23:37-39 – 37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. 38 Look, your house is left to you desolate. 39 For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’
For the most part, Israel's response was rejection to God and His grace. And Isaiah outlines several results of that rejection:
First of all, he calls them obstinate, walk in evil ways (not good ways), and pursue their own imaginations. This is so true of humanity in general. We tend to build up our own image of what God is like based upon our personal wicked bent. We desire for Him to conform to our ideal, and so we tend to imagine Him something that is totally contrary to His revelation.
Israel was no exception. Of all the nations, they were the ones who should have known better, but they became complacent as a people and comfortable in their position. They became proud in their heritage and forsook the One who gave them their place in the world. They broke covenant with God and would reap the consequences of their own rejection. And so many of the descendants of Abraham died outside of a relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Our lives can provoke God if we are ignoring Him and His word! This is a serious matter. Our worship can become superstitions without a true understanding of God through His word. We can begin to view our worship as a means of manipulating God. Or a way of making ourselves right with God. We do this without even realizing that it is impossible to worship God without being first made right with God.
The end result is that a person becomes so filled with his own self-worth and self-righteousness that God is no longer worthy of the individual. That man becomes unapproachable rather than the reality that God is unapproachable because of man's uncleanness due to sin.
The sad thing is this, those who are in this condition become duped by their own feeling of self-worth. They don't realize the true effect they have on God. And here God tells Israel that they are like smoke in His nostrils.
I don't know if you have experienced such a thing as smoke up the nose. It is not pleasant. Not that you like the smell of a good campfire. But when the smoke goes up your nose and causes the eyes to water. It is unpleasant and God wants those who are living in this way to realize that they are unpleasant to Him. And that He will not tolerate such insolence forever.
Full Payment Is Coming (Isaiah 65:6-7)
God is about to bring on Israel the judgment due them. The judgment that is long overdue and were it not for God's patience, it would have happened long before. But often God withholds what man deserves in order to show His character more clearly, His patience and mercy, and also to give an opportunity for some to repent.
God's warnings to the wicked should be noted by His servants and used as an opportunity to examine one's life. To turn from any wayward path. To repent while there is still time.
2 Peter 3:9 – The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
Application
God's hand has been held out to us all year long as we've studied Isaiah. Perhaps you've seen God in a way you've never seen Him before.
How are you responding to God's hand of grace extended to you?
What imaginations are you fostering regarding God and His character?
What provocations do you need to repent of?
2)The Elect Are Spared (Isaiah 65:8-10)
Have you every bought a batch of fruit from one of those warehouse food outlets only to find that there was not too much edible fruit in the bag? That you would be better off just dumping the whole lot into the composter? I recently bought a container of grapes that looked great from the outside, but once I opened them, I noticed that they were far too ripe. Many of the grapes were beginning to mold and those that weren't were actually so ripe that the stems were breaking off. The grapes had very little juice in them.
This is the idea we see in verse 8, there are just a few grapes worth anything. Just a remnant.
Even though the bulk of the people were without remedy and would fall under God's judgment, there were some among the people who were God's elect. God knew some in a relational sense and they would be spared God's wrath.
Even though some of them may have been following in the same paths as the wicked, this warning would serve to awaken them to the reality of their condition before a holy God. And that is the way God often works. As I said before, His warnings present the stark reality – that sin has consequences and God's justice will be served. All humanity deserves God's wrath because of sin.
But it is the grace of God that any are spared, that any receive His unmerited favor and forgiveness of sin.
Not all in Israel would fall by the sword of Babylon, some would return to enjoy the good land once more.
Note: none of us should get the false notion that bad things happen only to bad people and good things only happen to good people. The temporal outcome of life events is no accurate gauge of one's spiritual condition. But since Israel is representative of a people in a covenant relationship with God under a Theocracy, often the life, death, blessings, and other things serve to highlight the spiritual blessings realized in a relationship with God in Jesus Christ.
So let me ask you:
Do you have any juice left in you?
3)Those Who Reject Are Destroyed (Isaiah 65:11-13)
You can't get much clearer than this. The elect are spared, but those who reject God's warning and ignore His grace and mercy, there will be no remedy. They will be destroyed.
That was true of unbelieving Israel and it is true of all humanity that rejects God's provision – His only provision of salvation through His son. There will be no remedy. There will be no second chance. Only sorrow.
4)The Great Contrast (Isaiah 65:13-16)
There is a great contrast, in verses 13-16, between the “servants” and the “you”. And to summarize, the servants are going to be completely provided for by the Lord. There will not be a need that is unmet, even to the point where they will be in a position to rightly relate to God. His name will be used as a blessing and viewed as the God who is true. In fact, the past problems of the exile and invasion will be forgotten. There will be no reason to remember it.
But for those who are not God's elect, they will experience a barren existence and when they are gone, their very names will be used as a curse. Since they were the ones responsible for the exile, they will be remembered as ones that are associated with the curse of sin.
5)Principle:
There is no remedy for the results of rejecting God.
Recreation (Isaiah 65:17-25)
1)No Memory of the Past (Isaiah 65:17)
We all like to forget the bad times. In fact, I have often made the good old days seem like a utopia in my own mind. But that is because of the fact that we often try to forget the unpleasant and cling to the enjoyable memories.
Well, there is a day coming when there will be no memory of the past in relation to sorrow and pain. When we enter God's presence in His newly created world, we will not be plagued by memories of our past sins, but we will only be faced with the present reality of being with God eternally.
2)Rejoicing and Delight (Isaiah 65:18-19)
Verses 18 and 19 are almost like a play on words in the NIV. There is a call, in verse 18, to rejoice forever in what God will create. This is not going to be something that is temporal or will at all be subject to change and corruption. It will be a place of eternal joy.
And He says that Jerusalem will be a delight and its people a joy. What a contrast from what was spoken in the last section. That those from Jerusalem were previously a provocation to God like smoke in His nostrils. But now, the people will be a joy.
And even God will take delight in His people. There will be nothing to come between and separate – no sin and nothing to defile.
3)Long Life and Fruitfulness (Isaiah 65:20-23)
One of our leaders pointed out the idea that this passage may in fact be a sort of bifocal moment for Isaiah. Some of what he is seeing refers to the near term events when God rebuilds Jerusalem and the exiles return and are blessed by God.
But also, it may be that these are shadows of the eternal state of affairs when God reanimates all of creation. And these word pictures point out that no longer will death and infant mortality be an issue that plagues humanity. The very sorrows associated with that type of existence in this fallen world will one day be forgotten elements of another world.
No longer will people build and toil and labor for naught, only to have tornadoes and fire destroy or enemies come and take the fruit of one's labor. But instead, all of life will be as God originally intended, living out our existence for the purposes that He has designed.
4)Answers Immediately (Isaiah 65:24)
When we are eternally with God, no longer will our wills stray from what God's will is. In fact, we will completely align ourselves under His authority without any rebellion or self-interest. Everything we need will be supplied by God without our need to ask. No longer will we pray for His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven because there will be a merge between heaven and earth and only God's will will be extant at that time.
5)The Petting Zoo (Isaiah 65:25)
For any of us who like animals, this last verse in the chapter is so good. One day, we will be able to wrestle with a Siberian Tiger and not get hurt. We can play tag with a cobra and win. The animal kingdom will also be completely restored to the state it was in when Adam and Eve resided in the garden.
Then and only then will the bumper sticker, No Fear, be justifiable (except we won't have bumpers to put the sticker on).
6)Illustration
I've been looking at various different potential employers for the past five weeks, while I have been out of work. Work has its rewards. There is satisfaction in seeing a project to the end and then having it used by customers and bring value to other organizations or people. Also, various benefit packages are offered with some being quite generous.
7)Principle
God offers an eternal benefits package to those who belong to Him.
8)Applications:
What are you looking forward to forgetting in God's new creation?
What things are you doing in this life in order to be a delight to God?
Glorious (Isaiah 66)
Man was created for God's glory and to glorify God. Our satisfaction is found in bringing Him glory.
1)What God Wants (Isaiah 66:1-2)
It's foolish to think that anyone in God's creation can create something that God needs. Or that man can compensate for sin by producing some substitute that will please God.
God has never been about the rituals of religion if they are devoid of a broken heart over sin. Any type of worship that becomes an end in and of itself is deplorable to God.
Consider the things the Galatians were trying to do in Paul's day. They were saved by grace through faith in the gospel message Paul had brought to them. But then they wanted to go back to the Old Covenant types and shadows and cling to the sacrifices, festivals, and temple worship as if that was something that God required.
God has never been pleased with merely outward expressions of religion unless those expressions are a result of a heart that is right toward Him. The sacrifices offered on the alter were a stench in God's nostrils if they were brought without repentance and true contrition.
And so, rather than approaching God out of a self-centered motive to appease an angry God, one must realize the holiness of God and the despicable nature of one's own sin. To be humbled by who God is and His mercy and grace. Coming with true remorse and repentance for sin.
That is what God esteems. That is what He considers a valuable asset.
I heard a definition of humility this weekend: “Not thinking too lowly or too highly of oneself, but rather, not thinking of oneself at all.” In other words, the focus is not on me if I am really humble.
To be humble and contrite in spirit is to be thinking of the effect of my sin on a relationship with God. To realize the offensive nature of it and what sin truly deserves. And from there, be sorrowful over the way sin breaks fellowship and how I am the cause.
It leads to a heart of repentance which God certainly will not reject.
Trembling at God's word is the idea of being mindful of the gravity of Who has spoken. Reverence for God and His word lends itself to the mindset that what His word says has implications for one's life. It leads to conviction and correction when necessary.
2)What God Judges (Isaiah 66:3-6)
In contrast to a contrite and humble heart, the ones who thought they were right with God due to their rituals, were in fact not right with God and were also those who persecuted the true believers.
Often, that is the way things are. In Christianity, many of the atrocities toward the saints have been done in the name of Christ. Some of the martyrs of the past were martyrs due to their true trust in God.
Many who have trembled at God's word have also been the victims of abuse by those who claim to know God.
3)The Birth of the Church (Isaiah 66:7-13)
There's a lot of use of this metaphor of labor in 7-13. The talk about the order of delivery in that there is labor and then comes the child.
No one has ever heard of a birth (natural birth) without first the process of labor pains.
Neither has anyone ever heard of the idea of a nation being birthed in a single day.
But God brings about the birth of a nation out of Zion that is not like a traditional nation, based upon geographic boundaries, common language, common origin, instead, He births a nation where two, Jew and Gentile, are made one.
The mystery in Christ that Paul talked about. This grafting in of those who were not a people being called the people of God. The wild olive branch being grafted into the natural, both being nourished by the vine. Both receiving the blessings of God promised to Abraham and His descendants.
Both being made one and being recipients of God's comfort.
4)The Coming Great Wrath (Isaiah 66:15-17)
There is a repeated warning: God will and must judge sin. And it will be swift and complete.
In 15-17, he uses the picture of a fire that is coming to consume the enemies of God. In the preceding verse, 14, He described those people of God flourishing like grass.
But in verse 15, God's wrath against the wicked will consume like fire consumes dry grass.
I'm not sure how many of you have ever been around a grass fire. I used to love playing with matches. When I was in elementary or junior high, I had an open field behind the house. And one day, I had a small fire I had created actually begin to catch the dry field grass on fire. That causes a young kid some real fear. Even to the point that he might swear he will never play with matches again. We didn't burn the house down, but we did get our pulse rate up into the aerobic range!
Dry grass is no match for a fire. But even more, the wicked are no match for the fury of the wrath of God. And in fact, man's sin adds fuel to the fire (so to speak).
Paul, in 2 Corinthians 5:10 says, 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.
John, the Apostle speaks of God's judgment in Revelation 20:12-15, 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15 If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
5)God's Glory Revealed (Isaiah 66:18-21)
In verse 18, and on through verse 21, God talks about His glory being revealed, not just to Jews, but crossing all boundaries of language or geography. And as a result of that revelation of God's glory, there will be a gathering in Jerusalem.
Those from every tribe, tongue, and province who have come by faith to the Lord, all will one day be part of God's gathering into His final dwelling. All of His own will be heirs to an eternal kingdom that will not perish, spoil, or fade – an inheritance that God has kept for us.
Notice the offering metaphor that is used. The souls of the saints are like a fragrant offering to God. God desires believers to be about the business of spreading the good news of the gospel so that the renown of the Lord may be seen everywhere. And the elect of God, the humble and contrite of heart, are like an offering to God.
Just like the priests brought the offerings of the people into the temple and placed them on the alter before the Lord, how much more acceptable an offering is the soul of a man, woman, or child who by faith, receives God's gift of salvation made available through the eternal sacrifice of Jesus Christ His Son?
Who was it that shared God's glory and God's gospel with you?
With whom does God want you to share His glory and gospel? Will you?
6)The Worshipers and the Worms (Isaiah 66:22-24)
The final couple of verses depict the two possible states of all mankind. There are those who reside in the new heavens and new earth and they will be ever before the Lord in worship and praise. Living out eternal gratitude in response to the One who is worthy of all praise.
The others, those who rejected God and wanted nothing to do with Him will be “outside”, in a state of eternal fire. A fire that is never quenched. A loathsome existence, without hope of change.
The grim reality is this, we all deserve the loathsome existence. But God, in mercy, offers us these warnings about what we deserve, not to scare us, but to show us how truly offensive sin really is.
And how great the cost to redeem sinners really was. We can enter into that relationship, Jew or Gentile, not because we deserve it, but because God graciously offers it. His hand is still held out.
Have you received God's offer of salvation?
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