The proper use of knowledge. You may know something about somebody, but that doesn't mean you need to go say it to them. You're wise.
Some of you are familiar with the boxer Mike Tyson. Would you go up and say anything to him? Would you walk up to him and say, you know what? I've never liked you. I think your face is ugly. You might get to say it.
I'm just saying we have to think through life all the way through. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Isaiah.
Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Now here's Pastor Rick in the book of Isaiah chapter one with this edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Their acts of violence were akin to murder. The bribes, the purchase of properties to the ruin of widows and orphans, the sacred nature of blood, very serious with God in the Old and New Testament, and he's not negligent in pointing it out. Going back to Genesis chapter four is the prohibition of murder. Then in Genesis nine is the prohibition of consuming blood, which when you get to the New Testament, you would think that the Gentiles coming to the church that were previously eating blood dishes would say, you know, God is, he doesn't like this in the scripture. He's not going to disqualify me from my salvation, but he has spoken about this. I think I'm going to stop eating these bloody things.
Anyway, I mean all out, just, you know, straight out. The vital role of blood in sacrifice, which is man's approach to God, that's pointed out in Hebrews nine, verse seven and eighteen, and in first John one, seven, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sins. So my point is the prohibition of murder, the prohibition of consuming blood, and the solemn act of blood sacrifice fulfilled in Christ, they're very serious things.
So when he talks about blood, God is always serious, and so am I. I mean, you know, if you bump yourself or, you know, you look to see real quick how much blood's coming out of me. So anyway, this is a sacred perspective that they treated with sacrilege. Remember, especially you young men, there's nothing cool about hell, and to act like you're too cool to be righteous, and that some things are sacred to you is a trap from hell. It is okay to say to irreverent sacrilegious people, no, I don't play for that team.
I reject that approach. Some things to me are sacred, whether they are to you or not, and they're in the inside and not the outside. Yeah, you could take my Bible and you could throw it into the river, but it's still a sacred document to me, and I'm not going to dive into the river to get it. It doesn't make it any less sacred to me.
I don't worship it, but I understand what these things mean in the presence of a holy God. He says in verse sixteen, wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil.
Threefold. Wash to be clean. That's the past. Put away the evil ways. That's the present. Stop doing what you're doing.
That's the future. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, put away the evil from your doings. Cease to do evil.
That's the solution. Be done with evil and get busy with good. The New Testament picks that right up. That beautiful twelfth chapter of Romans.
Don't be afraid of Romans, because a lot of Christian teachers make Romans, they scare you with it. This is a doctrinal statement, and you're looking for the doctrine, and you can miss all the beauty of it. Just listen to the poetic nature of this verse.
Romans twelve nine. Love without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. It's just so simple.
It goes back to Micah, you know. He's showing you old man what is good and what the Lord requires of you. Love without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. How do you, how do you improve that?
Verse seventeen. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Rebuke the oppressor. Defend the fatherless. Plead for the widow. Isaiah is saying, these are the charges against you.
Here's the solution. Here's the way out. So he directs them how to go forward. Righteous leadership always involves fair treatment of the weakest members of society. Always.
And that's why God points out what he says here. Seek justice. Rebuke the oppressor. Defend the fatherless. Plead for the widow. And in those societies, those folks, they had a thought, today in our society, in this country, it's not as bad.
You could actually pretty good. You can be, you know, left a sizable amount of money to take care of yourself. In those days, Mel, man, you could be in a real bad place. Orphans and widows.
The underdogs, dogs of society, not just them, all underdogs of society is the point. This is voiced, so serious is God, is voiced in the law. Example, Deuteronomy 24, 17. It is voiced in the prophets. Here, verse 17, Jeremiah 7, Zechariah 7. And then the Wisdom Book of Job, Job 31.
God makes, and of course there are other places, so James picks it up. Verse 18, this is one of the most beautiful verses in all the Bible. Come now let us reason together, says Yahweh. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
Come now let us reason. This is sort of a preview of the last 27 chapters of Isaiah, which lays the focus more on grace and forgiveness than judgment. More on the coming kingdom through Messiah than the sins of the people and the nations. That's the difference between the first 39 chapters and the last 27.
And I'd be remiss if I didn't point out we have 39 Old Testament books and 27 New Testament books. And I think those kind of things are an act of God also. But notice what he says here in verse 18 when he says, come to reason about what? Your sins. And then he says, looking at verse 18, they, they, they, the sins of the individual soul. These are my sins.
There are many like them, but these are mine. And they have to be dealt with by somebody bigger than me, better than me, and that is the Christ. And so God invites man to use his brains to consider. Come now, let us reason. Now, you know, one commentator I was reading, he actually says, there's just this thing in people that they have to attack their, their own people. It's like, well, it doesn't mean what the English translators like to say, come let us reason. Yes, it does mean that. Then he goes on to say, it means come let us argue. Not, not a fussing argument, but an exchange of ideas. Is that not reason? I mean, this is a guy who's supposed to be pretty smart.
Why? And he gets, you know, they get, we get, they get. Not me, because I don't make these mistakes. I just point them out in others. No, I do, I do. But hopefully you don't catch them.
And hopefully they're minor. But the point is, it means just that. God is saying, come, let's discuss this. Let's reason it. Let's argue it. Let's put it on the table.
Let's get to the bottom of your sins. Because they're, they're glaring. Crimson is a glaring color. You notice that right away.
Yeah, I mean, it's a beautiful color. But God, in this context, it's the mark of blood of sin. And God says, I can deal with this with you. He does not want us to have a non-reasoned experience in our faith.
And there are churches and Christians that teach just this. You've got to have faith, brother. Don't think. Just feel it.
Just do it. That's crazy. That's not walking in the light. That's walking in the dark. We have a whole book of forcing you to think. It's called the Proverbs.
And it's God saying, hey, look, don't go thinking. You just have all the answers. You need to learn. Get wisdom.
Lay hold of it. It's not enough to amass data. You need to know what to do with it. And that is called wisdom. The proper use of knowledge. So you may know something about somebody, but that doesn't mean you need to go say it to them. You're just not, you're wise. I mean, there are things you, some of you are familiar with the boxer Mike Tyson. Are there things, would you go up and say just anything to him?
Would you walk up to him and say, you know what? I've never liked you. I think your face is ugly. You might get to say it. I'm just saying.
We have to think through life all the way through. And there's nothing wrong with that. It is an honor that God does not say to Beatles, come, let's reason. But he says to us, he invites us. So your sins are like scarlet, they should be white as snow. How many people out there are my sins, aren't they? I'm not that bad. Yeah, because you're comparing yourself with somebody who may be worse than you, but to God, your righteousness is like filthy rags.
Can't wait till we get to that in Isaiah. Anyway, we, as depraved as we are, God invites us to choose salvation over condemnation. That choice is given. I don't care what some theologians say. I know what the Bible says.
I have said before you, life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life that both you and your descendants may live, Deuteronomy 30 19. It is reasonable to accept the cleansing offers of God, otherwise they would not be issued. Peter said to him, you shall never wash my feet. Jesus answered, if I don't wash your feet, you have no part with me. And of course, Peter says, just pour it on, Lord.
Just pour it all over. See, he's just able, he wasn't too depraved to come to that understanding. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Again, these glaring colors. The psalmist wrote, after his sin, after God gave him mercy, purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. The deep dyed character of sin. And then one more from Peter, knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, and he goes on like gold, silver, but with the precious blood, there's that word again of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. Verse 19, if you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land. Verse 20, but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword the mouth of Yahweh has spoken.
So God again puts the choices before man to choose to receive or reject. Don't blame God. Nobody can blame God. Well, I never had a chance.
I never had a shot. God is just, and our understanding of justice is not damning people without a chance. On some level, we may never know what that is, but God's got it together. Acts chapter 3, repent therefore, be converted that your sins may be blotted out so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, because they're not going to come like this from anywhere else.
And so now he's finished with the charges. Now comes the lamentation over Zion. Verse 21, how the faithful city has become a harlot. It was full of justice, righteousness lodged in it, but now murderers.
So heartbreaking. The faithful city was overrun with the deplorably unfaithful. It was overtaken. We're watching this happen in this nation.
We are watching just the basic decencies chip away. I wouldn't mind going back to, you know, the blue laws when stores were closed on Sundays. You had to get your act together Saturday. If you were out of it by Saturday night, you just had to wait till Monday.
And it wasn't so bad. And now I notice how many things, oh, we got to do this on Sunday. Oh, that class is on Sunday.
That event is on Sunday. People just trample it. Just because they're not going to church, they're insensitive to other people who might want to go to church. I say we go give them a beat down. We get ourselves some leather jackets and just some combat boots and we Christians aren't taking it anymore. I'd love to see the look on their faces, but I would not want to see the look on the Lord's face.
Anyway, yeah, human suffering. Multiply because of the senselessness. The theme here, the theme is vanished glory. The glory that's just poof, gone. The degenerate city made so by degenerate people.
It wasn't an accident. It wasn't, oh, whatever happened to Jerusalem? And the people who saw nothing ugly about their hypocritical religion, they saw nothing beautiful about God. The psalmist did. All the psalmist saw the beauty of the Lord. Even, I think, Psalm 88 really just ends in tragedy. The one psalmist is like, I'm just sorry, God. He's still praying. He's still coming to God, but he's at the end of himself.
And it's just a reality of life, but it's one of 150 that is like that. So here, God, of course, made Israel to be this beacon of light to the nations. Instead, she's denounced as decadent. When he says harlot, of course, the use of shock to shake them. You're spiritual phonies.
You're unfaithful. The impenitent would deny God's voice was this. They would be saying, the temple of the Lord, God's with us.
Isaiah, who do you think you are? As they do to this day. Verse 22, your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water. They ruined everything.
It's the idea. Through their wickedness, everything was devalued. Silver can contain alloys and still be silver, but once it becomes dross, which is the polluted element, the slag, it's not silver anymore.
It's gone. And he's saying, it's your silver. It's your wine.
If unchecked sin ravages like leaven, it goes through everything. And so God is again distancing himself where he says in verse 23, he will say, your princes. And so he's making this distinction between the wicked and himself. Verse 23, your princes, the politicians, are rebellious and the companions of thieves.
Everyone loves bribes, follows after rewards. They do not defend the fatherless nor does the cause of the widow come before them. Well, we commented that on the underdogs in verse 17. And it's not limited to widows and orphans. It's anybody who's an outcast and really just, you know, a refugee. God shows favor to those who were strangers. He says, you were strangers in Egypt. Don't forget that.
It's not easy to do that if you're in the flesh. You're going to have problems with the spiritual man, looks beyond these things. But the artificial religion and apostasy cranked out corrupt politicians, thievery, violence, murder, like a factory. Paul talks about that when he talks about, you know, the gifts of the fruit of the spirit and he talks about the flesh. It's like, you know, these smokestacks bellowing out this black smoke and just everything goes dark because of the flesh that he itemizes there in Galatians 5. Other cities in history have suffered destruction and vanished glory and poets have lamented over those lost cities. We get to Revelation, there will be those lamenting over Babylon. Was this not the great Babylon? The difference is, Israel's prophets were all over with warnings, all over it, with warnings and predictions and nobody else has the righteousness that they were presenting to the people.
There is no excuse. There can only be mercy and a remnant who receives that mercy, which will be the case in the end when a very small remnant survives the great tribulation period of Israel, remnant of Israel. Verse 24, therefore, the Lord says, Yahweh of hosts, the mighty one of Israel, I will rid myself of my adversaries and take vengeance on my enemies. You see that little human anthropomorphic ah, you know, there's this just a connection there. I will rid myself of my adversaries and take vengeance on my enemies.
Who are they in context? He's speaking of the chosen people who are against God. This last, this title, the mighty one of Israel, it's a unique and poetic variation of the mighty one of Jacob, which comes up in other sections in Isaiah and the Bible. Verse 25, I will turn my hand against you and thoroughly purge away your dross and take away all your alloy, the things that are mixed in and the things that are useless. God is going to clean up this polluted river. Verse 26, I will restore your judges as at the first and your counselors as at the beginning.
Afterward, you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city. So Isaiah, typical, says, listen, here's the bad news, but there's good news, and this is it. It's God's ambition to comfort his people. That's why you get to chapter 40, comfort, yes, comfort my people, the beginning of the last 27 chapters.
That's God's ambition. But the promise to punish comes with the promise to restore. Initially, the judges in Israel, incidentally, they were solid.
But after that first generation of judges died, that generation of Joshua and the judges, then everything went out of control and everyone did what they, their own thing. So verse 27, Zion shall be redeemed with justice and her penitence with righteousness. Well, the penitence of those who confess their sin and admit that the Lord is God and they want to be right with him.
They submit. Verse 28, the destruction of transgressors and of sinners shall be together and those who forsake Yahweh shall be consumed. What would happen if you could read this to a coworker that was an unbeliever, if you could read this first chapter of Isaiah?
I'm sure there'd be a lot of questions, but there'd be a lot of hits, too. There's no way someone could listen to this first chapter of Isaiah and say, I don't get it, unless they were lying. You can't miss the chart, the indictments. You won't get all of it. Of course, I'm not saying that.
You'll get enough. And it'd be a lot of room for discussion. May God send us people to read the Bible, too. So these promises, lasting restoration, he's talking about the kingdom age, converts will enjoy the millennial kingdom, and those forsaking Messiah ultimately will not.
So all the way to the end, there will be the saints and the aint's. Verse 29, for they shall be ashamed of the terebinth trees which you have desired and you shall be embarrassed because of the gardens which you have chosen. Well, they would use various woods for their choice idols. Even to this day, you can go to places and find carved idols, and they sell them as, you know, the ancient people used to worship these things. Now we don't carve them out with wood.
We just have them in our heads. The trees in the gardens, well, the gardens often surrounded the sacred places of this pagan worship, as today. You can go to cultic places and pagan places, and they're big on gardens. Who doesn't like a garden?
Verse 30, and I just, if anybody killed that bug, let me know, because I get satisfaction out of that at the end. For you shall be as a terebinth tree whose leaf fades and as a garden that has no water. Well, the evergreen aptly symbolized undying life. It's always green year-round, and people picked up on that and baked that into their religion, and the fertility gods and all that other stuff with the paganism is essentially the worship of nature, and we're seeing that now. You know, recycle your paper and bags. Well, you know, just watching some shows on that, and these I think were responsible of how much of it is, some of it's good, but so much of it is just a religion.
But anyway, my point is the worship of nature. You know, we've got to save the planet. For what? What are you saving it for? Let's use it. I think when those real stats come out, you're amazed at landfills, how much space there's available for landfills.
It's quite staggering. Anyway, these are people of the ancient world worshiping the created things, and the prophet is pointing it out. False religion cannot keep its promises. It can promise you things, but it's going to fail, and so the terebinth tree whose leaf fades, it's going to die.
It's not going to, it's going to dry up and die. They're religion just like their trees. False religion has no divine reality to support it. And a biography of Mike McIntosh, a Calvary pastor years ago out of the hippie movement, just brain wracked by drugs, had a vision of these false gods and Maharishnis and things telling him, well, you're dead now, and this is as far as we can take you. And it's interesting that that experience that he had does echo the reality of what Isaiah is saying. The false gods can only take you to death.
They can't take you any further, not to good. And this is what we try to tell the world. Verse 31, the strong shall be as tinder and the work of it as a spark. Both will burn together and no one shall quench them. They're doomed is what he's saying. Choose anything but the will and the way of God and the results will be tragic.
And that's how he closes this chapter. Well, there's plenty more rebukes coming and sarcasm coming from the prophet, so I'm looking forward to it. Just how do we get it to the unbeliever? Well, you young Christians, you stay strong in the scriptures.
Learn as much as you can. That will give the Holy Spirit something to use when he puts you in front of these people who think they know everything about God and they don't. And then that is true not only for you, but for the older saints too. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio today. Cross Reference Radio is a ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel mechanicsville in Virginia. If you'd like to learn more about this ministry, we invite you to visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com.
You'll find a number of teachings from Pastor Rick available there. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of new additions of Cross Reference Radio. Just search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. You can also follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. We're glad we were able to spend time with you today. Tune in next time to continue learning from the book of Isaiah with Pastor Rick right here on Cross Reference Radio.
