‘Yahweh is salvation saves’ (Isaiah 1:1-20)

 

One of the keys to understanding the book of Isaiah is to remember the prophet’s name.  Isaiah means ‘Yahweh is salvation.’  But who is Yahweh and what does it mean to say that he saves?  Yahweh is the God of the Bible, and this passage is going to show us what it means to be saved.

You might have grown up in a church, or going to camps, where people talked about being saved.  You may have been asked by someone ‘are you saved?’  It might all make sense to you, but the truth is that most people in Castletroy have a faulty view of who God is and don’t know what being saved is all about.

Being saved is for those who know that they are in trouble. 

Being saved is for those who know that they are in trouble (1-9)

In the Old Testament God had a special relationship with the descendants of a man called Abraham.  He had made them into a nation, and outsiders were to be welcomed to become a part of that nation.  That nation was given a land—the Promised Land, the land of Canaan.  But those people continually disobeyed God.  So, he let the nation be divided in two.  Through Isaiah God is speaking to the southern part of the divided nation, the kingdom of Judah, whose capital was Jerusalem.

The special status these people had is seen in the fact that he says that they were children of God.  ‘Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me’ (2b).  ‘They have forsaken the LORD, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged’ 4b).  To God there is no greater tragedy in the universe than watching people he has loved rebel against him.  ‘What wounds the heart of God is that we are as rebellious against him as we are blessed by him’ (Ortland).

Have you been blessed by God?  A man called Paul explained to a bunch of people who did not know God that ‘he has shown you kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy’ (Acts 14:17).  God is the one who has given us every breath we take and every good thing that we enjoy.  We owe him our very lives, but we have not spent our life thanking him for his goodness and living for his glory.

These people ‘have forsaken Yahweh, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged’ (4b).  One Bible expert explains that explains that ‘theft, murder, terrorism, and other outward sins are mere fleabites compared with the mega-sin of forsaking and despising God’ (Ortland).  Each one of us has been guilty of forsaking God.

Yet no matter what God does to discipline these people and bring them to their senses, they ignore him.  The problem is that they think that they are healthy.  Jesus would later explain that ‘it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.  I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance’ (Luke 5:32-33).

The truth is that all of us are more wicked than we realise.  That is why we need saving.  We need to be rescued from God’s judgement on the fact that we have lived lives characterised by ignoring and disobeying him.

Empty religion cannot save you (10-17)

How could these people who despised God not see that they were sick?  This might surprise you, but they taught that all was well with them because their nation was prosperous and they were religious.  Yes, it is possible to be religious and not love God.  It is possible to like the rituals and ceremonies and familiarity of church and not know God. 

Their religion centred on a temple in Jerusalem, and they actually followed the instructions God had given them for how to carry it out, but it didn’t please God.  In fact, their religion angered and wearied God.  God tells them that he will not listen to their prayers unless they change—he calls them to repent (which in the Bible means that you change your mind and show your changed mind with a changed way of living). 

The big change they are to make is how they treat people who are vulnerable.  The Old Testament has a lot to say about how we should love those who are in need.  In particular, God shows special care for widows, migrants, the fatherless and the poor (the must vulnerable people in that culture).

Empty religion cannot save you, James, a half-brother of Jesus, explains that ‘religion that god the Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and keep oneself from being polluted by the world’ (James 1:27).

Jesus is the one who saves us (18-20)

There is an empty religion that God despises and there is a religion that God accepts.  However, even heartfelt and sincere religion is not what saves us.  Living a changed life is actually a response to the fact that we have been saved.

You see the heart of Yahweh has always been to forgive wicked people who have come to realise that they need to be saved.  God says through Isaiah, ‘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 become like wool.  If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the Yahweh has spoken’ (18-20).

Note that to be saved is to be rescued from God’s righteous judgement.  He is holy and he will not tolerate evil.  He loves vulnerable people too much to act like their mistreatment does not matter.  But it is his nature to save those who have come to recognise that they have despised God by our ingratitude, our self-righteousness, our empty religion and our lack of concern for the needy.  He saves us by forgiving us.  He saves us in order that we might become different.

The language of being cleaned brings us to the person of Jesus.  One of Jesus’ closest friends, John, wrote, ‘if we claim to be without sin we deceive ourselves and the truth has no place in us.  But the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin’ (1 John 1:6-7).  On the cross Jesus died to save us.  He took the punishment we deserve so that we could receive the blessing he deserves.

Conclusion

It is my desire that each of you would know personally the God who saves you.  As those who have been saved we should be the most grateful of all people.  We then honour God by remembering his forgiveness.

One theologian, Thomas Watson, reminds us that we are to throw our sin into the ocean of God’s love as if they were a lead pipe and not a cork top.  A cork bobbles around on the service.  A lead pipe drops to the bottom never to be seen again.  Once you have let God forgive you don’t keep going back to remind him about it, but be delighted that he has taken your scarlet-red sin and through the death of Jesus made it as white as snow.