A Father's Love for Rebellious Children--Isaiah Series

Every parent’s greatest nightmare is that their children will one day stop listening to them, stop responding to their discipline, and rebel against them. Most of us have seen others go through this heart-wrenching experience, and it can give us an almost irrational fear that its going to happen to us. Yet we have also seen enough of these situations to know that rebellion does not have to be the last chapter in that parent-child relationship. Reconciliation can occur, and it can lead to blessings that no one ever could have imagined. Throughout Scripture, God is often pictured as the Father of His people, so it should be no surprise that the Bible also pictures sin as an act of rebellion by a child against his parent. Isaiah 28-31 pictures the people of Israel as children who have rebelled against their Father, God. These chapters describe a list of sins that have come between God and His people, and this list can be very informative for us as we assess our behavior. What had pulled the children of Israel away from their Father? 1. Drunkenness (28:1-8) The impairment of judgment that comes from being drunk is an open invitation for sinful decisions. Back in chapter 5, God had pronounced doom on those who were pursuing alcohol, and now he visits this subject again [READ 28:1-8]. Notice how even those people who were supposed to be spiritual leaders were giving in to drunkenness. Isaiah mentions the priests and the prophets—referring here to the false prophets whom the people listened to because they told the people what they wanted to hear. So the people were being led by others who had their own judgment impaired by drunkenness. According to Scripture, drunkenness is a sin in its own right, but it also leaves us vulnerable to all kinds of temptations and sinful behaviors. Since our hearts are naturally inclined toward sin, we have to be sober and have our wits about us in order to be on guard against the sinful impulses that naturally arise within our hearts. That’s why drunkenness is so serious—it impairs our ability to think and thus counteract the sinful impulses that we have. Ephesians 5:18 says, “do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery,” which means a departure from the path of virtue. The Greek word behind that translation emphasizes recklessness and carelessness. Getting drunk is a reckless choice because it leaves us vulnerable to all kinds of temptations. The alternative, according to Ephesians 5:18, is to be filled with the Spirit. Rather than hand control of ourselves over to alcohol, we need to hand control of ourselves over to the Holy Spirit—to ask Him to empower us to make good judgments. By and large, our culture is far too casual about consuming something as powerful as alcohol. Advertisers spend millions upon millions of dollars to convince us that alcohol is the key to having a good time—just crack open a cold one and let the good times roll! But the Bible sobers us up about the dangers of alcohol. We must be very wise about how we handle something with such potential for danger. 2. An unwillingness to listen to Him (28:9-13, 30:8-11) How often do we see this attitude in our own children? They are unwilling to take our advice, and since we’ve been at this thing called “life” longer than they have, we know they are making a bad decision, but we just can’t get them to listen to us. We can actually adopt the same kind of attitude toward God, as the children of Israel had in Isaiah’s time [READ 30:8-11]. Now God was obviously describing the people’s attitude in these verses, not their actual words, because no one knowingly asks for false things to be taught to them. But these verses point out the deceptive nature of messages that come from the world rather than from God. The people wanted to hear “smooth things,” as it says in v. 10—things that go down easy, things that are easy to accept and pleasant to hear. God’s message through Isaiah was one of repentance and warnings about punishment, but the people didn’t want to hear that because it told them they were wrong and they needed to change. When we are presented with one message which tells us that we are wrong and another message that tells us that we are right, we want to believe the message which tells us that we are right because its much easier to accept. Its hard to admit that you’re wrong—that pill doesn’t go down smooth; that pill is a hard one to swallow. In chapter 28, we read that some of the people mocked Isaiah’s message as being too childish and unsophisticated [READ 28:9-10]. In Hebrew, the repetition of those words creates an effect that just sounds like a baby babbling (Sav lasav, sav lasav, Kav lakav, kav lakav, Ze' er sham, ze' er sham). So these scoffers were saying that Isaiah’s message from God was nothing more than baby talk. How ironic that they would reject a message from God as mere baby talk, because in the Gospels Jesus tells us “whoever humbles himself like a child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:4). They said the message was only fit for children, and ironically, they were correct in a way. How do we get to the point where we look down our noses at the Word of God? How do we lose our child-like faith in the Bible? Right now, we are teaching Adrianna that little song that says, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” How do we lose that simple trust in God’s Word? Well, it starts as we grow up. We start to learn more and more things, and before long we’re feeling pretty smart. We don’t feel like we need God’s advice as much because we think we’re starting to figure everything out. Then we hear criticisms about the Bible from so-called experts and we don’t want to be weird, so we tone down our confidence in the Bible. At that point, we no longer consult the Bible for all matters of life and faith, and the culture continues to tell us that the Bible is a wonderfully inspirational read, but its teachings just aren’t relevant for today. So our child-like faith gets undermined from within as we become wise in our own eyes and from without as we are pressured to conform to the wisdom of this world. And as all parents know, when your children won’t listen to good advice, there’s nothing left but for them to learn the hard way. I don’t believe God desires to teach us the hard way, but Hebrews 12 reminds us that He will discipline us when need be because He loves us and He wants to restore us to a place of blessing. 3. Hypocrisy (29:13-14) For all of the criticisms of the people of Israel that we have read in this book, we must remember that they were still very religious. They hadn’t abandoned the feasts and the sacrifices that God called for in the Law of Moses, but unfortunately their actions no longer flowed from hearts that were devoted to God. They were simply going through the motions, following traditions which they had been taught. Look at 29:13-14. The Lord Jesus quoted v. 13 in the Gospels to describe the Pharisees [READ 29:13-14]. What a sad consequence that we read of in v. 14. When God looked at the hearts of His people, He could see that they really didn’t want to hear what He had to say, so He was going to make them numb to His message. It is truly sad when people fall into hypocrisy because they are deceiving themselves. They think everything is okay between them and God because they are keeping up an outward conformity to His commands, but they are not allowing the purifying power of God’s Word to penetrate their hearts. Because our hearts are inclined toward sin, hypocrisy is a major threat to all of us—even if we only succumb to little bouts of it here and there. This threat is all the more real after we have established good spiritual habits in our lives, because habits can easily slip into rituals which we can mindlessly perpetuate. Hypocrisy can also be reinforced in a church setting in which church members are condemning toward each other and unwilling to admit their own faults. In these settings, we want to put up a good front for the people at church no matter what our lives are really like, and if we do that long enough we can convince ourselves that the good front is reality. The remedy for hypocrisy is integrity, where we have every part of our lives pointing in the same direction. Hypocrisy offers no rest for our souls because there is always tension from the various parts of our lives that are going in different directions, but integrity offers the sweet peace of a life that is wholly devoted to God. 4. A belief that God didn’t know their actions (29:15-16) Do you remember when you were a child and you just couldn’t figure out how your parents always knew what you were up to—especially when you were doing something you weren’t supposed to be doing? We never realized how obvious our behavior was, nor did we know about the advanced network of spies that our parents had around the neighborhood in other parents. Somehow it just never occurred to us that parents talked to each other about what we were up to! We read in chapter 29 that the children of Israel had a faulty understanding of God which led them to believe that God didn’t know everything that was going on. If you’ve ever been tempted to think that doctrine and theology are boring and irrelevant for daily life, here is yet another reminder that nothing could be further from the truth. Bad theology had given the children of Israel a twisted way of thinking, which led to an ungodly way of living [READ 29:15-16]. The children of Israel in the Old Testament lived during a time of widespread idolatry—some of which they bought into themselves. Idols were commonly thought to be localized gods who had authority over a certain area—like the mountains or the oceans—or a certain aspect of nature—like the harvest or fertility. The common denominator is that all of these idols were thought to have some kind of limits on their power, and it seems that the children of Israel had allowed that kind of thinking to influence the way they thought about their God—the one true God. Now I doubt that we would fall into this exact temptation, because I think most of us understand that God is everywhere and He knows everything. But I suspect that we could fall into a mindset in which we think that God doesn’t care about all aspects of our lives in the same way or He doesn’t care about every moment of our lives in the same way. We tend to think that certain moments or certain events in our lives are more important than others, so we might let “little” sins or “tiny” bad habits persist in our lives because we don’t think they are “that BIG of a deal.” But I don’t think God looks at our lives in quite the same way. He knows that every moment of life is significant and every choice we make is significant. He doesn’t pay attention to certain parts of our lives more than others—He cares about them all, so we must as well! 5. Looking for protection in other people rather than Him (30:1-5, 31:1-3) At this period of time, Assyria was becoming a major threat to the other nations of the Middle East—much like Iran today. All of the nations in the Middle East today must decide how they will protect themselves, and Israel in Isaiah’s day had to make the same decision. But rather than simply trust in the promises of protection that God had already given to them, the leaders of Israel chose to seek for an alliance with Egypt, displaying an unfortunate lack of trust in God [READ 30:1-5, 31:1-3]. On a personal level for us today, we don’t have many concerns about our safety, and that is a tremendous blessing. But God calls on us to trust in Him during droughts, during economic downturns, during times of personal suffering and at all other moments in our lives. The question that is ever before is this—will we trust God to be in control or will we try to control our own situations through some sinful means? Will we choose to trust God’s promises or will we not? The children of Israel at that were living like rebellious children against God their Father, but like any loving parent, God was ready to forgive His people and bless them once again [READ 30:18-22]. My friend, are you living in rebellion against God today? He is waiting for you; He is listening to hear your voice. He is ready to forgive you the moment that you repent of your sins and ask His forgiveness. Do not delay another day—run into the open arms of God your Father!

Discount Your Many Blessings?--Isaiah Series

How does it make you feel when you see someone squander an opportunity that you would love to have? I get frustrated at times when I see a professional athlete squander his or her talent. I played a lot of sports growing up, and I dreamed of going pro in all of them at one time or another, but it became clear in high school that pro sports were not in my future. So when I read headlines about an athlete that has been suspended for drug use, or someone who just hasn’t put in the effort to reach their potential, I get just a little bit frustrated because of those childhood dreams that still have a small place in my heart.

How about you? What sort of opportunities have you longed for in your life? Maybe you have always wanted to be in a certain profession, like acting. Perhaps you have dreamed of owning a ranch somewhere in the Rockies, or house on some secluded island. Maybe you’ve just found yourself thinking, “If I had the money, I would…”—you can fill in the blank. So how does it make you feel when someone squanders that opportunity that you have desired?

Now, let’s put ourselves on the other side of that question for a moment. How do you think God feels when we squander the opportunities He gives us by making sinful choices; when we look at all the blessings He has given us, and we shrug our shoulders and say, “I’d rather have this thing that you hate?”

According to 2 Peter 1:3, “[God’s] divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.” 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says that the Scriptures can make us “equipped for every good work.” God has clearly given us everything we need to thrive in His mission for us as His ambassadors in this world. So how do you think God feels when we squander all of this by embracing sin instead?

Fortunately for us, we have the opportunity today to learn from those who had a calling from God in the past, and we can gain wisdom from God’s interaction with them. As we look at Isaiah 5 this morning, we should learn that:

We must not squander God’s blessings by indulging sinful appetites and attitudes.

1. The people’s poor return on God’s blessings (5:1-7)

In the first part of this chapter, we find a well-crafted metaphor that is used to make a well-deserved indictment against the people of Judah. Follow with me as I read [READ vv. 1-2]. The significance of the word “wild” is that these grapes were not what the landowner was expecting, and they were in fact worthless for his intended purposes. The fruit bore no indication that it had been cultivated at all.

[READ vv. 3-7]. The metaphor is ultimately wielded to pierce through to the heart of the matter—the men of Judah had not produced the righteous fruit that God desired from them. God had given them every blessing and opportunity that they needed to carry out His commands, but they had offered Him instead a poor imitation of true obedience.

There is a word play in v. 7 that I think is important for me to point out. The Hebrew says that God looked for mishpat but discovered mispah; He looked for tsedaqah but discovered tseaqah. These two pairs of words sound so similar, but their meaning is drastically different.

I think this word play is meant to emphasize that the people had offered God something that looked so similar to the real thing, but the substance was very different. Remember—these people were a religious people. They hadn’t thrown off every semblance of worshipping God. In chapter 1 we learned that they were very faithful in performing the required sacrifices and feasts, but the problem was that they did not offer God sincere worship and obedience. Sure—as Isaiah’s song said—they produced grapes, but they were wild grapes, worthless grapes, because they did not come from God’s cultivation of their hearts.

Thus, God stated that He was about to remove His protection from the nation. This statement found its fulfillment a short time later when the Babylonian Empire conquered the kingdom of Judah and took the people out of their land to re-settle them elsewhere.

So what kind of fruit had grown in the people’s lives? How had they evoked such stern displeasure from God? Isaiah gives an instructive description of their sins in the rest of the chapter.

2. The sinful appetites of the people (5:8-17)

a. An appetite for possessions (property and homes; vv. 8- 10)

Isaiah begins v. 8 by saying, “woe.” This word expresses the same thought as the sidewalk preacher who carries a sign that reads “The End is Near!” [READ vv. 8]. Now what was Isaiah condemning in this verse? He may have had in mind some wealthy persons who were exploiting the poor and taking their land, but even if there was no exploitation taking place in these land deals, the persons involved were not handling the land the way that God desired.

Under the Law of Moses, all of the land in Israel belonged to God, and the people were basically taking care of it for Him. By His command, land was not to be permanently sold—it could be sold temporarily, but every 50 years it was to go back into the possession of the family whose ancestors had originally settled there. The idea was that each family would have the chance to provide for themselves from their own land.

Thus, the nation wasn’t supposed to have land barons or real estate moguls, but some of the people at least were clearly disregarding God’s desire for the land by accumulating large estates for themselves. But we see in vv. 9-10 that God was planning to foreclose by means of a famine [READ vv. 9-10]. The Holman Christian Standard Bible updates these measurements for us. It reads, “A ten-acre vineyard will yield only six gallons, and 10 bushels of seed will yield only one bushel.” Thus, the people would not prosper from their property because of their disregard of God’s desires.

The people were presently getting some return from their vineyards, however, because they had…

b. An appetite for drunken partying (vv. 11-17)

[READ vv. 11-12] Sadly, as the people were chasing a good time, they missed the signs of the times that would have revealed God’s displeasure over their lifestyles. Now, we could spend an entire sermon talking about drunkenness, but let me simply say this—I don’t believe the Bible gives us a complete prohibition against drinking alcohol, but virtually all we read about it in Scripture is that it can consume us and lead us into foolish, sinful choices. Let us all make sure that we take that warning to heart.

Unfortunately, the people did not take God’s warnings to heart, and thus we read in v. 13 [READ v. 13]. Notice the irony here—Isaiah had just pronounced doom on the people for drinking too much, and their consequence would be to suffer from thirst. [READ v. 14]. There is even more irony here. The people were driven by an insatiable appetite for alcohol, and as a consequence, they will be given to satisfy the appetite of the grave. This message is a sobering one, indeed, and Isaiah gives a fitting summary of God’s actions in vv. 15-17 [READ vv. 15-17]. With this coming act of judgment in which God would allow His people to be conquered and taken into exile, a clear distinction would be seen between God and mankind. As the people are laid low, God will be lifted up, and in this act of justice His holiness will be on full display. If we are tempted to think that God is overreacting to sin, here is our reminder that wrath is simply the fitting and deserved reaction of God’s holiness when it encounters sin.

When the Lord looked at the people of Judah, He saw not only that they had sinful appetites, but that they also had sinful attitudes.

3. The sinful attitudes of the people (vv. 18-30)

a. An attitude of disbelief toward God’s warnings (vv. 18-19)

Let’s read v. 18 [READ v. 18]. Here the people are pictured as being tied to their sins, and not just tied to them, but almost unknowingly subservient to them. The people are like servants who pull around the sin which has mastered them everywhere they go. Yet they are still disbelieving toward God’s warnings of judgment through the prophets [READ v. 19].

How many times have you and I said in our lives, “It will never happen to me?” We do that in our daily routine all the time. Perhaps we ride around in the car with no seatbelt on, because even though we’ve seen other people in life-threatening accidents, we still just don’t think it will ever happen to us!

We often respond the same way toward our sins. We have all seen people deal with the life-altering consequences of sin, yet we keep ourselves bound to it and say, “It will never happen to me!” Ecclesiastes 8:11 says, “Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.” When we think we are getting away with sin, we become emboldened to wallow in it all the more. But we must never mistake God’s patience for inaction. We will always face consequences for our sins, whether they come today or when we stand before Jesus to hear His assessment of our lives. Let us never ignore His warnings about sin!

b. An attitude of arrogance toward God’s standards (vv. 20-21)

Ever since Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, mankind has struggled with the temptation to think that we know better than God. It really comes down to the pride that is described in v. 21—we are wise in our own eyes. We consider ourselves to be capable of setting the standards for what is right and what is wrong, and if we encounter a moral standard in the Bible that doesn’t conform to our opinions, we explain it away with some kind of interpretive slight-of-hand.

Now it is very easy for us to sit here and condemn various groups in our society who are guilty of this sinful attitude, but we must understand that we are guilty of this attitude every time we choose to sin. Every time we choose to sin, we convince ourselves somehow that our behavior was right and acceptable, and if God’s Word says otherwise, we convince ourselves that we were in special circumstances, or we qualify His command with 1,000 man-made rules that allow us to get ourselves off the hook.

Sure, we can point to many people in our world who are guilty of this attitude—but sometimes, we are among them!

c. An attitude of indifference toward God’s desires (vv. 22-23)

[READ vv. 22-23] Isaiah has spoken about drunkenness already, but now he focuses on those who are in a position of authority in the nation. He seems to be talking about judges here, and we can see that these judges had aced the bar exam, but unfortunately it was the wrong kind of bar! They were devoting themselves to their sinful appetites rather than the pursuit of justice that God desired from them.

We read back in v. 7 that God was looking for justice from His people. The authorities, however, were setting a very poor example for the people, and their example was probably encouraging even greater injustice. If people know that they’re not going to receive justice from their authorities, they may be much more inclined to carry out their own brand of so-called “justice.”

Now you and I may not have an official responsibility to carry out justice in our nation, but we all have a moral and personal responsibility to treat others in a just and fair manner in our relationships with them. It isn’t only judges who have to think about justice; many of our dealings with each other will never be played out in a courtroom. God is looking for justice from you and I as well, and we don’t want to give Him a cheap imitation.

For these appetites and attitudes that the people had embraced without repentance, God was going to do exactly what He had told them in Deuteronomy—He was going to allow their enemies to defeat them and carry them into exile [READ vv. 24-30].

So, my friends, I ask you again—how do you think God feels when we squander the blessings and opportunities that He has given us? As Israel was God’s vineyard in the days of Isaiah, so we are like God’s vineyard today. He has loving cared for us and has given us everything that we need to bear the fruit of godly character in our lives. But will we allow the weeds of sinful appetites and attitudes to keep us from bearing that fruit? I pray that we will learn from those who have gone before us, and thus choose to follow a different path.