"Yet you have not called on Me, Jacob, you have not wearied yourselves for Me, Israel. You have not brought Me sheep for burnt offerings, nor honored Me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with grain offerings nor wearied you with demands for incense. You have not brought any fragrant calamus for Me, or lavished on Me the fat of your sacrifices. But you have burdened Me with your sins and wearied Me with your offenses." (Isaiah 43:22-24) This is a scathing indictment. They have failed to do the things they were commanded to do and have instead done the very opposite of what was asked of them. It's bad enough when we fail to obey the Lord but they have gone out of their way to disobey Him.
Worshiping the Lord should be a delight. It should not make us feel "burdened" or "weary". The people were able to do the things He asked them to do but many were not even performing the bare minimum. There were some who were bringing the required offerings but were simply going through the motions, which is why the Lord called them "meaningless sacrifices", which you may recall from Chapter One. Going through the motions while our hearts are far from God is as bad as not bothering to show Him any honor at all.
The One whom they have forsaken is the only One who can provide for them, protect them from their enemies, forgive them for their sins, and grant them eternal life in His loving presence. "I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions, for My own sake, and remembers your sins no more." (Isaiah 43:25) The Lord has promised to accept repentance and He will not break that promise. But they must repent! And when they do, they will never have to fear Him flinging their past mistakes in their faces and reminding them of the mess that's in their past. He "remembers your sins no more".
But have you ever met anyone who thinks they can stand before the judgment throne of a holy God and state their own case? Do you know anyone who believes they can successfully defend their lives before Him on the basis of having done more good things than bad things? Their thinking is in error. This is not the way God judges a person's life. He doesn't place our good deeds on one side of the scale and our bad deeds on the other side of the scale to see which one weighs the most. He looks at our hearts. Did we submit to Him as Lord or not? Did we accept what the Lord Jesus Christ did for us on the cross to redeem us from our sins? Nothing less than this will get our charges dismissed! Nothing else will cause God the Father to say, "Your sins were washed away by the blood of My Son. I will remember them no more."
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