The Lord says to the people of Isaiah's culture: "I revealed Myself to those who did not ask for Me; I was found by those who did not seek Me. To a nation that did not call on My name, I said, 'Here am I, here am I.'" (Isaiah 65:1) Isaiah's people, of all the people on the earth, should have known the Lord. They should have called upon Him and clung to Him. But here we find the Lord saying that Gentiles will call upon Him more than the people He led out of bondage in Egypt.
We know He is speaking of Gentiles because the Apostle Paul, a Jewish convert to Christianity, quoted this passage of Isaiah when speaking about Gentiles who had come to faith in the one true God through Jesus Christ. "But not all the Israelites accepted the good news...Isaiah boldly says, 'I was found by those who did not seek Me; I revealed Myself to those who did not ask for Me...But concerning Israel He says, 'All day long I have held out My hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.'" (Romans 10:16, 20-21) Paul clearly makes a distinction between Israel and those who "accepted the good news", meaning the believers of Gentile nations.
The Lord points out that He has tried to reason with those He brought out of Egypt---those whom He called by His own name---those who have rejected Him in favor of idols. "All day long I have held out My hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations---a people who continually provoke Me to My very face, offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on altars of brick; who sit among the graves and spend their nights keeping secret vigil; who eat the flesh of pigs, and whose pots hold broth of impure meat; who say, 'Keep away; don't come near me, for I am too sacred for you!." (Isaiah 65:2-5a)
The list of deeds above is a list of occult practices. They were offering sacrifices and burning incense to pagan deities. They were holding vigils in graveyards at night, hoping to commune with the dead or with evil spirits that were believed to inhabit graveyards. They were living according to their carnal natures: "pursuing their own imaginations". They were disregarding all the Lord's laws. Yet they still thought they were better than people of Gentile nations.
They knew about the Lord but chose not to worship Him. We could compare this to someone in today's world who grew up in church and who knows what the Bible says but chooses to reject the Lord and to live in opposition to Him. That's worse than someone rejecting Him who has heard very little about Him. When Isaiah's people rejected the Lord, they were sinning far more in His eyes than were the Gentiles who knew very little about Him.
The Lord is righteously offended by the refusal of the Israelites to worship Him, for He is the only God who ever did anything for them. He brought them out of Egypt and made them into a great nation. He protected them time and time again from enemies whose military power was far stronger than theirs. Because they are forsaking Him in favor of false gods who never have and never will do anything for them, He says, "Such people are smoke in My nostrils, a fire that keeps burning all day. See, it stands written before Me: I will not keep silent but will pay back in full; I will pay it back into their laps---both your sins and the sins of your ancestors,' says the Lord. 'Because they burned sacrifices on the mountains and defied Me on the hills, I will measure into their laps the full payment for their former deeds.'" (Isaiah 65:5b-7)
The wickedness of the generations who have lived in the Promised Land has reached a tipping point by Isaiah's day. We know from our study of the kings that the northern kingdom fell to Assyria during Isaiah's lifetime and that the southern kingdom fell to Babylon approximately 130 years later. This is because Israelites of generation after generation stopped worshiping the Lord and began worshiping idols, not long after He made them into a nation in the first place. He has pleaded with them through the prophets to repent and they have not done so. He has allowed them to experience various difficulties intended to cause them to ask, "Why are bad things happening to us?", so that they would conclude, "It is because we have turned away from the Lord." But they have not allowed their hardships to cause them to consider their ways. Therefore, He must take more severe action in order to keep their entire race from destroying itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment