Christ's Call – Isaiah 1:1-9
1 The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Isaiah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. 2 Here, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! For the Lord has spoken: "I have nourished and part of children, and they have rebelled against Me; 3 the ox knows its owner and the donkey its master's crib; but Israel does not know, My people do not consider." 4 Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corrupters! They have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away backward. 5 5 Why should you be stricken again? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, and the whole Earth faints. 6 from the soul of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds in bruises and putrefying sores; they had not been closed or bound up, or soothed with ointment. 7 Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire; strangers devour your land in your presence; and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. 8 so the daughter of Zion is left as a booth in a vineyard, as a in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. 9 Unless the Lord of hosts had left us a very small remnant, we would have become like Sodom, we would have become like Gomorrah. (New King James Version)
From the first, Isaiah establishes that he is a man of whom God has taken hold. Sure, Isaiah established that God placed him in a network of human relationships as the son of Amoz and to the subject of human kings. Important as these connections and submissions are, they are incidental when compared to what follows.
Heaven and Earth are now relegated to their proper place as witnesses. No rhetoric, this is Isaiah declaring that everything he has ever seen with his eyes, the splendor of the stars, and the fertility of the field are but witnesses to the truly vital relationship between one man and one God. This is renunciation perfected at the cross.
Now freed, Isaiah begins to speak to the culture. When Isaiah gives God’s Word in verse three, “Israel does not know, My people do not consider”, he is speaking for himself also. These were Isaiah’s people, and yet he has now identified with the One they rejected. Only now does he speak to his erstwhile neighborhood. World mission, and world confrontation, cannot come before this. Judgment begins in the house of God, and foremost with the servant of God.
From the first, Isaiah establishes that he is a man of whom God has taken hold. Sure, Isaiah established that God placed him in a network of human relationships as the son of Amoz and to the subject of human kings. Important as these connections and submissions are, they are incidental when compared to what follows.
Heaven and Earth are now relegated to their proper place as witnesses. No rhetoric, this is Isaiah declaring that everything he has ever seen with his eyes, the splendor of the stars, and the fertility of the field are but witnesses to the truly vital relationship between one man and one God. This is renunciation perfected at the cross.
Now freed, Isaiah begins to speak to the culture. When Isaiah gives God’s Word in verse three, “Israel does not know, My people do not consider”, he is speaking for himself also. These were Isaiah’s people, and yet he has now identified with the One they rejected. Only now does he speak to his erstwhile neighborhood. World mission, and world confrontation, cannot come before this. Judgment begins in the house of God, and foremost with the servant of God.
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