The Secret to Survival: Repentance - Isaiah 59
Isaiah 59; Galatians 5:19-21; Romans 1:29-31; Jeremiah 13:23; Isaiah 1:5-6;
The_Secret_to_Survival-Repentance_02-13-2011.mp3
—
MP3 audio,
13634 kB (13961352 bytes)
For many years, people in pulpits of all kinds--church pulpits, university podiums, lecterns and soapboxes--the ministers and university professors and Jewish rabbis and infidels in those pulpits all over the world have found one thing, one doctrine upon which many of them fully agree: The human race is, at it’s core, fundamentally good. That conviction is summed up in these statements from The Humanist Manifesto, first published in 1933. It contains fifteen assertions. The ninth and fourteenth assertions says this:
“Ninth: In the place of the old attitudes involved in worship and prayer the humanist finds his religious emotions expressed in a heightened sense of personal life and in a co-operative effort to promote social well-being.”
“Fourteenth: The goal of humanism is a free and universal society in which people voluntarily and intelligently co-operate for the common good. Humanists demand a shared life in a shared world.”
That was written in 1933. World War II put a serious damper the spirits of those humanists. To say that they were naïve regarding the inherent goodness of mankind is an infinite understatement. So in 1973, a second updated version of The Humanist Manifesto was written in which we read this statement:
“. . . [W]e can discover no divine purpose or providence for the human species. While there is much that we do not know, humans are responsible for what we are or will become. No deity will save us; we must save ourselves.”
At least they recognized there was something from which we need to be saved. But they are quick to inform us that we are our own saviors. We can rise above our own frailties and failures and mistakes (like World War II) in order to become universally good and benevolent toward one another because, after all, we are not sinners. We are inherently good. The reason you and I should believe that is because they say so.
Our innate ability to save ourselves and create a better world without any assistance from some fictitious deity is unbiblical, to say the least. and that is why they hate the Bible. The Humanists’ assessment of the human race is way over-rated and is in direct opposition to God’s assessment. But because humanistic doctrines have been accepted into our universities and seminaries and taught for so long, much of it has now found its way into the culture at large. One of the most prominent results of Humanism is the doctrine of positive self-esteem. The American evangelical community embraced that lie with wide open and totally undiscerning arms.
This is also one of the reasons why liberal theologians and denominations have crammed the “God is love” doctrine down our throats for 100 years. According to humanistic thinking, since we are so obviously good, what’s not to love? Why wouldn’t God love us all just the way we are? This pervasive humanistic thinking is why there have been very few sermons preached from Isaiah 59 in the last century.
The Nature of Our Problem (vs 1-8)
[1] Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear;
[2] but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God,
and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.
[3] For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity;
your lips have spoken lies; your tongue mutters wickedness.
[4] No one enters suit justly; no one goes to law honestly;
they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies, they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity.
[5] They hatch adders' eggs; they weave the spider's web;
he who eats their eggs dies, and from one that is crushed a viper is hatched.
[6] Their webs will not serve as clothing; men will not cover themselves with what they make.
Their works are works of iniquity, and deeds of violence are in their hands.
[7] Their feet run to evil, and they are swift to shed innocent blood;
their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; desolation and destruction are in their highways.
[8] The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths;
they have made their roads crooked; no one who treads on them knows peace. (Isaiah 59:1-8)
So much for a positive self-image and inherent goodness. This assessment by God of the human condition is the kind of thinking that the natural man hates. In spite of all the obvious evidence of 5000 years of sordid human history staring us in the face, men hate to admit their own depraved spiritual condition. They are haters of God because to admit one’s own sinful condition would require:
1. Humility.
2. An admission of guilt.
3. An acknowledgment of God’s justice in punishing sin.
4. And our need for His merciful forgiveness.
But the natural man is not made of such stuff. In Adam, we died to any natural inclination toward God.
If all of mankind is in this condition, what hope do we have of delivering ourselves from ourselves? If it is true that there is none inherently righteous, not even one, then how do we who love sin, and invent ways of committing sin, and run after sin, and think about sin, and speak sinfully, and use our hands for sin; We whose hearts are thoroughly sinful, how will such vile creatures save themselves?
You may be thinking, “Isaiah is speaking here to the Jews, not to the entire human race. Of course there are good people in the world.” Not according to the apostle Paul. In fact, he quotes verses 7 and 8 in Romans 3 (vs 15-16) to describe all of the human race. All human beings, with the single exception of Jesus Christ, are filthy, self-condemned sinners. This is what the natural man is made of:
19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. (Galatians 5:19-21 ESV)
29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. (Romans 1:29-31 ESV)
Is there any doubt about the truth of these things? It is a sick man, or at best, a totally blind man, blinded to his own spiritual condition and that of his fellow men, who truly believes the human race is inherently good. If half of what I just read to you is true of the human race, what reason could we give to hope that we could save ourselves from such a condition? The only people who hope in self-salvation are completely self-deceived
And if all of this is that we have read is true, what hope would we ever have that God would save us? What is there in us that would give a just and holy God any reason to even like us, much less love us? We have no ability to change, we have no genuine desire to turn and forsake our sinfulness, in order to embrace godliness. It is not in the human heart to do so.
[23] Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?
Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil. (Jeremiah 13:23 ESV)
We who are accustomed to doing evil, if left to ourselves, if we were not already slaves to our sin, we would gladly volunteer to be enslaved to the perverted passions and lusts of our own hearts and minds. This is exactly why Isaiah says in chapter 1, verses 5 & 6,
“The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it . . . .”
The human race is so spiritually sick (and Paul declares us to be spiritually dead!), we can’t even comprehend the fact that our own love of sin leads us to our own destruction and we're incapable of rising above our own deadness in sin.
The Hopelessness of our Situation (vs 9-15a)
[9] Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us;
we hope for light, and behold, darkness, and for brightness, but we walk in gloom.
[10] We grope for the wall like the blind; we grope like those who have no eyes;
we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among those in full vigor we are like dead men.
[11] We all growl like bears; we moan and moan like doves;
we hope for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us.
[12] For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us;
for our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities:
[13] transgressing, and denying the LORD, and turning back from following our God,
speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart lying words.
[14] Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away;
for truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter.
[15] Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. (Isaiah 59:9-15a ESV)
We talk a good game. We talk about the need for justice and righteousness. But we don’t change. We recognize our transgressions and sins testify against us. But we continue in oppression and lying. We understand we have become apostate by denying the Lord and turning back from following our God. But if anyone among us tries to depart from evil, tries to shed some light on the corruption, he had better watch his back. He becomes prey.
The Jews understood that their woes were the result of their perpetual rebellion against God. Justice and righteousness from God was nowhere to be found because they themselves were unjust and unrighteous. They had no real concern for truth.
Such people are not in a position to redeem themselves. Sinners cannot deliver themselves from their own sin. They hoped for justice and for salvation, but they could not earn God’s blessing and deliverance because it is not in the heart of man to turn from the lies of Satan and embrace the truth about himself and about God. So what hope is there of sinful men ever seeing righteousness and justice and truth in this life?
The Nature of the Solution (vs 15b-21)
[15b] The LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice.
[16] He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no one to intercede;
then his own arm brought him salvation, and his righteousness upheld him.
[17] He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head;
he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.
[18] According to their deeds, so will he repay, wrath to his adversaries, repayment to his enemies;
to the coastlands he will render repayment.
[19] So they shall fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun;
for he will come like a rushing stream,which the wind of the LORD drives.
[20] “And a Redeemer will come to Zion,
to those in Jacob who turn from transgression,” declares the LORD.
[21] “And as for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the LORD: “My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children's offspring,” says the LORD, “from this time forth and forevermore.” (Isaiah 59b:15-21 ESV)
If the humanists are right, that “no deity will save us, we must save ourselves,“ we’re entirely doomed to self-destruction. Mankind cannot rise above what he is in order to become something he is not: Righteous.
But if the Bible is true, then there is hope. Do you remember what Jesus said to the rich young ruler? This young man came to Jesus inquiring about how he could inherit eternal life. So he addresses Jesus as "good master". Then Jesus says to him, "Why do you call me good? There is none good but God." Verse 15 tells us a good and righteous and just God saw the condition of man and it displeased him that there was no justice. Our hope is in a good God to fix what we cannot, to help those who cannot help themselves, to deliver us from our selves. There is a righteous and just and good Deity who will save us, a Redeemer who will come to those who turn from transgression.
But we just got through saying we cannot help ourselves. If it is not in us to turn from our own sin, then is it realistic to hope that men can turn from transgression as verse 20 says?
Q: What is one of the things God uses repeatedly throughout the Scriptures to cause His people to repent?
A: The misery produced by their own sin.
Sin causes God to turn His face away so that He does not hear our prayers. But His turning away causes His true people to hate the sin that moved Him to be deaf to their cries for justice and righteousness. God uses our sinfulness to move us to cry to Him to forgive us and deliver us. When truth is lacking, and justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away, so much so that if a person attempts to break away from the corruption all around him, he makes himself a prey for wicked men, . . .
THEN some men, God's elect people, will cry out to Him for deliverance. God’s uses the misery of sin to provoke His people to repent and turn from transgression.
What does such repentance look like? What should our repentance from our sinfulness look like, when we are prone to wander, prone to leave the God we love, prone to drift away from the things we’ve heard? What should true Christian repentance look like?
“O God, be merciful to me a sinner! I confess not only my original sin, but the follies and fury of my youth, my manifold sins of ignorance and knowledge, of negligence and willfulness, of omission and commission, against the law of nature, and against the grace and Gospel of Thy Son. Forgive and save me, O my God, for Thy abundant mercy, and for the sacrifice and merit of Thy Son, and for the promise of forgiveness which Thous hast made through Him; for in these alone is all my trust. Condemn me not, who condemn myself. O Thou that hast opened so precious a fountain for sin and uncleanness, wash me thoroughly from my wickedness, and cleanse me from my sin. Though Thy justice might send me presently to hell, let Thy mercy triumph in my salvation. Thou hast no pleasure in the death of sinners, but rather that they repent and live. If my repentance be not such as Thou requirest, O soften this hardened, flinty heart, and give me repentance unto life. Turn me to Thyself, O God of my salvation, and cause Thy face to shine upon me. Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me. Meet not this poor returning prodigal in Thy wrath, but with the embracements of Thy tender mercies. Cast me not away from Thy presence, and sentence me not to depart from Thee with the workers of iniquity: Thou who didst patiently endure me when I despised Thee, refuse me not, now [that] I seek unto Thee, and here in the dust implore Thy mercy. Thou didst convert and pardon a wicked Manasseh, and a persecuting Saul, and there are multitudes in heaven who were once Thine enemies. Glorify also They superabounding grace in the forgiveness of my abounding sins. Amen.”
When was the last time you or I prayed anything that sounded remotely like that? As believers, we are still sinners. We still need the daily merciful forgiveness of a just and holy God. May the Lord make us mindful of the evil of our sin, our hopelessness with out Him, and may He remind us regularly of His faithfulness to forgive and cleanse those who repent from their unrighteousness. What a great Savior we have in God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
No
No
