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Ithaca SDA Church

Taylor Hinkle

Experiencing the Power of God

We just want to thank you so much for the blessing of this Sabbath and of the joy of coming to worship you.

And Lord, we thank you for your faithfulness in drawing us here and helping us to understand your word and giving us opportunity to come closer.

Father, I just ask that please, as we read your words, that your spirit would inspire our hearts, that you would do the job that you told us your spirit is given to do, that you would convict us of sin and of righteousness and of judgment to come.

Father, that you would be a comforter to us, that you would fill us with hope of your soon coming.

And Father, that you would help us to be ready for that day, that there would be nothing between you and us.

Isaiah chapter 1 is where we're going to be looking at this morning.

Isaiah chapter 1, and the best place to begin a book is at the beginning, so we're gonna begin in verse 1, Isaiah chapter 1, beginning in verse 1.

We're gonna pick up the beginning of our study this morning.

Now we're going to start this by reading verse 1 and notice with me who God says this book is addressed to.

As we read it says, The vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning, who?

Judah and Jerusalem, and the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

Now here we have Isaiah's message where he's sending it to a nation and what is the nation that God is sending this message to?

Now I want to ask you a question just to make this point very clear, is there a difference between Judah and Jerusalem and Sodom and Gomorrah?

And the other is filled with people who have turned their backs on God.

So when Isaiah is writing this message to Judah and to Jerusalem, is he writing it to God's people or not?

And so as we look at this message, keep in mind that God is speaking to his people 2600 years ago.

Let us continue Isaiah chapter 1 and verse 2.

Notice the words of the Lord and hear the emotion that he says it in it says, Hear O heavens and give ear O earth for the Lord has spoken.

I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.

The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not consider." Are you getting a mental image of the condition of God's people?

Many of you might be able to relate with the idea of having a child that has rebelled against you.

You pour all of your love and your compassion and your care into this child and now it has rebelled and left the ways in which you brought it up in.

He says a donkey knows its owner but my people don't even know where they're from.

And He continues on and notice what he says in verse 4, a last sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a broad of evildoers, children who are corruptors.

They have forsaken the Lord and they have provoked to anger the Holy 1 of Israel.

The whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint.

From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores, they have not been closed up or bound up or soothed with ointment." Then God goes on to continue to talk about how their country is left unto them desolate.

How many of you would like this description to be given by God in describing who you are.

Right, so we realize that this is not a positive description, right?

This is not going through the flower gardens and just smelling the roses, but God is saying that when he looks at his people, the very people who claim to be his, all he sees is wickedness in their lot.

Now God continues, and if God were to stop right there, I think it would be a little bit better.

But not only are these people wicked, but the Bible continues to tell us a little bit more.

It says, unless the Lord of hosts had left to us a very small remnant, we would have become like who?

Sodom, and we would have been made like Gomorrah.

Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of where?

Is he speaking to Sodom in its literal sense?

No, God in speaking to his people, Sodom has already been destroyed, they're off of the scene, but when God looks at his people, Judah and Jerusalem, the closest resemblance that he can find to any other nation around them is none other than who?

My friends, is this a positive situation to be in?

God's people are looking more like the world than they are like God's people.

God is pleading with them as a father would plead for his child who has turned away.

He's pleading that his people would turn back because of all of their idolatrous and iniquitous practices and say, please come back to the ways of your youth.

Notice God pleading and now is where it gets a little worse.

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me, says the Lord?

I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and of fat of the fed cattle.

I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or goats.

When you have come to appear before me, who has required this from your hand to trample my courts?

Bring no more futile sacrifices, incenses and abomination to me, the new moons, the Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure iniquity, and the sacred meeting.

Your new moons and your appointed feasts, my soul hates, they are a trouble to me, and I am weary of bearing them." Now notice we're getting a little bit more of a full picture.

Not only does God say that these are people who are living a life that is not even identifiable as his people, right?

When God goes to identify the people of Israel or his people at that time, he says that they're so similar to Sodom, that's the closest association.

There are many wicked people in the world.

I don't know if you've heard about what happened in Orlando, right?

Very Wicked man walks in and takes lives, right?

But there's a difference when there's a wicked person who still has a form professing godliness.

As Jesus is showing the condition of his people, he says that these are people who are still sacrificing, right?

In other words, they're sacrificing to God.

They have all of these things, but God says that it is useless because their heart is not in it.

God is not 1 just looking for sacrifices and offerings.

God is not just looking for an outward form without the inward dwelling of the Holy Spirit.

But God is looking for a profession of faith that goes deeper than our outward actions, but that transcends into our lives and transforms who we are.

But God, as he looks at Israel, All he sees are people going to church every Sabbath.

All he sees are people who are having the form of different sacrifices and ceremonies and offerings and all of these things.

But when he looks at the heart of the issue, they're much more like Sodom and Gomorrah than they are like his own people.

Now some of you as you read this you're thinking praise the Lord this was to Israel 2, 600 years ago right?

I mean God is merciful but I want to ask you a question.

Is it possible that God's people today or in the last days of Earth's history could have this these same characteristics in their lives?

Is it possible that God's last day people might begin to act and look more like the world and just have a form of godliness to pacify their own spiritual desires but not really experience the power thereof.

Well we could speculate on this but why don't we turn to 2 Timothy.

Keep a little marker there in Isaiah, we're going to come back to it.

2 Timothy chapter 3, notice how Paul describes the Christians in the last days.

Paul describes a group of people, 2 Timothy chapter 3, and beginning in verse 1.

2 Timothy chapter 3 beginning in verse 1.

Notice what the Lord tells us through Paul.

As Paul is there instructing young Timothy and what it's going to be like to lead in his church and to move the mission of his work forward, he begins to caution Timothy with what's going to be happening in the last days.

And notice the caution that he gives him, 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 1.

He says, but know this, that in the last days what kind of times will come?

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Experiencing the Power of God

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