Peter Barnes: Isaiah 1:21-31
(29 July 2018)
SERMON NOTES: OLD ZION AND NEW ZION (Isaiah 1:21-31)
When we pray ‘Thy kingdom come’ in the Lord’s Prayer, we are actually praying for two things: redemption and judgment.
1. The degeneration of God’s covenant people.
– 1:21-24. He is not attacking the Assyrians but the covenant people of God.
– Isaiah gives us a series of ‘before and after’ shots. Before, there was justice and righteousness, but now murderers walk in her midst.
– Micah 3:9-11; Amos 5:12-13. Calvin: ‘for as no disease is more injurious than that which spreads from the head into the whole body, so no evil is more destructive in a commonwealth than a wicked and depraved prince, who conveys his corruptions into the whole body both by his example and by the liberty which he allows.’
2. God will chasten and restore His people
– 1:25-28. There is restoration here, but it comes through chastening – Heb.12:5-11. It is judgment, chastening and purging that leads to restoration. There is no easy way.
– True Zion will be redeemed by justice, which is a way of saying that those who repent will be redeemed by righteousness. How could this be? Luke 1:32-33; Rom.3:26.
3. Redemption comes with judgment.
– 1:27-31. False religion is like a dying tree, like an oak whose leaf withers, like a garden without water. When the fire comes, the tree is like tinder.
– resurrection is not necessarily good news – Dan.12:2.
– We who take His name must take it in humility and truth.