Rev. David Holwick
First Baptist Church
West Lafayette, Ohio
November 16, 1986
Be Reasonable!
Isaiah 1:18-20, NIV
Americans spend billions of dollars each year on soap. Just think about your own house. There's the soap you use to wash your hands and body. You have some in each sink and bath. You also have soap (shampoo) for your hair. And your dogs' hair. There's soap for your dishes, your carpet, your car and your clothes. The worst sin you can commit is to have "ring around the collar."
One of the first things American missionaries teach their converts is the use of soap. Just this week I attended a missions conference in West Virginia where a pastor who had been to Burma showed slides of his trip. He pointed out how filthy the non-Christians were. One particularly grungy old lady sat in her home which looked like a fallen-down shed. Her arms were black with grime. It was caked under her fingernails. And she was chewing betel nut, which stains your mouth black and was running down her chin. This old lady must not have believed in soap.
The slides of the Christians in Burma were different. Their bodies were clean, and even their white clothes were white. That's no small trick when you have to wash them in a muddy stream.
You don't have to be clean to be saved. God accepts you no matter how grungy or slimy you are. But from that point on, he wants to cleanse us from the inside out. There isn't a person in this room who couldn't use a spiritual cleansing. Maybe it's just a little crud behind the ears - or a total work over. But each of us has something that should shame us before God.
The first chapter of Isaiah is about becoming spiritually clean. We should keep in mind that it is aimed at believers, not pagans. Even though they had a formal relationship with God, the Jews in Israel had really slipped. In verse 10 Isaiah compares them to Sodom and Gomorrah. That's never been a compliment.
Verse 11 describes how religious they were. They gave lots of sacrifices and burnt offerings. They honored all the holy days and times of prayer. But something was wrong. The middle of verse 15 says: "Yea, when you make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood."
The only thing worse than having no religion is to have an empty one. You go through all the motions, but there's no power or conviction in it. You would think that God would despise such people. He doesn't. As a matter of fact, he does anything he can to win them back. In verse 18 he says: "Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." This is one of the most comforting verses in the whole Bible. The people have rejected their God but he invites them back.
When God uses the expression "come now" it usually means he is offering a beneficial proposal. (When parent says it, a spanking may be forthcoming.) He then says, let us reason together. This sounds like God is willing to let us change his mind on the issue. Nothing could be further from the truth. God is willing to communicate with us, but not as equals. He can never lower his standards down to our level. Holiness is not regret. The phrase is actually a legal expression. It means, "Let's argue about my case against you. The things I charge you with - are they true or not?"
God is not irrational in how he deals with us. - If we take the time to mull it over, we'll eventually see that he is quite reasonable (at least in his assessment!). After asking us to see the truth of his side, God makes a generous announcement. Our scarlet sins shall be made white. Some scholars think this should really be a question - "Though your sins are like scarlet, shall they be as white as snow? No way!" This is possible but verse 19 supports the interpretation that it's a positive announcement. Before we do anything, God will make us clean. No matter how deeply sin stains us, he is going to wash them away. This is what grace is all about. The only condition is that we acknowledge our sin and admit that God has a reasonable case against us.
Isaiah describes the sin as being scarlet and red. These were colors that would not wash out, sort of like a blueberry stain. The redness of the sin is primarily because they are sins of Bloodshed. In verse 15 their hands are said to be full of blood. In verse 21 they are called murderers. When I read this, I always think of the book by Nathaniel Hawthorne called "The Scarlet Letter." It's about a woman who seduces an unsuspecting pastor and then pays for her sin. Her sin was obvious because they made her wear a scarlet letter "A". That and an advanced pregnancy, of course.
Most sin is not that obvious. We don't display it. But sometimes when it's not known to the world we don't try to deal with it. We let it fester and harden us. Some people get to the point that they think God can never accept them. But it's not true. No matter what you have done in life, you can be cleansed and forgiveness by God.
One of the most famous conversions in the U.S. in recent years was that of Charles Colson. He was one of the most powerful men under President Nixon. They called him the Hatchet Man because he was a ruthless ex-Marine. Watergate overwhelmed him (this is ancient history now.) Colson was sitting in a car with a friend, dejected, but the friend witnessed to him. Colson cried like a baby and accepted Christ as his Savior. The news media couldn't believe it and the cartoonists like Doonesbury had a heyday. Colson was convicted and went to prison, and while he was there he started a ministry he called "Prison Fellowship." Colson did not reform himself - God did it. Colson only acknowledged his need for forgiveness.
The power of God can cleanse the most unlikely people. Denton Lotz, leader of the Baptist World Alliance, tells of this true story from Russia. In a small town in the Ukraine a gypsy woman was converted to Christ. Gypsies have never amounted to much in Europe, but she decided to follow God no matter how others treated her. One day she went to the local railroad station and saw two drunks. She said to them, "God loves you." One of them slapped her. She staggered for a moment, then said, "In Jesus' name I forgive you." He slapped her again. And again. When she fell to the ground, he began kicking her.
The old woman was almost dead by the time some believers came to rescue her. They took her home and over several months were able to nurse her back to health. She recovered to the point where she could spend short periods each day out tending her flower garden. One afternoon while she was doing this, a man stopped in front of her house and called to her. "May I talk to you?" he asked. "Why?" "I am a believer," he replied. "Get down on the sidewalk and pray out loud." He did it, so she let him come inside.
He asked her, "Do you know who I am?" "No." "I am the one who beat you at the train station. For three months I couldn't sleep. I couldn't forget what you said. I have now given my heart to Christ." God can soften the hardest heart. You may think there's no hope for you, but there is. Come and reason with him.
Once we have accepted God's invitation, he not done with us. A great evangelist once said that when he became a Christian he thought the battle was won. He discovered, however, that it had just begun. Verse 19 throws in a very biblical word - "if." There is a requirement of willingness and obedience. These conditions don't refer to the cleansing of sin. God will do that for free. But if you want to grow as a Christian, and enjoy the benefits, you must obey. There are plenty of Christians who have salvation, but gain little from it in this life because they remain carnal and worldly. Why not experience the fullness of salvation?
[Invitation]
________
Typed on January 17, 2005, by Betty Fowler of Ledgewood Baptist Church, New Jersey
Copyright © 2024 by Rev. David Holwick
Created with the Freeware Edition of HelpNDoc: Easy to use tool to create HTML Help files and Help web sites