Conversion

When we started this final part of Isaiah last week, I told you that it is a mixed bag. Some of the chapters were intended to be an encouragement to the faithful and other chapters a rebuke to those who weren’t. Well, today’s chapter is itself a mixture of both. We’re going to encounter both encouragement and rebuke. A couple of things before we get started. Our text breaks down into three sections. The first section is actually the last part of chapter 56. Bear in mind that Isaiah didn’t divide his book into chapters. Someone in the 1200’s did that. And, according to the smart people who write books, he goofed here. I’m going to structure things a little bit differently today. I’m going to read this first section and then talk about it. Then, I’ll read the second section and talk about it. And the same with the last section which is where we’ll spend most of our time.

Let’s take a look at the first section. Note that in this section Isaiah is writing about ‘watchmen’ whom he also calls ‘shepherds’. If he were writing today he would refer to them as pastors. Listen as I read Isaiah 56.9-12.

Isaiah, to say the least, is not impressed with these men. They are failing. And the key problem is not intellectual or something like that. The key problem is moral. They have given themselves to sin. Did you notice this comment about them? ‘…they have all turned to their own way…’ Sound familiar? It’s Isaiah’s description of what it means to be a sinner. ‘All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned - every one - to his own way...’ This moral lapse affects their abilities. Isaiah tells us that they have no knowledge, are without understanding and are blind to the ways of God. Their default mode is laziness when it comes to their calling.

Let me focus on just one aspect. Isaiah calls them ‘silent dogs’. Since this section is about being a shepherd of the flock, let’s picture this dog as a sheep dog. What do sheep dogs do? They run around and bark. Sometimes they bark at wolves. Obviously, there is no contest between a dog and a wolf, but a good sheep dog barks anyway. He knows that the Good Shepherd will hear the barking and come to see what’s happening. He will deal with the wolf. There are other times when a sheep dog barks at the sheep. This happens when one of them is wandering off. He barks to chase the sheep back to the flock, where the Good shepherd and safety are. That’s the role of a sheep dog: to run around and, as annoying as it might sound, to bark. But these men, called to care for the flock, were silent dogs. They never barked.

Isaiah is troubled by this not because there are some guys who are falling down on the job. He is troubled by this because of the results that come from silent dogs. And that’s what the second section of our text is about. Isaiah tells us what happens when watchmen, shepherds, pastors fail. As I read the next section listen for the idolatry among the people of God, the Church of Isaiah’s day. You probably won’t understand the details of each idol, but I think that you’ll be able to get a sense of how bad things were. Listen as I read Isaiah 57.1-13.

The basic point is clear. A failure in the watchman/shepherd will result in damage to the flock. Wolves will show up and bring their idols with them. Isaiah lists several different kinds of idolatry here. The specific form of the idolatry is foreign to us. It is, after all, rooted in another time and another place. But if you look behind the cultural form you will see the sinful attitudes of the heart that transcend culture.

So, verse 5: ‘… you who burn with lust among the oaks, under every green tree…’ When Israel entered Canaan, the Promised Land, in the days of Joshua, they were told very clearly that they were to destroy everything. The danger was that if they did not they would be enticed to follow in the ways of the people of Canaan. Israel didn’t destroy everything and, as a result, they did, in fact, follow in the ways of those people. The religion of Canaan was the worship of Baal, an agricultural god. Remember, almost everyone in Israel was a farmer. And what does any farmer desire? Fertile livestock and plentiful crops. He desires prosperity, and there is nothing necessarily wrong with that. According to Baal, though, the way to achieve those goals of fertility was by participating in acts of fertility. So, there were religious prostitutes. Sex was an act of worship to the local farming god. The hope was that this would result in the prosperity the farmer desired. That’s what Isaiah was talking about.

There are no Baal worshipers today. But the core of that idolatry lives on in our day. There are plenty of people today who pursue the same goal that the farmers in Isaiah’s day chased after. Today’s idolaters may not use a religious prostitute but there are other ways that they worship the local god of prosperity. How many prostitute themselves to their jobs in the hope of gaining the prosperity that has been promised them? They give what is something akin to religious devotion to their careers when it comes to their time and energies. They do this in the hope of the gaining the equivalent of fertile livestock and plentiful crops.

Remember that Isaiah is writing about the Church of his day. And his point is not that they have completely turned their back on Jesus. No, they still attend the Temple services and consider themselves good Jews. Isaiah’s concern is their divided loyalties. They certainly show devotion to Jesus. The problem is that they are also show devotion to the local farming god. In this section Isaiah is simply fulfilling his calling to reminding these folk of their covenant promises. At the heart of those promises is this: ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.’ It’s either full devotion to Jesus or none at all. You can see why Isaiah is upset.

This section ends with a harsh rebuke from Jesus. ‘When you cry out, let your collection of idols deliver you! The wind will carry them off, a breath will take them away.’ It will do no good for these faithful Temple-attenders, idolaters all, to cry out to Jesus when life gets rough. He leaves them to their idols who will end up as dust that is blown away.

Now we’re ready for the third section. Up to this point our text has been dark. Now the light shines. This is where it gets encouraging. This section begins with a very important word: ‘but’ [verse 13b]. And with that word everything shifts. Listen as I read Isaiah 57.13b-21.

This first thing to deal with is the question, ‘Who is this? Who is Isaiah writing about?’ This is important. He’s writing about someone that we just read about in the second section of out text. He’s writing about one of those faithful Temple-attenders who was at the same time an idolater. What Isaiah describes here is a great change in this person. How did that come about? Isaiah tells us. ‘Because of the iniquity of his unjust gain I was angry, I struck him; I hid my face and was angry, but he went on backsliding in the way of his own heart.’ This is intense: ‘angry’, ‘struck’. Those are hard words. And then there’s, ‘I hid my face’. Do you remember the benediction from Numbers that included the phrase, ‘the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you’? That was all about God blessing His people. So, hiding His face is about cursing them. Here is God, a good Father, disciplining His wandering child. And what does the child do in response? ‘… but he went on backsliding in the way of his own heart.’ Isaiah is talking about deep-seated rebellion here and that in the face of God’s strict discipline. It might have shown like this: Everything is going wrong. There are health problems. The job is iffy. The kids are developing attitudes. At night he can’t sleep because he’s anxious about what’s going on. And during the day he rushes about to try to fix it all. But there is no repentance. God’s discipline. Is this harsh? Well, consider the alternative. What if God doesn’t strike, or get angry or hide His face. He just lets this rebel go his own way. And another soul ends up in hell, shouting, ‘Why is this happening to me? I was one of the good people!’

And so, it’s a good thing that the Father doesn’t just let him go his way. In fact, it’s a good thing that He vetoes the rebellious choices that the child is making. Here we encounter another ‘but’. Notice what the Father does. ‘I have seen his ways, but[!] I will heal him; I will lead him and restore comfort to him …’ The Father sees the rebellion, the continued rejection of His ways, even in the face of His discipline. Nonetheless, He acts in mercy. He decides to heal. Where would we be if our Father never overruled our rebellious hearts so that He could heal us from our sin?

Our rebellious friend does not see God’s act of healing. That is an invisible act within the soul. But he does see its results. Verse 15: ‘For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.”’ The evidence that the Father has acted invisibly in the soul is the response of our Israelite friend. Instead of a rebellious attitude that follows idols there is now a contrite and lowly spirit.

Let’s look at this a bit. First, a definition. A contrite spirit is the expression of deep sorrow for sin. A lowly spirit is one that has been humbled. These are the first part of what needs to happen in the life of our friend. One great obstacle to experiencing a contrite spirit is the failure to grasp the seriousness of sin. If our friend had committed only one sin, even if it was what some might call a ‘minor sin’, Jesus would still need to die on the Cross for it and suffer the hell that He did. As far as God is concerned, all sin, even the ones people consider ‘minor sins’, is equally foul and abominable. It is deeply offensive. Meditating on that leads one to understand the seriousness of sin better. And that leads to a contrite spirit: deep sorrow even over what others might consider a ‘minor sin’. And a lowly spirit, a humbled spirit, makes complete sense, because it reflects greater self-knowledge. ‘I thought that I was one of the good people. Now I know the truth. I am a foul sinner.’ Behind every sin, whatever it may be, is pride. How can there be real change without acknowledging that and being humbled? Here’s a good example of a contrite and lowly spirit. ‘But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”’

That’s the first part of what needs to happen. Here’s its mate. ‘But he who takes refuge in me shall possess the land and shall inherit my holy mountain.’ [verse 13b] So, refuge from what? From God’s angry justice. I’m not talking about discipline. This is about punishment. This is about hell. And where is refuge from God’s just wrath against sin? The only refuge is God Himself. ‘But he who takes refuge in me…’ Taking refuge in God means bowing at the Cross and saying, first, ‘Jesus, You are my only hope. Lord Jesus, save me.’

Now, what have I described? Repentance and faith. Turning away from sin, repentance, is tied up with a contrite and lowly spirit. That’s the first part. But then, there’s faith. There’s is coming again to Jesus for – listen, I’m going to tweak what I usually say – for forgiveness and for discipleship. I usually say ‘change’, but it’s becoming clearer to me that change only occurs in the context of following Jesus, discipleship. So, it’s coming to Jesus to be forgiven and to be discipled. Once again it all boils down to repentance and faith.

Now, how shall we label this third section? What’s a good word to describe or summarize what we have here? How about the word ‘conversion’? But let’s add this spin to it. This is conversion but not in the sense of something that happens once in a lifetime. Let’s consider it more like something that happens pretty much every day. So, it’s not conversion from being lost. But it is conversion from being a sinner. Consider the case of the Israelites that Isaiah was describing in the second section. They didn’t repent and believe daily. There wasn’t daily conversion. And as a result, their daily sins festered and became, one might say, cancerous. Daily conversion, as the Spirit points out sin and we respond with repentance and faith, avoids that.

And what is the result of this daily conversion? ‘“I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will lead him and restore comfort to him and his mourners, creating the fruit of the lips. Peace, peace, to the far and to the near,” says the Lord, “and I will heal him.”’ And we’re back to peace, that sense of wholeness, integration, all the pieces of your life fitting together; you fitting into God’s world. And because of this peace, life works much better.

There is, however, more. There is another ‘but’. ‘“But the wicked are like the tossing sea; for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up mire and dirt. There is no peace,” says my God, “for the wicked.”’ Remember that Isaiah has not been writing about the pagans. He’s been writing about the people of God, the Church. He’s writing about good Temple-attenders who refuse to be converted, day by day. They refuse to repent with contrite and lowly spirit, and then to come to Jesus again for forgiveness and discipleship. For these there is no peace. Life will not work very well. And it will only get worse in the age to come.

So, what from this text might you take home with you? There is much to choose from. Here’s one thought. Consider the God you worship. Consider how He deals with us, His children. He works with us even when we behave like such vile sinners, pursuing this or that idol. He loves us enough to be angry with us, to discipline us so that we would see our foolish sin. And even when we continue to refuse to listen to Him, He graciously draws us away from our sin and back to Himself. All this is ours because of Jesus who loved us enough to die for our sins. So, why should we give Him a hard time? That makes no sense. What does make sense is that we all should pray that the Spirit would turn us from our idols, one by one by one, so that we might follow Jesus with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, all to the glory of the Father.