Micah McCormick: Turn to Isaiah chapter 1.
Micah McCormick: Isaiah, you'll be hearing quite a lot over the next year.
Micah McCormick: That call to turn to the book of Isaiah.
Micah McCormick: So your Bibles may have been falling open to Matthew, but now hopefully they'll start falling open to Isaiah.
Micah McCormick: If you're using the Pew Bible this morning, you'll find Isaiah chapter 1 on page 600.
Micah McCormick: We're going to be covering verses 2 through 9 of Isaiah chapter 1 this morning.
Micah McCormick: Isaiah 1, verses 2 through 9.
Micah McCormick: This is what Holy Scripture says.
Micah McCormick: Listen, heavens, and pay attention, earth, for the Lord has spoken.
Micah McCormick: I have raised children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me.
Micah McCormick: The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's feeding trough.
Micah McCormick: But Israel does not know, my people do not understand.
Micah McCormick: O sinful nation, people weighed down with iniquity, brood of evildoers, depraved children.
Micah McCormick: They have abandoned the Lord.
Micah McCormick: They have despised the Holy One of Israel.
Micah McCormick: They have turned their backs on him.
Micah McCormick: Why do you want more beatings?
Micah McCormick: Why do you keep on rebelling?
Micah McCormick: The whole head is hurt, and the whole heart is sick.
Micah McCormick: From the sole of the foot even to the head, no spot is uninjured, wounds, welts, and festering sores not cleansed, bandaged or soothed with oil.
Micah McCormick: Your land is desolate, your cities burned down, foreigners devour your fields right in front of you, a desolation, like a place demolished by foreigners.
Micah McCormick: Daughter Zion is abandoned like a shelter in a vineyard, like a shack in a cucumber field, like a besieged city.
Micah McCormick: If the Lord of Armies had not left us a few survivors, we would be like Sodom.
Micah McCormick: We would resemble Gomorrah.
Micah McCormick: Lord, we're just seeking your help again because we need you.
Micah McCormick: The Spirit gives life.
Micah McCormick: We remind ourselves of that.
Micah McCormick: So we're asking that the Spirit would give life even through these words of challenge today.
Micah McCormick: In Jesus' name, amen.
Micah McCormick: Great rebellion brings great suffering.
Micah McCormick: We see that throughout the pages of scripture.
Micah McCormick: Cain, the very first son, kills his brother Abel.
Micah McCormick: When the Lord banishes Cain, he says, This punishment is more than I can bear.
Micah McCormick: Esau sought a wife among people that didn't know the Lord.
Micah McCormick: And the Bible tells us in Genesis that the thing brought great grief to his parents.
Micah McCormick: Eli's sons rebelled.
Micah McCormick: They didn't listen to their father.
Micah McCormick: And 1 Samuel chapter 2 tells us that it was the Lord's will to put them to death.
Micah McCormick: Saul, the very first king in Israel, rebels against the Lord.
Micah McCormick: And 1 Samuel 15 tells us that rebellion is like the sin of witchcraft, and the kingdom is ripped away from him.
Micah McCormick: Great rebellion brings great suffering.
Micah McCormick: Even the very first man and woman, Adam and Eve, they turn away from God, and the very ground that Adam is made from is cursed, and he's going to have to work it with thorns and thistles.
Micah McCormick: Eve, so who was so wondrously created to be able to bring life from herself, now there's going to be pain in childbearing, she was created and brought from Adam's side.
Micah McCormick: There's going to be pain in their relationship, and the whole world is plunged into ruin because of their rebellion.
Micah McCormick: Proverbs 17, 11 warns us: an evil person desires only rebellion.
Micah McCormick: A cruel messenger will be sent against him.
Micah McCormick: Great rebellion brings great suffering.
Micah McCormick: As we enter the book of Isaiah, we find rebellious people.
Micah McCormick: Look at verse 2.
Micah McCormick: The Lord speaks there and says that he's raised Israel, that nation.
Micah McCormick: It says they'll be devoured by the sword.
Micah McCormick: Isaiah chapter 30, verse 1, the prophet there is going to pronounce a woe on rebellious children.
Micah McCormick: Great rebellion brings great suffering.
Micah McCormick: Now I want to give a word of caution before I get into the meat of the message this morning.
Micah McCormick: Some of you probably already really like the theme of this sermon for someone else.
Micah McCormick: You're like, great rebellion brings great suffering.
Micah McCormick: I don't care if it is the first day of children's Bible lesson.
Micah McCormick: My kids got to hear this.
Micah McCormick: I'm going to go downstairs, pull them right out, and bring them back up for the sermon.
Micah McCormick: Great rebellion brings great suffering.
Micah McCormick: Oh boy, doesn't America need to hear that?
Micah McCormick: I don't even recognize it anymore.
Micah McCormick: Something's coming.
Micah McCormick: Don't forget the old children's primer.
Micah McCormick: In Adam's Fall, we sinned all.
Micah McCormick: This passage should be reaching down into our hearts to each and every one of us.
Micah McCormick: Great rebellion brings great suffering.
Micah McCormick: As we work through that theme from the text today, I've got four words that all begin with the letter R.
Micah McCormick: So if that helps you, if you're taking notes, great.
Micah McCormick: But the words are relationship, rebellion, ruin, and remnant.
Micah McCormick: I'll say those again: relationship, rebellion, ruin, and remnant.
Micah McCormick: So we'll start with that first R word, relationship.
Micah McCormick: The word relationship helps us understand why the rebellion is so great.
Micah McCormick: The rebellion is great because of the relationship that's despised.
Micah McCormick: Look again at verse two.
Micah McCormick: The Lord speaks, I have raised children and brought them up, but they rebelled against me.
Micah McCormick: God calls the nation of Israel his children.
Micah McCormick: It's not the first time he's done that.
Micah McCormick: Back in Exodus chapter 4, he tells uh he tells Moses to go in and tell Pharaoh, let my people go.
Micah McCormick: Israel is my firstborn son.
Micah McCormick: In Deuteronomy chapter 14, verse 1, Scripture calls Israel sons of the Lord your God.
Micah McCormick: Hosea chapter 11, verse 1.
Micah McCormick: When Israel was a child, I loved him.
Micah McCormick: Out of Egypt I called my son.
Micah McCormick: So the nation of Israel in the Old Testament was God's son.
Micah McCormick: But who was Israel?
Micah McCormick: Well, well, they were, with all due respect, they were a nobody.
Micah McCormick: They weren't a great and powerful nation.
Micah McCormick: God took Abraham from a land of pagan worshipers, and God brought him out, and God made him his own.
Micah McCormick: So it's not like, you know, when you go to the pet store and you're going to adopt a dog, and there's all these mangy mutts growling at you, and then you see one dog with this shimmering coat and he's wagging his tail, and you're like, that's the one.
Micah McCormick: Let's that wasn't how it was with Israel.
Micah McCormick: Deuteronomy 7, verse 6.
Micah McCormick: You're a holy people belonging to the Lord your God.
Micah McCormick: The Lord chose you to be his own possession.
Micah McCormick: He set his heart on you and chose you not because you were more numerous than all peoples, for you were the fewest, but the because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore.
Micah McCormick: God loved Israel because he loved them.
Micah McCormick: They were his children.
Micah McCormick: In Ezekiel 16, there's a picture, it's a graphic picture of an infant abandoned by the side of the road, thrashing around in his own blood, and the Lord comes and cleans him up and takes him home.
Micah McCormick: That's the picture of what happened with Israel.
Micah McCormick: So if we think not only that they're children, but who they're children of, they're children of the Almighty God.
Micah McCormick: It wasn't Egypt or some bigger nation that adopted them.
Micah McCormick: This is the God of heaven and earth who made everything in it.
Micah McCormick: He took them as his own.
Micah McCormick: And it's not even just who their father is, God Almighty, it's how he has cared for them.
Micah McCormick: Again, verse 2 of Isaiah 1, God says, I have raised children and brought them up.
Micah McCormick: If Elon Musk went to some uh you know troubled orphanage and adopted a child, paid for a full-time nanny, a private school, left him half of his money in his will, say, well, that's that's pretty generous.
Micah McCormick: God did so much more than that for Israel.
Micah McCormick: He didn't just make provision for them, he personally cared for them.
Micah McCormick: He was their nursing mother, he was their tutor, he's the one who brought them out of Egypt with mighty outstretched arms.
Micah McCormick: He's the one that parted the sea when they're in the wilderness.
Micah McCormick: He's the one who sent manna from heaven and brought water from the rock when they came into Jericho.
Micah McCormick: He's the one who put the walls down.
Micah McCormick: Over and over again, God is so tenderly caring for Israel.
Micah McCormick: And yet, and yet, it's a meager people and a mighty God.
Micah McCormick: The relationship is great, and that's what makes the rebellion so great because they despise that relationship.
Micah McCormick: And that helps us to understand also part of what made Adam and Eve's original sin so serious.
Micah McCormick: Sometimes we think, oh, well, they took a bite of the fruit.
Micah McCormick: I mean, okay, it was wrong, but really all this, it's not just that isolated act.
Micah McCormick: It's that God had created them perfectly in a perfect environment, perfect inside and out, and they say no and they go their own way.
Micah McCormick: That brings us to the second, that second R word for today.
Micah McCormick: Relationship, and then yes, rebellion.
Micah McCormick: Verse 2 God has raised these children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me.
Micah McCormick: Rebellion is foolish.
Micah McCormick: Look at verse number three.
Micah McCormick: There's a comparison here.
Micah McCormick: The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's feeding trough, but Israel does not know.
Micah McCormick: My people do not understand.
Micah McCormick: You hear the comparison?
Micah McCormick: Even dumb brute animals are sensible enough to know who's the one who's feeding us, who's the one who's caring for us, will be responsible to them.
Micah McCormick: But even dumb brute animals are unlike, in this case, Israel.
Micah McCormick: We've got these expressions today still, you dumb ox.
Micah McCormick: Or there's another word that's a King James word for Mule.
Micah McCormick: I won't use the word, but you can use your imagination.
Micah McCormick: But the point is, how could you be so stupid?
Micah McCormick: Israel, how could you be so foolish in light of all that's been given to you?
Micah McCormick: But rebellion is foolish.
Micah McCormick: Our rebellion is foolish.
Micah McCormick: Sin clouds our minds.
Micah McCormick: Ephesians 4 says we have futile thoughts.
Micah McCormick: We're darkened in our understanding.
Micah McCormick: We have hard hearts that result in ignorance in us.
Micah McCormick: God is the wisest and most intelligent being in the universe.
Micah McCormick: He's also the being who is the most full of goodness.
Micah McCormick: So it's it's the height of folly for us not to listen to him, for us to think that we somehow know more than God or could act in a way that's better than God, or chart our own course.
Micah McCormick: Proverbs 26, verse 11.
Micah McCormick: As a dog returns to its vomit, so also a fool repeats his foolishness.
Micah McCormick: It's always wrong to rebel against God.
Micah McCormick: Now, there's other authority figures, they're not all wise and all good.
Micah McCormick: It's usually wrong to rebel against parents, government bosses.
Micah McCormick: It usually brings suffering.
Micah McCormick: There may be times when they try to put themselves in the place of God, and we have to say, like Peter, we have to obey God rather than man.
Micah McCormick: But this passage is talking about rebellion against God Himself, and rebellion against God Himself is always wrong.
Micah McCormick: Full stop.
Micah McCormick: Romans 1.
Micah McCormick: We heard from Romans 1 early in the service, but though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude.
Micah McCormick: Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened, claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.
Micah McCormick: Therefore, God delivered them over and the desires of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies were degraded among themselves.
Micah McCormick: They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served what has been created instead of the Creator who is praised forever.
Micah McCormick: So Israel's sin is in some ways aggravated and unique because of the special opportunities they had, and we'll come back to that.
Micah McCormick: But it's a picture in some ways of the sin of humanity and the rebellion of all humanity.
Micah McCormick: It's foolish, and rebellions also here persistent.
Micah McCormick: Verse number five of Isaiah one.
Micah McCormick: Why do you keep on rebelling?
Micah McCormick: The NIV there reads, why do you persist in rebellion?
Micah McCormick: Sadly, this is not Israel who's a well-behaved child and they have an off day and they decide to break curfew once.
Micah McCormick: That's not what's happening.
Micah McCormick: They rebel and rebel.
Micah McCormick: This is not like the kid who they're grouchy one day, they're a 12-year-old, they tell their parents, I hate you, I'm running away.
Micah McCormick: And then two blocks down the road, this was not a good idea.
Micah McCormick: I'm gonna go back home.
Micah McCormick: No sooner had Israel received the Sinai covenant than they'd created a golden calf.
Micah McCormick: How long had they been in the wilderness when they started saying, We like it better back in Egypt?
Micah McCormick: They continually adopted the idols of the nations around them.
Micah McCormick: Moses, in one sense, saw this coming, Deuteronomy 31, 27.
Micah McCormick: Moses says, I know how rebellious and stiff-necked you are.
Micah McCormick: If you're rebelling against the Lord now, while I'm still alive, how much more will you rebel after I'm dead?
Micah McCormick: And he's right, it does get worse and worse.
Micah McCormick: As the centuries wear on, here's Jeremiah 19:5.
Micah McCormick: They've built high places to bail on which to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings, something I never commanded or mentioned.
Micah McCormick: I'd never entertained the thought.
Micah McCormick: They've got a long-standing relationship, but there's a long-standing rebellion.
Micah McCormick: And here in Isaiah 1, the heavens and the earth are called to witness.
Micah McCormick: Those are the same witnesses that were back in the covenant in Exodus and Deuteronomy, the covenant at Sinai, those same witnesses were invoked as the nation entered that covenant.
Micah McCormick: And now those same witnesses are being invoked because they've broken that covenant time and time and time again.
Micah McCormick: They rebelled against their creator.
Micah McCormick: Let me pause here and state a truth.
Micah McCormick: It's not the only truth from this passage, but it is a truth.
Micah McCormick: Perfect parenting cannot guarantee a good outcome for children.
Micah McCormick: It is true that the Lord often uses the means of faithful parenting to work in the lives of children, but we have to be very careful not to absolutize that principle.
Micah McCormick: Some of you have one or more children who are not walking with the Lord, and it's a grief to you, and you can be tempted to just blame yourself over and over and over again.
Micah McCormick: Don't forget that the Lord is God and you're not.
Micah McCormick: Yes, we could acknowledge our mistakes.
Micah McCormick: It can be helpful to even share with other parents.
Micah McCormick: We maybe could have done this or that, but we have to leave our children ultimately in the hands of God.
Micah McCormick: And there might be other parents here who your children are walking with the Lord.
Micah McCormick: It could be a temptation for you to look around and say, maybe not out loud, but in your heart, well, of course their children aren't walking with God.
Micah McCormick: Look at all the things that we did that those parents didn't do.
Micah McCormick: Are you a better parent than God?
Micah McCormick: Because it says here that God raised Israel and brought Israel up, but they rebelled.
Micah McCormick: I dare say God was a perfect parent, far more perfect than any of us.
Micah McCormick: Young parents, uh, aspiring new couples.
Micah McCormick: It can be easy for you to also look at other parents and criticize.
Micah McCormick: Of course, their kids are so discouraged, they're nagging them all the time.
Micah McCormick: We're gonna be sweet and loving with our children, and they'll respond with sweet and loving obedience.
Micah McCormick: Course, their kids are bouncing off the wall.
Micah McCormick: Parents never discipline those kids.
Micah McCormick: We're gonna discipline consistently, uh patiently, and our kids will see we're doing it for their good.
Micah McCormick: And I'll I'll include single people here.
Micah McCormick: We're probably the best at criticizing parents, I admit it.
Micah McCormick: It's one of our spiritual gifts, uh, if I do say so.
Micah McCormick: Friends, this passage shouldn't be driving us to guilt or to self-righteousness or to accusation, but to prayerfulness.
Micah McCormick: Lord, have mercy.
Micah McCormick: Great rebellion brings great suffering, and we need to make no mistake about it.
Micah McCormick: Israel's rebellion is great, it's personal.
Micah McCormick: Sin isn't merely a misstep or a mistake, it's the transgression of the law of God, it's rebellion.
Micah McCormick: Verse 4 brings this out so clearly.
Micah McCormick: They've abandoned the Lord and turned their backs on him.
Micah McCormick: Isaiah calls God the Holy One of Israel.
Micah McCormick: That's a title that's gonna come up repeatedly throughout this book.
Micah McCormick: God's the holy one of Israel, but they're such unholy and rebellious people.
Micah McCormick: There's a tension and a collision point there that we're gonna come back to over and over again in this book.
Micah McCormick: Relationship, rebellion, and yes, that leads to ruin.
Micah McCormick: Verse five.
Micah McCormick: The whole heart is sick.
Micah McCormick: This is a suffering that's both outside and inside.
Micah McCormick: It's going to affect every part of the nation.
Micah McCormick: Israel's sin brings consequences.
Micah McCormick: You reap what you sow.
Micah McCormick: They had so much, they rebelled so highly, and now the ruin they experience is going to be great, and it's going to be painful.
Micah McCormick: And we'll see those consequences spilling out in this passage and then throughout the book of Isaiah.
Micah McCormick: The suffering we experience doesn't always stem from our own personal sin.
Micah McCormick: But normally, our own personal rebellion does bring about suffering.
Micah McCormick: And in verse five, God asked them this question.
Micah McCormick: It sounds like such a rhetorical question.
Micah McCormick: Why do you want more beatings?
Micah McCormick: But remember, rebellion is foolish.
Micah McCormick: And so the ruin that comes, the suffering that comes, is sometimes a lesson that's that's learned, but not really truly learned.
Micah McCormick: Why do you want more beatings?
Micah McCormick: An earlier season of life, I was a summer camp counselor.
Micah McCormick: Some of you know that.
Micah McCormick: And um, now we we didn't beat the children.
Micah McCormick: So some of you are like, where's this illustration going?
Micah McCormick: Okay, no.
Micah McCormick: But I worked with elementary kids in a summer camp, and there was one boy, I'll call him Tommy, and he had a problem with his anger.
Micah McCormick: But he was in sixth grade, so he's one of the biggest kids.
Micah McCormick: So there was never really an issue with the other kids because he was big, they couldn't do much of anything except sometimes give me this like panic look across the ball field that was like, Tommy's about to blow his top.
Micah McCormick: We need some adult intervention as soon as possible.
Micah McCormick: But then the next summer, he's no longer in the elementary camp, he's in the junior high and high school camp.
Micah McCormick: So now he's not one of the biggest kids, he's one of the smallest kids.
Micah McCormick: I think you know where this illustration is going.
Micah McCormick: I was with a with a group of people that were on staff for a work thing, and I knew some of the staff in this other high school camp.
Micah McCormick: I said, How's Tommy doing?
Micah McCormick: They said, Wow, we had an incident the other day.
Micah McCormick: Uh we were playing a game, we look up.
Micah McCormick: There's this other kid on top of Tommy straddling him, just punching him repeatedly in the face.
Micah McCormick: This is like MMA before there's MMA.
Micah McCormick: And they said, We go over, run over, pull the kid off, and Tommy's bawling, and we're like, What's going on?
Micah McCormick: And the other kid said, Well, we're just playing dodgeball.
Micah McCormick: I threw a ball, hit him for no reason.
Micah McCormick: He gets upset and comes over and punches me.
Micah McCormick: So I tackled him, started punching him in the face.
Micah McCormick: And I said, Well, what?
Micah McCormick: When his dad came to pick him up later that day and he had to explain the situation to Tommy's dad, what did his dad say?
Micah McCormick: I said, Yeah, we were worried about that, but thankfully, you know, when we explained the situation, his dad said, Well, I hope you learned a lesson today.
Micah McCormick: Now, that's that's suffering from your own foolishness on a small scale.
Micah McCormick: But Israel's rebellion is on a on a great scale.
Micah McCormick: When we sin against God, we're committing cosmic treason, as R.
Micah McCormick: C.
Micah McCormick: Sproull would say.
Micah McCormick: Isaiah 59, verse 2 Your iniquities are separating you from your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not listen.
Micah McCormick: For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity, your lips have spoken lies, your tongues mutter injustice.
Micah McCormick: No one makes claims justly, they trust in empty and worthless words, they conceive trouble and give birth to iniquity.
Micah McCormick: Here in Isaiah chapter 1, verse 6 says, No spot is uninjured.
Micah McCormick: There are wounds and welts and festering sores from head to toe.
Micah McCormick: Job experienced that kind of suffering because it was God's mysterious will to allow him to experience that degree of suffering.
Micah McCormick: Israel as a nation experienced that because of their own rebellion that brought this ruin on them.
Micah McCormick: The fool says in his heart, there is no God.
Micah McCormick: But it always leads to suffering in the end.
Micah McCormick: It might start off feeling like freedom, feeling like pleasure, but then you come at a certain point, and wouldn't it be God's mercy if it came in this life rather than the life to come?
Micah McCormick: Where you wake up and you're with the hogs and you're looking around saying, Why did I leave my father?
Micah McCormick: What have I done?
Micah McCormick: Our sin doesn't only bring ruin and suffering to ourselves, it affects other people.
Micah McCormick: So here, Israel shares in a collective guilt.
Micah McCormick: Even though not every single individual Israelite is rebelling to the same exact degree, they share in this collective guilt that's going to be affecting the entire nation.
Micah McCormick: So verse 7 reminds us that the whole land is desolate.
Micah McCormick: Multiple cities are burned down.
Micah McCormick: Assyria's already come in in the north, laid waste to a lot.
Micah McCormick: And Judah is left, this tribe in Jerusalem, and it's described here poignantly but heartbreakingly as a shack in a cucumber field.
Micah McCormick: And Babylon's going to be coming for Judah and Jerusalem as well.
Micah McCormick: Israel's suffering is magnified again because of that special covenant that they had with God.
Micah McCormick: Their rebellion is all the more exacerbated because of the relationship and privileges they had.
Micah McCormick: There's a comparison here at one point to Sodom and Gomorrah.
Micah McCormick: And Sodom and Gomorrah were judged by the Lord righteously.
Micah McCormick: They didn't have that special covenant that Israel had.
Micah McCormick: So Israel's had more privilege, and yet their ruin is all the more great.
Micah McCormick: We don't want to too quickly just equate the nation of Israel and America.
Micah McCormick: God didn't come down to Mount Vernon and give George Washington two tablets of stone.
Micah McCormick: He did do that with Israel.
Micah McCormick: So, yes, Isaiah is going to prophesy against other nations as well.
Micah McCormick: It's not irrelevant that we care for our country that we're living in and think about how we want our country to honor God.
Micah McCormick: That's not irrelevant.
Micah McCormick: But Israel had this special covenant with the Lord, and that's so important because it's going to bring heightened consequences.
Micah McCormick: Relationship, rebellion, ruin.
Micah McCormick: But there's another word, and that's the word remnant.
Micah McCormick: If you ask why great rebellion brings such great suffering, it's great rebellion because of the relationship.
Micah McCormick: But thankfully, if you ask, is suffering the end of the story?
Micah McCormick: Is there only ruin for Israel?
Micah McCormick: You've talked about how we're all made in the image of God.
Micah McCormick: We all owe God obedience and loyalty.
Micah McCormick: Is only what's left for us suffering and ruin?
Micah McCormick: No, there's this word remnant.
Micah McCormick: Look again at verse number nine.
Micah McCormick: If the Lord of armies had not left us a few survivors, we would be like Sodom.
Micah McCormick: There's the example, parallel, we would resemble Gomorrah.
Micah McCormick: He brought Law and his family out of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Micah McCormick: He didn't leave other survivors.
Micah McCormick: He let those civilizations become extinct.
Micah McCormick: He could have done that with Israel, but he doesn't.
Micah McCormick: He leaves survivors.
Micah McCormick: Even though, in one sense, they're they're even less deserving of having survivors, he shows off his mercy.
Micah McCormick: The remnant, this group that's left amidst all the death and destruction, is a testimony to the mercy of God.
Micah McCormick: Is it a coincidence that there's still Jewish people alive today?
Micah McCormick: No, it's not a coincidence.
Micah McCormick: It's a testimony to the mercy of God.
Micah McCormick: God preserves a remnant in order to show off his mercy.
Micah McCormick: But there's something else about this remnant.
Micah McCormick: And to see this, we need to turn over to Romans chapter 9.
Micah McCormick: So please take your Bible and turn to Romans chapter 9.
Micah McCormick: All of this suffering and devastation and destruction and ruin.
Micah McCormick: But if you come out the other side, that's I can only mean one thing: great mercy.
Micah McCormick: And in Romans chapter 9, Paul's going to quote from the passage we just have been looking at here in Isaiah chapter 1.
Micah McCormick: And we want to look at that.
Micah McCormick: Whenever the Bible quotes itself, we've got to consider that.
Micah McCormick: I read some commentaries this week.
Micah McCormick: They were helpful.
Micah McCormick: They're not inspired.
Micah McCormick: Paul's inspired in Romans chapter 9.
Micah McCormick: So when he quotes the Old Testament, we want to give special care and attention to it.
Micah McCormick: Best way to interpret scripture is with Scripture.
Micah McCormick: Romans 9, look at verse 29.
Micah McCormick: Apostle Paul's writing under inspiration of God.
Micah McCormick: He says, just as Isaiah predicted, if the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have become like Sodom.
Micah McCormick: And we would have been made like Gomorrah.
Micah McCormick: So he quotes the verse we just read.
Micah McCormick: Why is Paul doing that?
Micah McCormick: He's helping us understand more deeply this theology of the remnant.
Micah McCormick: So in Isaiah 1, Assyria's come in, Babylon's coming in, a lot of people are going to die, there's going to be people taken captive, but God's going to leave survivors.
Micah McCormick: There's going to be that physical remnant.
Micah McCormick: But Paul is drawing out an additional purpose here in Romans 9.
Micah McCormick: He's drawing out the reality that God preserves that physical remnant so that there can be a spiritual believing remnant.
Micah McCormick: In Romans, Paul has been celebrating the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ, how he brings salvation to sinful people.
Micah McCormick: Chapter 8, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ.
Micah McCormick: But then he raises this question that someone might have.
Micah McCormick: Seems like they're separated from God.
Micah McCormick: What about God's promises to Israel?
Micah McCormick: They're still rebelling against him.
Micah McCormick: They, by and large, rejected his Messiah.
Micah McCormick: And Paul says, but wait, don't think the word of God has failed.
Micah McCormick: That's impossible for the word of God to fail.
Micah McCormick: You need to understand better the theology of the remnant.
Micah McCormick: It's always been God's purpose to preserve a believing remnant within the larger nation that rebels.
Micah McCormick: That's what he's drawing out here for us in this section of scripture.
Micah McCormick: It was never God's intention to save every single individual Israelite who had ever lived.
Micah McCormick: But it was his intention throughout all those years to preserve a remnant, not just a remnant of physical survivors, but a remnant of God-fearing worshipers looking forward to the Messiah.
Micah McCormick: Remember what Elijah said?
Micah McCormick: Lord, I'm the only one left.
Micah McCormick: And the Lord said to Elijah, I've left 7,000 who haven't bowed the knee to Baal.
Micah McCormick: Ahab was an Israelite.
Micah McCormick: He was not a part of the believing remnant, but there were 7,000 who hadn't bowed the knee to Baal.
Micah McCormick: And Paul says, just at that time, as now, there's an election according to this remnant of grace.
Micah McCormick: So we have people like our wonderful brother Arnie Epstein, part of the believing remnant.
Micah McCormick: You could, you could, I don't know if Arnie's here today, but if you see him, at some point say, Thank you, Arnie, for remind us, God's faithful to his word.
Micah McCormick: He's going to be saving Jewish people throughout the ages.
Micah McCormick: There's this believing remnant, Paul says, so that God's word is indeed fulfilled.
Micah McCormick: And yes, the remnant shows off God's mercy, but the remnant reminds us that it's God's purpose to bring about salvation.
Micah McCormick: We need to keep giving the gospel to our Jewish friends, our neighbors, our companions.
Micah McCormick: We're thankful that they can be kept alive as people, but we don't want to stop there.
Micah McCormick: We want to be like Paul, who said, My heart's desire and prayer for them is that they might be saved.
Micah McCormick: You're listening well.
Micah McCormick: We're almost at the finish line here, but I want us to see finally how this draws us to Jesus Christ.
Micah McCormick: So if you've been tracking with us so far, great suffering, a great rebellion brings great suffering, and you might say, okay, if rebellion brings suffering, if indeed rebellion deserves suffering, then I'm not understanding why there are survivors.
Micah McCormick: I could see why God would judge everyone, but there's some survivors and there's some who are not survivors.
Micah McCormick: I could understand God is God.
Micah McCormick: If he wants to give this person a mansion, this person a medium size, that's his business.
Micah McCormick: But it is he just kind of sweeping the rebellion under the rug to be able to look at rebellious people and say, Well, I'll have mercy on you.
Micah McCormick: It seems like the rebellion is being minimized.
Micah McCormick: How can the Holy One of Israel do that?
Micah McCormick: He's not in any way minimizing rebellion.
Micah McCormick: He's of purer eyes than to look on wickedness, scripture says.
Micah McCormick: But how is it that God can say, not only you're part of my earthly family, nation of Israel, but to Jews and to people from every tribe and tongue and nation, he can say, you're part of my eternal spiritual family.
Micah McCormick: The remnant receives salvation because they are united to Jesus Christ, who is the faithful Israelite Son.
Micah McCormick: I'll say that again.
Micah McCormick: The remnant receives salvation because they're joined, they're united to Jesus, who is the faithful Israelite son.
Micah McCormick: Jesus suffered more than anyone has ever suffered, but not because of his own rebellion.
Micah McCormick: Our iniquity was laid on him.
Micah McCormick: Our rebellion was laid on him, that he might take the suffering and judgment on himself.
Micah McCormick: Jesus, of all the children who have never ever lived, Christ never rebelled.
Micah McCormick: And God takes the faithfulness of Jesus Christ and credits that to all who are joined to him.
Micah McCormick: That's where the belief and faith comes in.
Micah McCormick: We turn from our own way, not to trust in ourselves or just to try harder, but we're clinging hold of the one who is the faithful Israelite son.
Micah McCormick: That God can look on him and say, This is my beloved son with whom I'm well pleased.
Micah McCormick: And all those that are in him, I'm well pleased with them too.
Micah McCormick: It doesn't matter.
Micah McCormick: And this is where the hope comes in for all of us.
Micah McCormick: Whether you're Jew or Gentile or British or Argentinian or wherever else you've come from, if you belong to the faithful Israelite son, you're part of the believing remnant.
Micah McCormick: You're one of the survivors.
Micah McCormick: We're all sons of God and we're all sons of Abraham through faith in Jesus Christ.
Micah McCormick: He's the centerpiece, he's the cornerstone where all of this so powerfully and beautifully meets together.
Micah McCormick: In the book of Isaiah, the remnant and the messiah are intertwined.
Micah McCormick: I've got to exercise some restraint here.
Micah McCormick: There's going to be more messages in the book of Isaiah.
Micah McCormick: But Isaiah's going to speak of the servant of the Lord, servant of the Lord.
Micah McCormick: And sometimes, think, okay, the servant of the Lord, is that the believing remnant or is that the Messiah?
Micah McCormick: Well, they're very intertwined.
Micah McCormick: Give you one more example.
Micah McCormick: Isaiah pictures this great tree, and he says, it's going to be chopped down.
Micah McCormick: There's the picture of judgment against the nation of Israel.
Micah McCormick: But he says, a stump remains.
Micah McCormick: There's the believing remnant.
Micah McCormick: God always preserves the believing remnant.
Micah McCormick: But then Isaiah says, out of the stump, the root of Jesse will grow.
Micah McCormick: Do you see that?
Micah McCormick: That's the son of Jesse, David, Jesus Christ himself.
Micah McCormick: So there's the believing remnant, but the real, the real first root is Jesus Christ.
Micah McCormick: It speaks of the branch of David springing out of this tree.
Micah McCormick: So Jesus Christ Himself is the Israelite remnant who is faithful.
Micah McCormick: And all those that are joined to him are grafted in and receive salvation.
Micah McCormick: That's the hope that we have for God's mercy.
Micah McCormick: Yes, we didn't disobey at Sinai, but each one of us have disobeyed each and every day of our lives.
Micah McCormick: Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, strength, and mind.
Micah McCormick: Who among us can say that I've done that?
Micah McCormick: We only have hope through Christ.
Micah McCormick: And this is so wonderful.
Micah McCormick: In Christ, we have certain hope.
Micah McCormick: Not just a maybe hope, not the repeated sacrifices year after year, but the sacrifice once for all finished, the mercy of God that's eternally secure for us because of God's purpose through Jesus Christ.
Micah McCormick: So today, if you're trusting in Christ, rejoice.
Micah McCormick: And if you're not trusting in Him, please come speak with me, speak with one of our elders or any of us that would be happy to talk with you more about what it looks like to cast yourself upon the Lord.
Micah McCormick: We want you to receive this free gift of salvation.
Micah McCormick: We want you to be to be one of one of the remnant, one of the survivors as you trust in the Lord Himself.
Micah McCormick: The hope that we have is not just a temporary hope for temporary kinds of successes, but an eternal relationship restored.
Micah McCormick: Great rebellion brings great suffering.
Micah McCormick: But that means if we've experienced the mercy of God in Jesus Christ, that mercy is great indeed.
Micah McCormick: Let's pray.
Micah McCormick: Oh God, we ask that you would open our eyes more and more to appreciate the magnitude of Jesus Christ and all that he's accomplished.
Micah McCormick: We thank you that he came born of a virgin and yet born as a son of David, born to walk in the footsteps of Israel, to retrace those steps and yet never sin and never rebel, that he's been received to your right hand, and now we who belong to him can find acceptance, can find peace in our hearts with you, and then peace with one another through Jesus Christ.
Micah McCormick: Lord, we thank you for these elements we're about to enjoy together because they too remind us of the work of Christ.
Micah McCormick: We don't in any way ever want to minimize our sin, but we want to magnify the mercy of God in Jesus Christ for rebels like us.
Micah McCormick: So please, Lord, let us magnify that mercy as we sing, as we go on our way this day.
Micah McCormick: In Jesus' name.
Micah McCormick: Amen.