What If Your “Freedom” Is Just Another Idol

You can do a lot of “religious” things and still be far from God and Isaiah 1 refuses to let us hide behind the performance. We talk about why God calls his own people “Sodom and Gomorrah” in a shocking wake-up call, and how empty sacrifice, polished prayers, and public devotion mean nothing when the heart stays hard. If you’ve ever wondered why faith can feel dry even when you’re doing all the right routines, this message gets uncomfortably honest and surprisingly hopeful.

From there, we trace God’s straight-to-the-point path to spiritual renewal: wash clean, stop doing evil, learn to do good, seek justice, rebuke the oppressor, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. That’s not abstract religion; it’s Christian discipleship that shows up in the way we treat people, handle power, and take responsibility. We also wrestle with how a culture of self can create real victims and how “my wants first” turns into oppression faster than we like to admit.

Then Isaiah turns and offers one of the most tender invitations in Scripture: “Come now, let us reason together.” We explore repentance and grace, the promise that scarlet sins can become white as snow, and a striking scarlet thread that points to Jesus Christ and the cleansing power of his blood. We close with Isaiah’s warning about idols that fade like dried-up gardens and a clear-eyed look at how dopamine-driven addiction mimics joy while draining life.

If this encouraged or challenged you, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find these Bible teachings through Isaiah.

Come On Up is the radio ministry of The Mountain Cross in Waynesville North Carolina. To learn more about us please visit: TheMountainCross.com. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, and we shall walk in his paths.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Welcome to Come On Up, the radio ministry of the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

The only way God's grace works in our lives is if we let him do it. If we're teachable, if we're correctable, Lord, show me, Lord, correct me, Lord, reveal your truth to me. Help me to see it. And he says, come and let's let's reason together. It's kind of like let's let's reach an understanding. When a father comes and brings a child to the back room and says, okay, we need to have an understanding here.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Coaching can be a difficult job. Many kids come to practice thinking they know it all. They're stubborn and disobedient and even lazy. On the other hand, the easiest kids to coach are those who are teachable, hard workers, who take the coach's advice and listen to it. Today, Pastor Carl reminds us that God wants us to be the teachable kind of athlete. He wants us to look to him for advice, put what he says into practice, and be hard workers. His grace covers us, but his desire is for us never to go astray. And now, here's Pastor Carl.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

You want to live life, you want to experience life. There's so much out there that's glorious, and you want to love. It's good to be loved. You like other people love you, and you love them, it's great, right? You feel important, you feel accepted. It's good, right? Everybody wants to be accepted. Laugh. Isn't like the greatest joy just having a good laugh? You're looking at the bright sky, enjoying life and learning. Isn't it good to learn, to grow, and to find out the mysteries of the world and everything? If you're following God or not, aren't these things that are embedded in every human? We want to live, love, laugh, and learn. And John says, you know, do you like these things when he talks to non-believers? Do these things resonate with you? We say, well, this is the heart of God. This is what he wants for you. Is that a bad thing? Any of those things. You're fighting for abortion. You're killing life. Don't you want to live and experience life? Don't you want to bring life? So this is the heart of God to give us the posh lifestyle, to give us the four L's. And this is the heart of Isaiah saying, look, this is what you're missing out on. It's destroying you. Verse 10, hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom, and give ear to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah. Now he's not talking to Sodom and Gomorrah, right? They've been destroyed already. He's talking to the leaders in Jerusalem. He's talking to the Jewish people. You are acting like Sodom and Gomorrah. And if it wasn't for my grace, you'd be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah. But since you're acting like them, I'm going to call you Sodom and Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me, says the Lord? I've had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of the fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls or the lambs of goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required this from your hand to trample on my courts? There's another place in the Lord in the Word that the Lord says, I'd rather have obedience than sacrifice. These rules of sacrifice I've given you to be in covenant with me, to recognize you've fallen short and you need to be restored. And with a heart of repentance and thanksgiving, you bring these sacrifices to me, and then they could be applied to you to cover your sins so you can continue in relationship with me. But you just bring them, thinking it's some good luck charm. You don't want to have anything to do with me, God is saying. Who has required this from your hand to trample my courts? Look, I did not give you the law in order to do this. You do all the right things, but your heart's not in it. You want to go your own way and not suffer the consequences? He goes on to say, Bring no more futile sacrifices, incense, abomination to me. The new moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of the assemblies, I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts, my soul hates. Is God hateful against the sin that's destroying us? They are a trouble to me. I am weary of burying them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. You're destroying life, you're killing people spiritually, because you're going off and doing your own thing, and you think you can just make it right by observing all these Sabbaths and all these assemblies and all these festivals that I've laid out in my law. I've laid these out in order to be times where you can meet with me. But you come and you do these things, but you don't want to have anything to do with me. My soul hates it because you're being destroyed. And I love you. I don't want you destroyed. Can you hear the heart of the Lord? You spread out your hands. You come and piously come before me, and you say, Oh God, would you bless my people and would you increase our harvests? And you're just saying it. You don't mean it. I won't listen to you. The Lord wants relationship with us, but he wants us to be real. Not pretend like we know God, not pretend like we do the right things, not just acting religiously pious on the outside, and inside we're corrupted. He wants us all inside and out so that we can really benefit from our relationship with Him. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good, to seek justice, rebuke the oppressor, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. I've given you everything you need to do these things. I'm here to teach you, to help you, to change you. You need to be willing to do it. You need to see the problem. He says, seek justice. Learn to do good, cease from evil. What it's all about our desires, our fulfillment. We step on everybody else. Our idea of justice is am I getting what I want? I don't care about anybody else. That's not doing good, and that's not living justly, is it? He said, seek justice, learn to do good. Obviously, we need to change our thinking, we need to change our hearts. Come to me and let's change this up. Rebuke the oppressor, stop being the oppressor. When it's all about me, I'm an oppressor to everybody else. And ultimately to myself. Rebuke the oppressor. Turn it around. Defend people, defend the fatherless. I think the greatest problem in the sexual revolution is the men are being brought down. The godly, strong, faithful man is being destroyed. And the sexual revolution says, you don't really need a father. You can do what you want and it'll be fine. So you have children with no fathers. And if there are fathers in the home, they have no power. They're not living out the life that they're to do it. So defend the fatherless by stopping being one of those that create children without fathers. You know, plead for the widows, either physical, you know, they've really lost their husbands or they never really had a husband. Because, you know, it was a one-night stand and he just went his own way and there's no responsibility. Do you see what I'm saying? You are these things. We need to turn them around. This is not what I intended. And if you think this is good, you're really sick and don't even know it. I want to bring you life, fulfillment, joy. My ways are better than your ways, says the Lord. Do you not see it? Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they they shall be white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land. But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. A couple verses ago, we he even said, you know, I'm not going to spank you anymore because you're not responding to my spanking. The only way God's grace works in our lives is if we let him do it. If we're teachable, if we're correctable. Help me to see it. And he says, Come and let's let's reason together. It's kind of like let's let's reach an understanding. When a father comes and brings a child to the back room and says, Okay, we get we need to have an understanding here. And what's the understanding usually that Dad's right? God is saying, let's have a meeting together. Let's go to the woodshed. You've heard that phrase when Jesus took me out to the woodshed. He does that because he loves us. He wants to show us his truth. Come, let us reason together. Come sit down with me. Let's talk. Let me reveal myself to you some more. Can you come and see? Because look, you're in a terrible mess. But I'm gonna make your sins white as snow. They're red like crimson, and they're gonna be white as wool. You messed it up, but I can fix it if you let me. This is the heart of God. Now, this this idea of scarlet and crimson is from a word in the Hebrew that means worm. Follow me here. In Proverbs 22, 6 it says, But I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men, and despised of the people. Proverbs 22 is called the Proverb of the Cross. It's a picture of Jesus on the cross with this idea that Jesus calls himself a worm on the cross. Okay, well, what does this mean? Well, worm means scarlet, and this scarlet dye was made from a particular worm, and this worm pierces itself on a tree, and it pierces itself to give life to cover her eggs with its protective blood. And then the larvae, when hatched, feed on the mother's body. Which reminds me of what the Lord says take, eat, this is my body given for you. I've been pierced. My blood covers you, covers your sins, protects you. Now you need to partake of me. Get into my word, let it saturate you, change you from the inside out. But isn't that amazing? The Lord is appealing to us. He's saying, Look, I love you. I'm pointing out the problem, and I'm giving you a solution. The only solution, the glorious solution. Would you take it? If you take it, it'll be great. If you don't, you're gonna be destroyed. How the faithful city has become a harlot. It was full of justice. Righteousness lodged in it, but now murderers. The faithful city, instead of people looking out for the interest of one another, they're looking for ways of taking advantage of one another. And you take advantage of other people and you don't care what you do to them. You can kill them physically, or you could just destroy their lives. Your silver has become like dross, your wine mixed with water. The dross is what's taken off the impurities that are in silver. God has, you know, cleaned us up and he's made us precious, and yet the preciousness of that silver is once again becoming dross. Jesus, he was his first miracle, was turning water into wine, right? We're mixing wine with water, we're diluting it, we're taking away the blessing of the fruit of the vine in our lives. Your princes are rebellious and companions of thieves. They're not serving the people, they're taking advantage of people, they're stealing. Everyone loves bribes and follows after rewards. It's just how it works. You cheat everybody, you make bribes. It's just how it is. So we make the most of it. God's saying it's not how it is. It's not how I intended it to be. They do not defend the fatherless, nor does the cause of the widow come before them. They really don't care. Those unborn babies and those born babies are more of a burden than a blessing. Because when we've gone our own way and corrupted our minds, we don't see the goodness of God. Therefore, says the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the mighty one of Israel, ah, I will rid myself of my adversaries and take vengeance on my enemies. I will turn my hand against you, and thoroughly purge away your dross, and take away all your alloy. I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterwards you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city. God says, I'm not giving up on you. We're going to turn this thing around. And you're going to recognize it was the work of the Lord, because God is good. Even though I was resisting, rebelling, going my own way. Paul says, While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He didn't wait for us to say, you know, I agree with you. I'm into this now. Would you come and die on the cross for me? Jesus came and was despised by men, rejected by his own, in order to do what needed to be done. And because he did, now we can come to him. Now we can receive from him. Now we can be changed by him. Now we can appreciate what he's done. But it's interesting in verse 25, he just says, I'm going to come after my adversities, I'm going to take vengeance on my enemies, and I'm going to turn my hand against you. It's almost like you're my enemies. But there's something that happens in that verse. I will turn my hand against you. It should read something more along the lines of, I will return my hand upon you. My hand has been taken off of you because you didn't want it on you. You didn't want the hand of God on you. You didn't want the blessing of God on you. You wanted to go your own way. But you know, in my mercy and my grace, I'm going to come back. I'm going to place my hands upon you again, and I'm going to turn you around. I'm going to return you back to me. I'm going to change you. And I'm going to cause the enemies to flee from their influence on your life. This is a gracious, glorious God. The problem is great. But the Lord has not given up. He is our hope. Because he has a promise for us. He wants to change us. He wants to restore us. And he wants Jerusalem to be called the city of righteousness. The faithful city. Faithful to God, faithful to one another, husbands and wives faithful to each other is a picture of Christ in his church. Zion shall be redeemed with justice. Her penitence with righteousness. Penitents are those that repent. There's a key here. How do we access this promise of God? By having a repentant spirit, one that says, I've been wrong. Lord, change me. Lord, I'm turning away from my sin. I'm acknowledging that this is this leading to death and destruction, not only of me, but of my family and ultimately of a society. But I want to leave that and I want to turn to you because I I've messed everything up. I can't do a thing. I need your help. I need your mercy. I need your forgiveness. I need your life because I can't do it. The penitence, he will give righteous. They will be redeemed and they will be made righteous. The destruction of the transgressors and of sinners shall be together, and those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed. The repentant heart will receive the grace of God. Are we repentant? Are we turning to the Lord? Are we brokenhearted? Are we cut to the heart? And do we respond in a way that turns us to God? Or do we just become harder in our sin, hardened in our hearts, saying, No, Lord, I don't want your ways. I'm going to go my way, and it's going to be just fine. You're going to be consumed. You're going to be consumed in your sin, and ultimately it's going to destroy you and lead to death. For they shall be ashamed of the terebinth trees which you have desired, and you shall be embarrassed because of the gardens which you have chosen. For you shall be as a terebinth whose leaf fades, and as a garden that has no water, the strong shall be as tinder, and the work of it as a spark, both will burn together, and no one shall quench them. The terebinth trees and the gardens were these places up on the high hills on the mountains that the pagan gods were worshipped. And when Israel came into Canaan, they were to rid Canaan of all the foreign gods. But they kind of liked these things up on the hills because it gave you a neat feeling, and we went up there and we we got to do things that we didn't get to do in other places. We would certainly wouldn't do this at the temple in Jerusalem, but we can do this up here. You shall have no other gods before you. Because if you stay there, you know, the Terebith trees, they're gonna die. And the gardens are going to dry up. If you don't walk in the blessing of God, you're you're asking for destruction. And when those things happen with a spark, it all gets burned up. Both will burn together, and no one shall quench them. You find your fulfillment in these false gods, and these idols, and these ideas that we come up with in our own heads. God is saying, you continue down that path, it's just leading to destruction. And the joy, quote unquote, joy that you receive in those things, the fulfillment, the it's really a dopamine high that you get in this, it disappears. This is where addictions come in, isn't it? You aware how that works, you get a dopamine high, and and you need to recreate it. And you never quite get as high as that first high. So you keep trying harder drugs, or you try other drugs, or you try, you know, other stuff. Whatever you're addicted to, it just gets deeper and more perverted and just off the track, and it's destroying instead of bringing life. When, if we would just turn to the Lord, who's the everlasting tree, he never withers, he never fades. He is the one who brings living water. You drink of this water, you'll never thirst again. I have life for you. I'm gonna help you live, love, laugh, and learn. You want to join me with it? This is a great adventure that I have for you. Would you come and be a part of it with me? That's the message that Isaiah is setting up in our first chapter, and the first chapter is kind of an introduction to the whole book. But today, what does it mean to us? It means, are there things in our lives where we're going in our own way? Where we fooled ourselves into thinking I enjoy this so much better than following the Lord. I mean, I could be following the Lord and doing great, but then backslide and fall into something that isn't bringing life, that's bringing destruction.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

Thanks for joining us for Come On Up. We've been hearing from Pastor Carl, the pastor at the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina, as he teaches us about the book of Isaiah. Toward the beginning of this book, the prophet Isaiah receives a vision of God's glory, and he is certain that he and the entire nation of Israel will be destroyed in the presence of a perfect creator. But God chose mercy on Isaiah and purifies him of his sin. This is an illustration of how God had mercy on us by sending his Son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. We don't have to be afraid to enter into the Lord's presence because the blood of Jesus has already paid the debt of our sin. We are made righteous and holy because of his sacrifice, which was prophesied to us all the way back in the book of Genesis and reaffirmed in the book of Isaiah. We're called to spread this message of hope to all who will hear it. And that is why this program that you're listening to is on the air. If you'd like to hear more from Pastor Carl, you can do so by visiting us online at themountaincross.com. If you're local to Waynesville, we'd also love to invite you to join us in person at the Mountain Cross. We meet every Sunday at 10 a.m. at the Smoky Mountain Cinema. You'll find more information about our services and our monthly faith film nights on our website. Pastor Carl has plenty more to share from the book of Isaiah, so be sure to come on up to the mountain with us again next time as we seek to learn more from the Lord through his word. Come on up is sponsored by the Mountain Cross, a Calvary Chapel fellowship.