Isaiah was faithful……………..

“Heaven and earth, you’re the jury.
Listen to God’s case: “I had children and raised them well,
and they turned on me.

The ox knows who’s boss,
the mule knows the hand that feeds him,
But not Israel.

My people don’t know up from down.
Shame!  Misguided God-dropouts, staggering under their guilt-baggage,
Gang of miscreants, band of vandals—

My people have walked out on me, their God, turned their backs on The Holy of Israel, walked off and never looked back.

 “Why bother even trying to do anything with you
when you just keep to your bullheaded ways?

You keep beating your heads against brick walls.
Everything within you protests against you.

From the bottom of your feet to the top of your head,
nothing’s working right.”   Isa. 1: 2-6 Message Bible

 

Perhaps the most significant thing we know about Isaiah is found in chapter 6. There Isaiah accepted his commission from his holy God, and was told that he must spend his life speaking to a people who would hear, but never understand; who would see, but never perceive.

What a burden for anyone to bear! And yet, Isaiah was faithful, not just for a year or 2, but over a 50-year span!  

Isaiah’s contemporaries would not hear the words Isaiah spoke. Yet his words echo through the centuries, and conjure up images for you and me today that help us know God better, and that deepen our awe of God’s wisdom and His love. When God calls you or me to minister, and others do not seem to hear, or reject our efforts, we can remember Isaiah.

His years of rejection bore unexpected fruit and our faithful service will too.

“The ox knows his master” (Isa. 1:2–4).

“Knows” here implies “responds to.”  Even a dumb animal recognizes and responds to its master’s voice.

 But Judah did not respond to God.  Isaiah identified the reason. This was a willful rather than ignorant failure to respond.  Note the three descriptive terms: forsaken, spurned, and “turned their backs on.” We may be critical of things the sinners among us do in ignorance.  But sins we, Christians, commit are far worse!

We know God’s will, but fail to do it anyway!