Isaiah does not deal directly with many modern social problems such as substance abuse, child molestation, homosexual actions, abortion, euthanasia, health care, cost of health care, gender inclusion, and environmental questions. He does mention drunkenness (Isa. 5:23; 28:1).

As a general rule, when one asks a biblical text a question the writer was not discussing, he gets an answer he has accepted on some other basis. An example can be seen in the use being made by some of Gal. 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are one in Christ Jesus.” The context is baptism into Christ not the woman’s role in worship. Parallel texts are Roman 10:12 and Col. 3:11. Another example is the use of Matt. 19:14 as a proof for infant baptism: “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus neither baptized the children nor indicated that they should be. He merely laid hands on them. He did not say “Bring the children,” he said, “Let them come.” It is better not to use a text than to use one unconvincingly. The text in that case becomes a mere pretext.

While not dealing directly with the above-mentioned topics, the sixty-six chapters of Isaiah are a mine of challenging texts beyond those already mentioned in this series. Especially is this true of the topical sort of sermon where one uses a text as a take off point followed by combining what Scripture says elsewhere.

What more quotable text could one find on sin than Isa. 59:1-2? “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you so that he does not hear.” The writer continues with his indictment.

Isaiah elaborates no doctrine of inherited original sin, but he does assert, “Your first father sinned and your mediators transgressed against me” (Isa. 43:27). Some assume that Jacob is being spoken of. Isaiah does have his vocabulary of sin that is well worth studying in depth.

The term “sin” (pasha`) when used in a secular setting means “rebellion.” At the division of the kingdom it is said, “So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David unto this day” (1 Kings 12:19). Or again, “Moab rebelled against Israel” (2 Kings 1:1). The second verse of Isaiah charges that people have rebelled against God (Isa. 1:2), and the last verse of the book (Isa. 66:24) also uses the same word.

Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden refused to obey the Lord; in that sense, they rebelled against him. Samuel tells Saul that “rebellion is as the sin of divination” (1 Sam. 15:23). Isaiah threatens, “rebels [poshe`im; cf. Isa. 46:8) and sinners [chatta’im] shall be destroyed together” (Isa. 1:28). The servant of Isa. 53:5 was wounded for our transgressions. The Lord says, “I spread out my hands all day to a rebellious people (sorer)”; Isa. 65:2).

The second of these terms, “sin” (chata’), means to miss the mark. In its secular use, left-handed throwers could throw stones and not miss the target (Judg. 20:16). “For he who finds me finds life . . . ; but he who misses me injures himself” (Prov. 8:35-36). A man in a hurry misses his way (Prov. 19:2). Sin is failing to be what the Lord intends for one to be. [TWOT 1:277]. The word occurs about 580 times in the O.T. It is a failure to observe God’s laws (Lev. 4:2; 5:16), and when followed by the preposition be denotes strong opposition (Gen. 42:27; 1 Sam. 19:45; Job 2:10). A fixed standard to miss is assumed.

The third sin word `awah is used in Isa. 1:4: “A people laden with iniquity” (`awon). The basic meaning of this word is to twist, bend, or distort. The derivative noun `awon means guilt or iniquity. The book of Genesis affirms that the “iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete” (Gen. 15:16). Both civic violations and cultic violations are included in the term. [TWOT 1:651]. Isaiah says, “Because you despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and rely on them; therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a break in a high wall, bulging out, and about to collapse, whose crash comes suddenly in an instant” (Isa. 30:12-13).

“Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God” (Isa. 59:2). Isaiah’s own guilt (`awon) and sin (chatah) are taken away by the touch of the coal from the altar (Isa. 6:7). The Servant of Isaiah 53 was wounded for our transgressions [pesha`im] and bruised for our iniquities [`awonnot; Isa. 53:5). “The Lord has laid on him the iniquity (`awon) of us all” (Isa. 53:6).

       The prophetic “woe (hoy),” which occurs fifty-two times in the prophets, is usually considered by the person in the pew as equal to “cursed be . . . .” He understands Jesus to have said, “Cursed be you Pharisees,” “cursed be you Pharisees” (cf. Matt. 23:13ff.), and from that he justifies his own harsh treatment of those with whom he differs. “Jesus cursed the Pharisees,” he says.

       While “Woe” has in most cases an element of denunciation, it also has an element of sympathy that must not be overlooked. The sympathy element is seen in what Jesus said about women in his description of the coming destruction of Jerusalem. “Woe [ouoi) unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!” (KJV; Matt. 24:19). It is not conceivable that Jesus is pronouncing a curse on these women. Pregnancy and nursing children is the lot of life the Lord assigned to women at creation. Jesus’ statement is an expression of sympathy for those who would suffer under refugee conditions, about equal to “alas” which the RSV uses. The NIV has “How dreadful.”

       Six uses of hoi in the Old Testament refer to mourning for the dead (cf. 1 Kings 13:30), and forty involve warning or threats. In Isaiah 55:1, the word introduces the thirsty and gives an invitation to buy things without money [TWOT 1:212).

       The five cases of “woe” in Isaiah 5 may be thought of as introducing the wild grapes of Judah with Judah considered as the Lord’s vineyard. First are those who add house to house and field to field. Their houses will become desolate (Isa. 5:8-9). Second are those who are brave when it comes to facing a highball and carousing into the night (Isa. 5:11-12). Third are those who are skeptical of the prophet’s warning and are pulling evil on to themselves by saying in essence, “Let God do it and then we will believe it” (Isa. 5:18-19). Fourth are those of perverted standards who call good evil and evil good (Isa. 5:20). Fifth are those who are wise in their own eyes (Isa. 5:21). Sixth are those who are brave drinkers but who acquit the guilty for a bribe (Isa. 5:22-23).

       Isaiah has a second series of five woes beginning at Isa. 28:1 concerning the proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim. Next are those who hide deep from the Lord their counsel, whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?” (Isa. 29:15). Next are rebellious children who carry out a plan that is not the Lord’s (Isa. 30:1). “Children” here means “people,” not adolescents. Fourth are those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses (Isa. 31:1), and fifth is the destroyer who himself has not been destroyed (Isa. 33:1).

       The verb “repent” and the noun “repentance” do not occur in the KJV of Isaiah though they are frequent in Jeremiah (Jer. 4:28; 18:8, 10; 26:3, 13; 42:10) and in Ezekiel (Ezek. 24:14), as well as being in Jonah 3:10; 4:2; and in Joel 2:13, 14, used for divine actions. Ezekiel has the hendiadys “repent and turn” (shubu wehashibu; Ezek. 14:6; 18:30) for human actions. The NIV has “repent” at Isa. 59:20: “to those who repent of their sins.” “Repentance” is at Isa. 30:15: “In repentance and rest is your salvation.” Both of these are forms of shub.

       Nevertheless, the idea of repenting is present: “Cease to do evil, learn to do good” (Isa. 1:16-17). The term “turn” (shub) is frequent in Isaiah. “Return, O faithless children, says the Lord, for I am your master” (Isa. 3:14). “In returning and rest you shall be saved” (Isa. 30:15). “Turn to him from whom you have deeply revolted, O people of Israel” (Isa. 31:8). “Return to me for I have redeemed you” (Isa. 44:22). “Turn to me and be saved all the ends of the earth” (Isa. 45:22). Isa. 55:6-7 has the sequence of verbs, seek, call, forsake, return, and the statement ends with “Let the wicked forsake his way . . . let him return to the Lord that he may have mercy on him” (Isa. 55:7).

       The terms “grace” and “grace of God” do not occur in the book of Isaiah in the KJV. They do occur in the O.T. but not with the frequency found in the N.T. The NIV has “grace” at Isa. 26:10 where the KJV and RSV have “favor.” However, Isaiah can speak of God being “gracious.” There is the plea, “O Lord, be gracious to us, we wait for thee” (Isa. 33:2). “Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you; therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you” (Isa. 30:18). “Yea, O people in Zion who dwell in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of you cry; when he hears it, he will answer you” (Isa. 30:19). “I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me; I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, `Here am I, here am I,’ to a nation that did not call on my name” (Isa. 65:1). God has not moved; he is right where Israel left him. These texts are far cries from the popular picture of a God just waiting to zap you.

       The Book of Isaiah is about neither Isaiah nor Israel. Isaiah is seldom mentioned in the first part of the book and not at all in the second part. The book is about the Lord, the God of Israel. It is an inexhaustible mine of texts about him. One has said the book has more insights into the nature of God than any other book of the Old Testament.

       In much of the O.T. the treatment of the deity is what would be called henotheism&emdash;-the worship of one God without denying the existence of other gods. Each nation has its god, but the Lord is the God of Israel. In the second part of Isaiah, strict monotheism is set forth. No other God exists. The Lord is the creator responsible for the heavens and earth. The verbs “create,” “form,” and “make” of the creation narrative are used. He “forms light and darkness, He makes weal and creates woe” (Isa. 45:7). “I made the earth, and created man upon it; it was my hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host” (Isa. 45:12).

       He is the sustaining God, maintaining the universe he has created. He has a plan he is working out in history.

       He is the incomparable God. He is not like man who only is in his image; he is not like the animals. He is not to be represented by any likeness, for no likeness is like him (Isa. 46:5).

       Only one who controls the future can predict the future successfully. The idols can say nothing. They can tell neither the past nor the future. The Lord has predicted the Exile and has accomplished it. Now he promises new things-&emdash;the return from exile, and it will take place. Nations are like a drop from a bucket (Isa 40:15). Somehow this statement has survived in popular language as “a drop in a bucket.”

       He is a God who can get tired. Isaiah said to Ahaz, “Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also?” (Isa. 7:13). The God who does not faint or grow weary (Isa. 40:28) is weary with human sin. “But you have burdened me with your sins, you have wearied me with your iniquities” (Isa. 43:24).

       At the same time, he is the forgiving God. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (Isa. 1:18). “I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins” (Isa. 43:25).

       He is the predicting God, telling the end from the beginning (Isa. 46:10).

       He is completely trustworthy: “Behold, God is my salvation; / I will trust, and will not be afraid; / for the Lord God is my strength and my song, / and he has become my salvation” (Isa. 12:2).

       Isaiah does not stress ritual purity. His stress is on people dealing rightly with people, and especially with the unfortunate of society.

       There is an enlightening text about what God wants. “But this is the man to whom I will look, he that is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word” (Isa. 66:2).

       Isaiah has much stress on the power in the word of the Lord. “The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand for ever” (Isa. 40:7). Isaiah compares its power to that in the rain and snow to make the earth produce. “So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth, it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I send it” (Isa. 55:10-11). Someone had the insight to remind us preachers that the promise is for the Lord’s word and not for ours.

       There is sermon seed in the thought of where God lives. “For thus says the high and lofty One 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 humble spirit” (Isa. 57:15).

If one is to speak on Father’s Day, where can he find a more challenging text than “The father makes known to the children thy faithfulness” (Isa. 38:19). One needs to couple that text with the Lord’s declaration in Malachi that in marriage the Lord desires a Godly offspring (Mal. 2:15). The teaching obligation of fathers is elaborated in Deuteronomy 6. There is also an abundance of admonitions in the Book of Proverbs.

Mothers, mentioned only four times (Isa. 49:1, 23; 50:1; 66:13), do not get a lot of attention in Isaiah. But God describes himself, “As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you” (Isa. 66:13). “`Can a woman forget her suckling child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?’ Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you” (Isa. 49:15). These are pictures of God that many people have not seen and are also beautiful reminders of what mother was like.

If one is to do a funeral, where is a better starting place than the passage, “He will swallow up death forever” (Isa. 25:8). Paul reflects this passage in 1 Cor. 15:54. “Thy dead shall live, their bodies shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!” (Isa. 26:19). These promises can be elaborated by familiar New Testament statements of the theme (cf. 1 Thess. 4:16-17). In Christ all shall be made alive (1 Cor. 15:22).

A Missionary Day could benefit from being reminded of the promise, “The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Isa. 11:9). Along with that is “To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear" (Isa. 45:23; cf. Rom. 14:11; Phil. 2:10-11).

An Evangelistic occasion could use the invitation of Isaiah 55:1 for “every one who thirsts, come to the waters.” In the desert, people suffer thirst (Isa. 41:17-18). The “Song of the Well” (Num. 21:17-18) reminds us of how treasured water is in the biblical world. The water seller is still to be seen in the streets of old Jerusalem. The invitation is to all who are thirsty. At a Cotton Bowl game in Dallas, Texas, D. Harold Bird on the P.A. system, invited all within the sound of his voice to refreshments at his house after the game. He was somewhat disappointed when only about three thousand showed up. The Lord’s invitation to free salvation is wider than that. It is spiritual thirst rather than physical thirst that is spoken of. Isaiah has spoken of drawing from “the wells of salvation” (Isa. 12:3). The woman of Samaria confused Jesus’ words of spiritual satisfaction with physical satisfaction (John 4:14). One preacher reminded us that the well is deep and that our implements for drawing are deficient. Jesus again spoke of water and thirst in John 7:37-39.

Another evangelistic theme is met in “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples” (Isa. 56:7). Solomon, at the time of his dedication of the temple, prayed about the non-Israelite’s prayer (1 Kings 8:41-43). But we still struggle with racial discrimination and economic stratification.

An address to preachers could take Isa. 50:4 as a text: “The Lord has given me the tongue of those who are taught.” An alternate theme could be the beautiful feet of those who bring good news (Isa. 32:7-12; cf. Nah. 1:15; Rom. 10:15).

Text: Isaiah 56:7 (Matt. 21:13; Mark 11:17; Luke 19:46).

God chose Abraham out of all the people who existed at his time and made promises to him and to his descendants. Included was possession of the land of Canaan, though the land was not given in Abraham’s time. The iniquity of the Amorite was not yet complete.

The Law of Moses was addressed to a people who had come out of Egypt: “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (Exod. 20:2; Deut. 5:11-1`5). At the same time, those bought with money (slaves) from Abraham’s time could be included in the covenant. The law of Moses regulated treatment of the foreigner and the slave (Exod. 22:21; Deut. 23:15; 24:14-15).

Castration, which was widely practiced in the ancient world for slavery purposes, was forbidden in Israel (Deut. 23:1), and victims suffered certain handicaps.

The door was open to the foreigner who chose to identify himself with the Israelite people and to keep the customs of Moses. Some had joined themselves to the Lord (Zech. 2:11).

Solomon’s prayer of dedication for the temple has a petition concerning the sacrifice of the foreigner and the prayer of the foreigner. It may be a surprise to you to know that a daily sacrifice was offered for Caesar in the temple in New Testament times. Yet despite any such acts, Mosaic religion would be classified as exclusive. By birth and by purposeful proselytism one came in. They must keep God’s Sabbath and hold fast to his covenant (vv. 4, 6).

Isaiah depicts a condition in which the disenfranchised have acceptance. The first is the eunuch to whom society had denied one of the greatest joys of life&emdash;that of sons and daughters to carry on the family and to whom family property could be transferred. Isaiah’s promise is to eunuchs who chose the things that please the Lord. The eunuch is not pleasing himself. Isaiah was subject to the law of Moses, and one of its demands was observance of the Sabbath. The Sabbath had a double significance. It was chosen because the Lord ceased his creative activity on that day, but was not observed until Israel came out of Egypt.

Text: Isaiah 55:6

In the space program one hears a lot about there being a window for a launch of the space vehicle. It is a limited time when the wind, clouds, weather, and other conditions are suitable for a successful launch. The object in space toward which the space vehicle is going has to be in the correct orbit for contact to be made. With any of these factors missing, the launch has to be postponed or scrapped. The authorities are always looking for a window.

The Mother Superior in “Sound of Music” told Maria that when God closes a door he opens a window. An article on the Sunday School in Time Magazine, December, 2002, said that we have a very brief window with a child. The word “window” as a synonym for opportunity is making its way into common speech.

Not everyone in the Exile was burning with desire to go back to Jerusalem. They had built homes and had gone into business. Economic conditions in Jerusalem were not that attractive. The country had to be rebuilt. Most of the people who had seen Jerusalem had died off; their children knew it only from the stories their parents told. It was like what one hears today about the depression and about the war. The book of Isaiah in chapters 40-66 is filled with appeal to the exiles to accept the opportunity God has made for them. Cyrus, king of Persia was favorable to a return and to giving aid of money gifts toward rebuilding the temple. But that window would not necessarily remain open forever. People needed to act while a window was open.

If that is not the picture Isaiah had in mind, it could be that those who have returned under Zerubbabel and others have not gotten right with God. Both Ezra and Nehemiah show that things were not right with those who had returned. In the almost one hundred years that had gone by since the first group returned, human sin had made its way into the community. It was time to get right with God, and now was the time!

Paul did not use the “window” metaphor, but rather used “door” with some of the same import. “For a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries” (1 Cor. 6:9). “When I came to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ, a door was opened for me in the Lord” (2 Cor. 2:12).

The problem Isaiah describes is not of unwillingness on the part of the Lord to accept human repentance and to forgive. The Lord is issuing the invitation. His window is open, he stands ready to accept the chief of sinners. Shall we say that the yellow ribbons had been on the tree ever since the prodigal got his inheritance and took his departure from the father’s house. The father had been looking down that lonesome road all the while.

At the same time, there is a limit to God’s patience. The flood generation was blotted out for their sin. The wickedness of Sodom was such that God destroyed Sodom. Israel, exceeding God’s patience, was taken into the Exile. Paul, in describing the downward way of the Gentiles, repeatedly says, “God gave them up.” He let them do what they wanted to do (Rom. 1:24, 26). Heaven’s window closed for them; however, Paul, in speaking of it, was declaring a new opening.

The appeal of sin has a way of becoming stronger rather than weaker as we follow its path. Ties are made that are hard to break. Habits are formed that are almost impossible to abandon. Sin’s hold might be compared to addiction from substance abuse. Somehow, “Will not” tends to become “Cannot.” Paul talks about people being slaves of sin!

Felix said to Paul, “Go away for the present: when I have an opportunity, I will summon you” (Acts 24:25). If that time ever came, we have no record of it.

Someone said that the Devil laughs when one says, “I will when . . . !” How many windows of opportunity I have seen close to people who are saying of things they ought to do, “I will when . . . !”

Shakespeare in Julius Caesar (Act 4, Scene 3, line 96) has one of his characters to say, “There is a tide in the affairs of men, / Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; / Omitted all the voyage of their life / is bound in shallows and in miseries.” The poet said, “The moving finger writes and having writ moves on, nor shall your piety or wit lure it back to cancel half a line nor all your tears blot out a word of it.”

I have been told that the human body has five pints of blood. One is injured and bleeds. There is a hypothetical point where one drop this side and by transfusion life can be saved. One drop more and he will die. In my own case, I do not want to know where that one drop is. I want to stop the bleeding when there is no doubt, long before that fatal time.

I have been told that in flying an airplane, with the fuel load carried, and the prevailing winds, there is a point where one minute this side and one can turn and make it back to safety. One minute beyond and the plane will be lost. The airlines for safety reasons demand that a plane have an alternate airport and have fuel sufficient to circle for forty-five minutes after reaching it.

I do not want to know where that point in sin is beyond which I cannot repent and be saved. Echoing a statement made in Isaiah 49:8, Paul says, “Now is the accepted time. Today is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2). Jesus warned, “The night is coming when no person can work.”

The uncertainty of life demands that one make an immediate decision about eternal things. Human health carries no guarantees. Car and airplane accidents are everyday occurrences. We do not have to have terrorist activities to bring them on.

The rich man spoken of in the parable thought of much laid up for many years. The Lord said, “This night your soul is required of you” (Luke 12:20).

Heaven’s window is open. It is time for you to act.

Text: Isaiah 55:6-9.

In reading his Bible one has to be impressed with how many of its stories illustrate that despite God’s having created man in his own image and his giving him a brain, human thought and God’s thought do not run on the same track. A person has a brain. He is not as the animals driven by instinct; he is expected to think. Isaiah challenged, “Come now, let us reason together” (Isa. 1:18). It was Kant, was it not, who, trying to prove to himself his existence, said, “I think, therefore I am”? A person is expected to use his brain.

Yet, what human, wanting to give a person descendants as numerous as the stars of the heaven, would choose a hundred year old man whose wife was ninety years old to have their first child through whom the promise could be carried out? A human would have chosen a vivacious young couple who might produce a dozen or more children. But God chose Abraham and Sarah at a late stage of their life.

Gratitude is a well-recognized virtue. When Andrew Jackson won the battle of New Orleans, his first act was to go to St. Louis Cathedral to offer a prayer of thanksgiving for the victory. We all recognize the act as admirable. God “is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish” (Luke 6:35). When King Saul won a victory over the Amalekites, he brought King Agag and the choice cattle he had seized to offer a sacrifice to the Lord in Gilgal. It was intended as an expression of gratitude. But God saw it another way: “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord?” (1 Sam. 15:22). Over the affair Saul lost his kingdom. “My thoughts are not your thoughts,” says the Lord.

Samuel, sent to Bethlehem to anoint a king, saw Eliab the stalwart son of Jesse. In a time when the king led men in hand-to-hand combat, Eliab had the traits to inspire confidence. But the Lord said, “Don’t look on his appearance, or on the height of his statue, because I have rejected him, for the Lord does not see as man sees; men look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7). David, brought in from tending the sheep, did not make much of an appearance; but the Lord said, “This is the one; anoint him.”

Naaman, suffering from leprosy, came to Elisha for healing. Elisha told him to go dip seven times in the Jordan for his cleansing. The Jordan had no known powers for cleansing. Naaman was insulted. He was confident that the rivers of Abana and Pharpar in Damascus were better than the Jordan. But one of his attendants said to him, “If the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it; how much rather wash and be clean?” It brought him to his senses. He went to the Jordan, dipped, and was cleansed. “My thoughts are not your thoughts, and my ways not your ways,” says the Lord.

Of all the clashes in human and divine thought, surely it was God’s plan of sending his Son to die on a cross to save the world that is the greatest. No human would ever have arrived at such a plan! Paul describes the preaching of the cross as a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Greeks (1 Cor. 1:23). “The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” Paul said, “None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:8).

Perhaps no better example can be found of a clash in human thought and divine thought than in the experience of Paul himself. His life as a persecutor of the church is known to all. He summarizes to King Agrippa, “I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth” (Acts 26:9). To Timothy he says, “I acted ignorantly in unbelief” (1 Tim. 1:13). One has said that there is no more pathetic sight than ignorance in action. “Paul, there are people you imprisoned! There are people you beat! There are people you put to death!” Paul’s defense is, “I have lived before God in all good conscience to this day” (Acts 23:1). He did what he thought was right; but it was wrong.

One of Jesus’ most impressive parables is that of the laborers in the vineyard. The first group of harvesters was hired in the morning for a denarius a day. Those at noon and at the eleventh hour were only promised “what is right.” When I was a child, I heard my father hire workers with only, “I will pay what is customary.” At the close of the day the owner of the vineyard gave eleventh hour people a denarius. He gave the same to all the others. The people who had worked all day bitterly complained that they had borne the heat of the day but had received no more than those who worked one hour.

Try that sort of practice on the people you employ today! Promptly you would have a labor strike on your hands. Not only so, but next you would have the Labor Relations Board to deal with. The point of the parable is that salvation is by grace; not by so much work, so much pay.

Or if that parable does not speak to you, take the one of the plowing servant in Luke 17. After a long day in the field, the servant had also to do housework in the evening with no special thanks for double duty. You have seldom heard a sermon on this parable. It just does not fit our mind set.

You may react, I became a Christian when I was a child. I never spent my inheritance in riotous living. I never went to the hog pen to have to creep home when all resources had been exhausted. I have been to church every Sunday for decades. I can’t even begin to calculate how much I have put in the collection plate! “My thoughts are not your thoughts, and my ways are not your ways.” It was God’s pleasure that we do not put him in debt to us by the things we do. The parable ends, “You have only done what was your duty to do!”

When we discuss a religious question and a person points to a specific passage that he thinks supports his contention, we can have a profitable discussion. We can consider whether the passage, properly interpreted in its context, really supports what he understands. We can do the same with a passage I might cite. He may be in the wrong; I may be in the wrong; we may both be in the wrong. But we can reason with each other. Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms when called on to recant the theses he had set up stated that unless he was convicted by Scripture or by right reason he could not recant.

When, however, the conversation I speak of degenerates to ”I think,” I am completely baffled. By what standard shall we measure my “I think” against the other person’s “I think”? Egotism may make me feel that my “I think” is better than his, but does not his ego do the same for him? The ancient people had a proverb that said, “Tastes are not a matter of dispute.” “I think” also falls in that category.

Religious pollsters operate on the assumption that one “I think” is as valid as another. “Forty percent of people in the survey think this way, and sixty think that way.” But are religious questions to be solved on the majority principle? Is the service of God tied to the shifting winds of popular culture? The law of Moses was explicit, “You shall not follow a multitude to do evil” (Exod. 23:2).

Perhaps Paul furnished the way out of our dilemma that one is expected to use his brain and yet “I think” is no standard to trust or to use to defend the position one occupies. “We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ’ (2 Cor. 10:5).

Now that is an ideal we have not attained! We are stretched out on the continuum from disobedience to obedience. Some have made more progress than others. Paul was also in the process. He said, “I do not know anything against myself, but I am not thereby justified. It is the Lord who judges me” (1 Cor. 4:4).

I believe in prayer and pray regularly, as I am sure you also do. But I do not find any promise that I can find God’s will revealed to me in answer to prayer. Quite the converse is the promise that if we ask according to his will, he hears us (1 John 5:14). Learning God’s will comes first. Jesus’ prayer was, “Not my will, but yours be done.” I have to be on guard lest I be praying, “Let my will be done,” though I would not admit even to myself that is what I am praying. It is said of one of the British kings that he always prayed because that gave him the courage to do the evil he was planning. I have to struggle with the limitless human ability to persuade itself that what it wants is also what God wants. I am not at all discouraging prayer. I only want to caution myself against abuse of the privilege of prayer.

I do not know anyway to find out the will of God other than in the revelation he has given. I do not learn that will by looking at the beautiful sunset or contemplating the beauty of the trees. I know no other way to know God’s thoughts. I can know the duty of being born anew from Jesus’ statement to Nicodemus (John 3:5). I do not have to give a doubtful “I think” about that. I can know about the Lord’s Supper from Paul’s instruction to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 11). I can know the duty of sanctification because Paul told the Thessalonians that it was God’s will (1 Thess. 4:3).

I am aware that in some circles the insistence on specific biblical teaching is known as “legalism.” But the poet said that sticks and stones may break my bones, but hard names never will. Can one claim any such certainty for a human “I think”? I claim no perfection either in knowledge or in practice, but I am going to keep trying to conform to what I can read in the book!

Text: Isa. 50:10-11

Let us take three flower pots putting the same soil and seed from the same package in each one. After planting, we put one of them in the closet where it gets no light and no moisture. Leave it there for days and nothing will happen. If the seed is large enough to be seen, after months one can take it out and it will be just like when planted. In the tombs of Egypt, grains were found which had been there thousands of years, but in the dryness they had neither sprouted nor rotted.

Take our second pot. We set it in the sunlight and flood it in water. Water is kept standing in it. What happens? The seed rots instead of sprouting. The sunlight and the moisture were not properly balanced to produce a plant. The fault is not in the seed. The fault is in the conditions in which the seed was placed.

The third pot is placed in the sunlight, but no water is added at any time. The soil was dry to start with. Leave it there as long as you please, but no sprout appears. Good as the seed is, it takes something outside the seed to make it germinate.

Our fourth pot has the same sort of soil in as far as we can see that the other three have, and the same sort of seed is planted that they have. We carefully measure the water added and place the pot in the sunlight. In a few days a sprout has developed. It is the same seed as the others. The seed had power within itself to reproduce the plant from which it came; but it required certain conditions for that to take place.

One sees this wonder happening every spring. But we have not produced fields of blue bonnets in Tennessee even when we import seed from Texas where the seed produces abundantly. And some of our Tennessee flowers do not do well in Texas. There is something wrong with the conditions. The fault is not in the seed.

One can take the best cottonseed the Mississippi bottomlands can produce with all the improvement of it that scientific laboratories can make. Plant that seed in the middle of the Sahara desert and without proper irrigation it will not produce. These are obvious truths.

Isaiah has much to say about God’s word and its powers. First, the Lord speaks what is right (Isa. 45:19).

Second is the reliability of the word. It stands forever. “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever” (Isa. 40:8). He had promised a return from the Exile. Despite difficulties, it would take place. Political governments, geographical distances, or transportation problems were no deterrents.

I declared and saved and proclaimed when there was no strange god among you” (Isa. 43:12).

“I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it” (Isa. 46:11).

“By myself I have sworn, from my mouth has gone forth in righteousness a word that shall not return” (Isa. 45:23).

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