Despite Your Failures, Let's Meet and Talk (Isaiah 1)

Isaiah 1:1-31; 18

"Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool" (Isa 1:18, ESV). [Alternate titles: Failure; A Complete Comprehensive Failure; A Call to Repentance.]

Theme: Despite our multitude of failures, God wants to reach out to us, have a conversation with us and restore to us the joy of having an intimate relationship with him.

God is my salvation. Isaiah is often regarded as the apostle Paul of the OT and the Shakespeare of the prophets. Most of Isaiah is written in poetry, not prose. The name Isaiah means "the salvation of the Lord" or "the Lord is salvation" (Isa 12:2). Isaiah is the second most frequent quoted book in the NT. The NT quotes Isaiah 66 times, surpassed only by Psalms (79 times).

There are many ways to outline Isaiah. A simple way is to consider this large prophetic book of 66 chapters in 2 parts:

Forward or Destruction; No Third Option (Heb. 6)

The Doctrine of Perseverance (Heb. 6:1-12). Heb. 6:1 says, "...let us...go on to maturity." To do so, we should "leave the elementary doctrine (teaching) of Christ" (Heb. 6:1-3). Otherwise, the author warns of certain apostasy/destruction/falling away (Heb. 6:4-8). Some think this passage means that a Christian, who was once saved, can lose their salvation. That's not the case, because those whom God has truly saved will persevere in faith to the end (John 10:28,29; Rom. 8:28-30).

God's Promise is Certain (Heb. 6:13-20). "When God made a promise to Abraham" (Heb. 6:13), God had to swear by Himself, because there was no one higher than God to swear by (Heb. 6:13-18; Gen. 22:16,17). Therefore, our Christian hope is not in some vague wishful fantasy or positive thinking based on nothing, but in the Person and Saving Work of Christ, our high priest (Heb. 6:19,20). This is the only reason why we Christians are able to confidently "take hold of the hope set before us" (Heb. 6:18), and why "we have this hope as an anchor of the soul, firm and secure" (Heb. 6:19). In brief, our hope does not at all stem from ourselves, but from what Christ has done for us.

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