ISAIAH - CHAPTER 1 - The Cottage In a Vineyard
ISAIAH – CHAPTER 1
The Cottage In a Vineyard, the Holy Remnant
Tuesday Morning Bible Study – June 18, 2013, the Year of Our Lord
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Last night after teaching this, I had a dream about our church.
Dream: The location was the present pasture of the church. The pasture was full of cucumber vines. I saw our church and the scripture in Isaiah 1: 8-9. Our church is a remnant like the cottage (place of shelter, shade, booth, protection) in the vineyard, a lodge (night-lodge) in a garden of cucumbers.” (cucumbers = melons-Nu. 11:5)
Isa. 1:8-9: “The daughter of Zion is as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like Gomorrah.”
Matthew Henry: “Isaiah comforts himself with the consideration of a remnant that should be the monuments of divine grace and mercy, notwithstanding this general corruption and desolation. The Lord of hosts left unto them a very small remnant, that were kept pure from the common apostasy and kept safe and alive from the common calamity. This is quoted by the Apostle Paul in Romans 9:27, and applied to those few of the Jewish nation who is his time embraced Christianity. The Remnant is often a small one. Multitude is no mark of the true church. Christ’s is a little flock. It is good for a people who have been saved from utter ruin to look back and see how near they were to it, to see how much they owe to a few good men that stood in the gap, and that grace was given by a good, God, who left them these good men.”
Isaiah’s prophecies are not only applicable in judgment to the destinies of Judah and Israel in these first 39-chapters; but is applicable to the blessing of all nations of peoples who will receive the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
Chapters 1-39 prophesy the defeat of Assyria. The Assyrian is one of the titles of the anti-christ and the spirit of anti-christ who has, does and will oppress God’s people.
Isa. 10:24: “Therefore thus says the Lord God of hosts, O My people that dwell in Zion; Be not afraid of the Assyrian; he shall smite you with a rod, and shall lift up his staff against you, after the manner of Egypt.”
Zion is symbolic of the church. Heb. 12:22: “You have come to mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn…”
Israel was Jehovah’s servant used of God to bring the Word and the Savior to the world. However, Israel was a disobedient servant that had to be chastened. (We can insert the apostate, lukewarm, compromising church in the passages referring to Israel.) Jesus Christ is the True Servant of Jehovah, who died for the world and perfectly did the Father’s will.
In chapters 1-5, the oracles and visions given to Isaiah are related to the Day of Jehovah, and Judah.
- Judah’s indictment.
- Jehovah’s Mountain.
- Judah’s punishment
- Just Branch-Man
- Judah’s condition: parable of the Vineyard.
In chapter 1, the prophet gives his name; the nature of the prophecy; the time; and the subject concerning Judah and Jerusalem. The charge takes the form of a courtroom scene in which the whole universe is called upon to witness the twofold accusation of base ingratitude and rebellious apostasy. “Hear O heavens and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken. Heaven and earth are commanded to hear, for Jehovah, not Isaiah, has spoken. All celestial and terrestrial beings are called upon to witness the Divine plea and sanction the justice of God in His case against the sin of the nation.
In chapter 1:3, we meet Jesus Christ as the “Owner of All”:
1:2-3: “I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against Me. The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master’s crib; but Israel does not know. My people do not consider.”
Wickedness has infiltrated every area of Zion, but the call for a willingness to reason with Jehovah will whiten the pollution.
The Lord gave Isaiah a vision at the time of the death of King Uzziah, of “a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters; they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger, they are gone away backward.”
I love what Sarah Palin said this week about the situation in Syria. “Why don’t we let Allah sort this out in Syria?”
In verse 5-7, apostasy is illustrated by the figure of a diseased body. Because of God’s punishment, the kingdom remnant was the only hope against complete annihilation. Israel and Judah had rejected the Lord and he rejected their empty worship.
“Why should you be stricken any more? You will revolt more and more; the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and purifying sores; they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire; your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as over-thrown by strangers.
This is a description of the progression in judgment of what is happening in the United States.
1: 8-9: “The daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. Except the Lord of hosts had left to us a very small remnant, we should been as Sodom, and we should have been like to Gomorrah.”
In the United States of the 21st Century, Christians who are standing for the sanctity of marriage between a man and woman as Holy in the sight of God are besieged with laws and doctrines of devils that persecute our faith in the Law of God and the Holiness of God.
This scripture is quoted by Paul in Romans 9:29: “As Isaiah said before, 'Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have been as Sodom and like Gomorrah.'”
Isaiah is exposing the sin of homosexuality in Judah, which is in rebellion against the very image of God.
Genesis 1: 26-27: “God said, ‘Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them; and God blessed them, and God said them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion…’”
Isa. 1: 10: “Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; give ear to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah.”
The Lord called me to teach the Book of Isaiah. We have to believe that though we are a small remnant, (hidden as a cottage in a vineyard) that it is timely and imperative that we speak, declare and proclaim this word to this nation, the nations and the apostate church at this time. It is in obedience, expectancy and faith that I obey the Lord going forward.
Isa. 1:11-15: “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me? says the Lord; I am full of the burned offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. When you come to appear before Me, who has required this at your hand, to tread My courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination to Me; the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I can no longer endure. It is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts My soul hates; they are a trouble to Me; I am weary to bear them. When you spread forth your hands I will hide My eyes from you; yes, when you make many prayers, I will not hear; your hands are full of blood.”
The hands of the government leaders and those who elected them in the United States are full of the blood of the unborn. It is absolute insanity to slaughter innocent babies who have done nothing right or wrong and call it justice for woman. This blood on the hands of our nation constitutes failure to care for the unborn who are without a doubt orphans (unloved and unwanted).
“The multitude of their sacrifices” is their worship. There are four kinds of worship in the New Testament:
- Worship that is vain (Mt. 15:9).
- Worship that is ignorant (Acts. 17:23).
- Worship that is will worship (Col. 2:23).
- Worship that is in spirit and in truth (Jn. 4: 23-24).
Their suffering is a result of their sin, and yet they rebelled more and more. Their external acts of worship will not give them access to God. Their sins nullified their prayers and offerings so that God loathed them. He hated their practices, yet he loved His people and appealed to them to turn from their evil ways.
As ministers of the gospel, we must continue to preach, declare and proclaim the only approach to God is through the Blood of Jesus for the church, the nation and the leaders of this nation. We cannot back down.
Do not doubt, we are threatened. God’s true prophets will not be intimidated, nor will they back down at threats. The Lord will see us through. If I perish, I perish.
There are nine abominations in verses 16-17. We can compare with Galatians 5:22-23:
Isa. 1: 16-17: “Wash, make yourself clean; put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes, cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.”
James 1:27: “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”
Gal. 5:22-23: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against such there is no law.”
Isa. 1: 18-23: “Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you will be willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.”
Time and time again, the prophet makes a direct appeal to his people, to listen and to change their attitudes and behavior. His words continue to constitute a challenge to any community at all times. If the nation will not repent and choose the path of willing obedience, northing but warfare and invasion can be expected.
In verses 24-31, there is nothing conditional; the ultimate, unswerving intentions of God for His holiness are stated clearly. Jerusalem’s (the church universal, the U.S.A., etc) real enemies were not external, but those inside the government and temple who had emptied it of justice and right dealings. The city’s need, therefore, was not peace but righteousness and justice. It required purging and purifying, until it could truly be named the Faithful City. In these verses “redeemed” is roughly equivalent to ‘purified’.
Isa. 1: 24-28: ‘Therefore say the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, ‘Ah, I will ease Me of My adversaries, and avenge Me of My enemies; and I will turn My hand upon you, and purely purge away your dross, and take away all your tin. I will restore your judges as at the first; and your counselors as at the beginning; afterward you shall be called, the city of Righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed with judgment and her converts with righteousness. The destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the Lord shall be consumed.
“Ah” is an exclamation expressing satisfaction and determination regarding what God intends to do. “Turn My Hand” means to send judgment to bring them back to God. “Take away all your tin” means to purify and purge away all dross and all alloy in the furnace of judgment.
The faithful city Zion is the church or the high order of God (the overcomer). Heb. 12:22: “You have come to Mt. Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. See that you refuse not Him that speaks…”
The Mighty One of Israel is found only in Isaiah – here in verse 24 and again in chapter 30:29.
Now the accusation of idolatry is made. The details of worship under the oaks relate to the Canaanite fertility cult practices. Many trees were cut off at the top and made into totem polls. Isaiah offers no hint of when this transformation is to take place, in effect; his words constitute an appeal to his contemporaries to initiate the transformation.
Isa. 1: 29-3: For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which you have desired, and you shall be confounded for the gardens that you have chosen. For you shall be as an oak whose leaf fades, and as a garden that has no water. The strong shall be as a tow, and the maker of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.”
The man and his work shall be burned. The makers of idols to be the spark to this destruction. Idols and their makers to be destroyed by fire together.
Taught by: Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Eastgate Ministries, Inc.
Scripture from K.J.V.
I entered into the labors of Principles of Present Truth from Isaiah 1-39 by Kelly Varner. Comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of Brother Varner.