Please turn to Isaiah chapter one for our scripture reading. We'll begin at verse 16. Picking up in the middle of this call to hear the word of the Lord that began in verse 10. Here God's word. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean.
Put away the evil of your doings before my eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Rebuke the oppressor.
Defend the fatherless. Plead for the widow. Come now and let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, 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. May each of us say with David, I will delight myself in your commandments, which I love. Gracious Father in heaven, please instruct us out of your word this morning. Give us an understanding of all that you call us to do as well as all that you do within us.
And we ask. You give us a gospel obedience. To your word this morning, ears to hear and feet to obey. And please sanctify my sinful lips that they may proclaim the grace of God in Jesus Christ. In Jesus name, amen.
And we pray for your healing. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Amen. Amen. Amen. I'll imagine for just a minute this morning a young lad who has spent the day in the family garage helping to replace a transmission. You know, one of those thingamajigs that make the car run.
That's very greasy and dirty. And he's covered from head to toe with enough grease to lubricate a tractor. You know, his hands are black. His face has more grief smudges than skin. He's stepped in countless oil slicks on the floor and on grease saturated rags.
But now he's hungry. And he's making a beeline for the kitchen. You can imagine the disaster that awaits if he takes one step inside the house in that condition. Every knob that he turns, every door that he shuts, every square inch of floor on which he steps, every chair that he sits in, every towel on which he dries his partially washed hands. So it would be ruined or will require some deep cleaning.
You know, grease can leave a penetrating stain on some material that no amount of washing can ever get out. Well, this is the analogical language that the scriptures use to describe us as sinners. It says that we are defiled by sins and that our utmost our best righteous acts are by like filthy rags. Filthy rags. Isaiah even describes himself in these words in Isaiah six five saying woe is me.
For I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips. And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, dirty lips. Or Job 15 says, If God puts no trust in his saints And the heavens are not pure in his sight. How much less man Who is abominable and filthy, who drinks iniquity like water, abominable and filthy, contaminated, defiled, polluted. And so this is why Isaiah now says wash yourselves, bringing the Lord's words to his people, wash yourselves, make yourselves clean.
The first 15 verses Isaiah has been calling out those sins that have defiled the people of Judah and Jerusalem. And we look we've been looking at those over the past few weeks. And then in verse 16, he shifts and gives this comparative, this imperative, this command, wash yourselves, make yourselves clean. These two commands could be understood as a single thought. Wash yourselves to be clean or wash yourselves clean.
But of course, unlike hands. That are greasy from a repair job or messy from the preparation of food. The dirtiness and the pollution of sin is not primarily outward and physical. It's first and fundamentally inward and spiritual. Jeremiah connects this defilement with our thinking, because our thinking is defiled.
The thoughts of our mind, he says in Jeremiah 4, O Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness that you may be saved. How long shall your evil thoughts lodge within you? It's our thinking that is defiled and polluted. And Jesus told his disciples in Matthew 15 that it's not that what goes into the mouth that the files a man but what comes out that the files a man that's that's a very different thing than the young lad who has been made dirty by working around the dirt. The Bible says no this the following comes from within us.
We don't get it by because we're touching something else. The pollution and corruption that defiles a sinner arises from within his own heart. And Jesus goes on to explain in Matthew 15 that the things that proceed out of our mouth which is what the files as he says they come out of the heart and they defile a man for out of the heart proceed evil thoughts murders adulteries fornications thefts false witness blasphemy He says these are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands, that doesn't defile a man. So see, unlike the dirty hands that got dirty by the contact with greasy parts or food preparation. The defilement of sin comes from within us and it can't be avoided by simply avoiding all contact with dirty things.
Because it's us that's defiled and dirty. And that's been an ancient problem or myth as well as a modern day problem. The thinking that by living the life of a hermit, that the defilement of sin can somehow be avoided. In the Middle Ages, misguided people would barricade themselves on poles or inside of monasteries or societies in an effort to escape the defilement of the world. But of course, they just brought that defilement right in with them.
Today, some people think that if they can keep their children free of the defilement of sin, then they can keep them away from other sinners and they can keep them from becoming defiled. But it doesn't work that way. You can isolate a sinner all for his entire life, but you can't, you don't prevent the defilement because that comes from within. It comes out of our own heart. And so just because your home school doesn't mean that you can avoid defilement.
This defilement is inward, it's spiritual, and it can't be removed with outer washing or scrubbing. It's also total in its scope. Just like, you know, those dirty hands, those greasy hands that defile everything that they touch. The inward pollution of sin makes everything it touches contaminated. And that's you see this in the Old Testament cleanliness laws because that that those cleanliness laws were pointing to the fact that we are defiled, that we are dirty and we need washed.
And you remember in how a person that was defiled, defiled everything that they touched, everything that they sat on became defiled as well. Everything that the contamination and pollution of sin touches, it contaminates our wills, our hearts, our emotions, our thoughts, and our actions that proceed from those thoughts and desires. They're all polluted and contaminated. And this is not a surface contamination like greasy hands that can be cleaned with the right soaps and emulsifiers that can be washed off because it's a part part and parcel of us. The pollution and the filament of sin is like grease that's thoroughly been worked into the fabric of a white towel and to simply wash it off because it's become a part of the fabric.
It's like a mold in that sense that's permeated a wall. It can't be removed by external washing of the wall because it's not just on the surface, it's permeated throughout the wall. And we call this total depravity. Every part of our human nature is defiled by that sin, by our sin. You know, I have a gasket, silicone gasket for a container that's somehow become stained with mildew.
But it's not on the surface. It somehow permeated the whole gasket such that you could scrape the whole top layer of that gasket off and you don't get rid of the mildew. It still goes all the way through. And that's then the nature of the defilement of our sin. It's not a matter of merely washing something off of our skin.
It's deeper. It's throughout our whole flesh. It's a total contamination that stains our entire nature. And so this presents a problem, doesn't it, if we're to obey this command here to wash ourselves and make ourselves clean. We're unclean.
It's an inward spiritual defilement. It's deeply penetrating our entire nature such that no amount of washing can remove it. So how can we ever cleanse ourselves like we are commanded here? And by the way, this just this isn't just an Old Testament command to cleanse ourselves. Many places in the New Testament also command us to cleanse ourselves.
James 4, 8 says, draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands you sinners and purify your hearts you double minded. Or 2nd Corinthians 7, therefore having these promises beloved let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Or Paul told Timothy, but in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but of wood clay some for honor some for dishonor therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the latter he will be a vessel of honor sanctified and useful for the master prepared for every good work. If anyone cleanses himself, Paul said.
Ananias told Paul, arise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord. We're commanded to do it, but the reality is that we cannot, we are not able to obey this command in our own strength. We're unable to cleanse ourselves. Basically, just because we are unable to do it, we lack the ability to do. It doesn't relieve us of the responsibility to do it.
And so that leaves us in a very difficult predicament, doesn't it? Commanded to do something responsible, to do something that we are unable to do. And so we need grace. We need the undeserved favor of God to cleanse us. We need the cleansing work of the Holy Spirit.
And this is called regeneration. Where where the pollution of our sin is washed and we are made clean. See, in regeneration, we are given a new heart. We are given a new way of thinking. Our thinking is sanctified.
Our minds are enlightened. Our wills are renewed and powerfully determined by the Holy Spirit to enable us to obey. God to make us willing and able to freely answer his call that he gives that you'll give shortly. It enables it's the grace of God in giving us a new heart in in this washing by the Holy Spirit that enables us to embrace and accept the grace that is offered to us in the gospel that's conveyed when the Holy Spirit sanctifies us. Paul's letter to Titus has one of the clearest statements on regeneration in the Scriptures, although There are many, many, many.
It says, for we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God, our savior toward men, appeared not by works of righteousness, which we have done. We can't do it because we can't. But. According to his mercy, He saved us through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, the washing of regeneration.
That's what Isaiah is commanding here, commanding us to be regenerated, but we can't do it. We need the Holy Spirit. We need that favor, that grace from God to cleanse us and to give us a new heart. And he says that he does that this whole washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out abundantly on us through Jesus Christ, our Savior, that having been justified by his grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. You see, we are unable to do it.
Jesus told Nicodemus when he came to visit him, most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom. That's not permission. That's ability. Jesus said, cannot. You lack the physical ability apart from.
The work of the Holy Spirit. And so this work of regeneration, this cleansing, this washing ourselves and making ourselves clean is entirely ascribed to God. It's a work that He does alone. Now it's not that we're inert like lifeless rocks, But it's because God works in us. He makes us alive when we're dead in sin, that we are able to will And to do to will or to desire and to do as he commands us to do.
God said in Ezekiel 36. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you. And you shall be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from your idols. See, that is what we witnessed this morning.
That's what signified in the baptisms that we witnessed this morning. The Lord cleansing. The cleansing work of the Holy Spirit is represented in the scriptures as the pouring out the sprinkling upon us. Malachi three says the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come into his temple, but who can endure that day? Who can stand when he appears for he is like a refiner's fire and like launderers soap.
And purge them as silver and gold. That's another image out of purging, refining where stuff is the silver and gold is heated up and dross is removed. They're both used to sing to speak of this cleansing. Peter told the council in Jerusalem in Acts 15, God knows the heart and acknowledge them. That is the Gentiles, but giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us, men and made no distinction between us and them purifying their hearts by faith.
Purifying. It's the work of regenerating. And this regenerating work of the Holy Spirit is not something we can see. It's a mystery to us. Jesus compared it to the wind.
You know, we don't see it. We can't see it. We just see the effect of it. The fruit of it. But we do know this.
We do know this. No matter how corrupt, no matter how polluted and defiled we are, no matter how long we have remained and persisted in this state of defilement, God, the Holy Spirit, is able to wash us and to cleanse us. Make us clean. Paul told the Corinthians, Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. Do not be deceived.
Neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor catamites nor sodomites nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revalors nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But what? But you were washed. You were sanctified.
You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God. God is able and does cleanse us of all these filthy defilements of sin. And this cleansing work is accomplished through the means of his word. That's what he is the instrument he uses. The Holy Spirit uses.
That's why we pray that the Lord will work through the preaching and the hearing of his word. Jesus told his disciples, you are already clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. And Paul told the Ephesians, Christ loved the church and gave himself for her that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word. You see, we are washed in regeneration and we are made new creatures in Christ. The flesh that was permeated through and through with the defilement of our sin is completely cleansed.
We are made new creatures in Christ. New. New. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away.
Behold, all things have become new. But of course, we still defile ourselves with our sins, don't we? And this is what Jesus meant in his exchange with Peter when he was washing the disciples feet. You remember, Jesus came to Peter and Peter didn't want him to wash his feet. He said, No, Lord, you will never wash my feet.
He was concerned because Jesus was the Lord and he was the servant and he didn't want the Lord washing his washing his servant's feet. But Jesus said to him, if I don't wash you, you have no part with me. If I don't cleanse you, You can't be cleansed. So Peter said then, Well, Lord, then wash me, wash everything. Don't just wash my feet, wash my hands and my head.
He had the right understanding. But Jesus said, No, he's who he was bathed only needs to wash his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean. Peter had been regenerated by the Holy Spirit, but Jesus was saying, we need the cleansing that daily cleansing of the sins that we commit as new creatures within with a that still have an old nature dwelling in us. You see regeneration this washing is a supernatural rebirth into spiritual life through which God begins salvation.
This washing of regeneration is what fits us to live in God's kingdom in the new heavens, in the new earth. See, justification gives us the right. To. The kingdom, the right to eternal life, but regeneration gives us the fitness to enter and enjoy. The new heavens and the new earth.
Some people have expressed it, thought that it would be very boring to spend eternity worshiping God in heaven. And so we're not just going to be sitting around. We will be busy. But you see. That's because they have been washed and enabled to enter God's kingdom.
It's no more appropriate to take a hog straight out of the pig pen and bring them into the presidential dining room than it is to bring an unregenerate or unwashed sinner into God's holy kingdom. You see, neither the hog nor the president and his dinner guests are happy. The hog's not happy. And neither is anyone else. Now, the next two verses talk about the effect of this washing, the washing of regeneration by the Holy Spirit, its application of the word that results in a response on on our part.
On the part of those who have been so washed by the spirit. And that's in that response is summarized in Isaiah's very succinct presentation here in the seven remaining commands. Put away the evil from your doings before my eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good.
See, this is the visible response of the inward and invisible washing of regeneration. And we call this conversion. Conversion is the conscious act of a regenerated person to turn to God in repentance and faith. And that's what Isaiah is expressing here, is repentance. Put away the evil from the doing of your doings from before my eyes.
Cease to do evil. Learn to do good. By faith, we receive Christ and justification and adoption and life in him. By repentance, we turn from disobedience against God and begin to obey His commandments. The faith and repentance are like the two spokes in a wheel.
When the wheel, you know, which turns first? Well, when the will turns, they both turn. They turn together. The Hebrew word used to convey repentance is the word turn. And so repentance is a course reversal.
It's doing a 180, making a U-turn and then going in the opposite direction, but it begins with a decision, an act of the will. From that change of heart, then there is a forsaking and a putting away of evil. The larger catechism describes repentance under life as a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner by the spirit and the word of God. Whereby out of the sight and sense, the sight and the sense not only of the danger, but also of the filthiness and odiousness of our sins. So we begin to recognize their filth and and on apprehension upon laying hold of God's mercy in Christ to such as are penitent.
We grieve and hate for our sin and turn from them to God, purposing and endeavoring constantly to walk with Him in all the ways of new obedience. Purposing and endeavoring. See, repentance is not simply confessing our sins and receiving mercy, but he who proverbs says he who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy. Confession and forsaking. So it's not enough simply to be cleansed.
Imagine a house that is overrun with mold and mildew that has permeated the walls and contaminated everything in that house. Once that house is renewed, right, once you've repaired, replaced all the walls and made them entirely new. Well, then all that furniture in there, all the furnishings also need to be replaced with new furniture. The old stuff needs to go and the new needs to be brought in. And this is this ceasing to do evil and learning to do good that Isaiah speaks of.
This is the putting off of the old man and the putting on of the new. And this requires a learning process. Learn Isaiah says learn to do good. It involves gaining knowledge and it involves training. Paul instructed the Colossians in Colossians three nine.
Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with its deeds and have put on the new who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him. See, we need to be instructed in the word. We need to learn to do good. It's a work. It's the work of sanctification.
Repentance and faith produce a change in behavior. Not only is there this turning from sin and a ceasing of sin, there is also the doing of good. There's a change in the will from where we once desired to sin to now we desire to obey. God makes us. Willing.
Makes us willing to obey. That's learning to do good. Paul said. In Titus, too, that Christ gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify himself a people, a special people, zealous for good works. What are those good works?
Well, Isaiah summarizes them seek justice, rebuke the oppressor, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. Remember James said true and undefiled religion before God and the father is this, that we visit widows and orphans in their trouble. These are people who cannot repay to us the things that we do. And then in verses 18 and following is one of the many examples of the free offer of the gospel given in scripture. It is freely and sincerely offered to all.
Come now, Isaiah says, let us reason together. That speaks of an intellectual response to this free offer of the Gospel. Repentance and saving faith involve the presence of the mind, the response of the mind to propositional truth. In conversion, see, the mind is persuaded Of the truth of scripture. Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord, though your sins are scarlet, they shall be as white as wool.
When the rich man asked Lazarus to to be sent to warn his brothers, they would not come to that place of torment that Lazarus that the rich man had come to. And the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rise from the dead. But this offer, though it is freely and sincerely given, You notice that it is not without consequences. It's not it's not like an invitation that we might give to a friend or the friend might give to us, which we are free as we desire to either accept or to turn down. God's offer is not like that.
Deuteronomy 20 describes how this offer works. That was how they were to conduct war. So when you go near a city to fight against it, then proclaim an offer of peace to it. And it will be that if they accept your offer of peace and open to you, then all the people who are found in it shall be placed under tribute to you and serve you. Now, if the city will not make peace with you, but war against you, then you shall besiege it.
And when the Lord your God delivers it into your hands, you shall strike every male in it with the edge of the sword. That's what Isaiah says here. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land. But if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword. God's offer is freely and sincerely given to everyone.
God, Paul told the Athenians that God now commands all men everywhere to repent. And God certainly desires all men to do what he commands them to do. But all those that reject that offer are destroyed in God's wrath and justice. The mouth of the Lord has spoken it and there is no more certain, no more sure fact than what the mouth of the Lord has spoken. I pray that you all, young and old, the beginning of your life or the end of your life, receive and obey this gospel call, this command.
Cleanse yourself. Wash yourself. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Almighty Father in heaven, we thank you for the truth of your word that speaks to us in our fallen condition.
That doesn't hide the truth from us. But has graciously revealed to us the defilement of our whole nature, the corruption of our heart, and the wrath that is over us if we are not washed and cleansed. We thank you also for your grace to us to do what we are unable to do, to cleanse us, to make us new creatures, to renew our thinking, to remove the old man and its lusts that bring death. We thank you, Lord, for your grace and your work in us. And we pray that we may persevere and in.
Dying more and more unto sin and living more and more unto Christ. This we ask in Jesus name. Amen.