Isaiah 1:4-6

Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers

Isa 1:4 Ah 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 unto anger, they are gone away backward.
Isa 1:5 Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
Isa 1:6 From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.

Deuteronomy 28 is the chapter in the scriptures which contrasts the blessings of obedience to the curses of disobedience. The blessings of obedience comprise just the first fourteen verses of a chapter with 68 verses. The remaining 54 verses detail all the curses which come upon us for our disobedience to the commandments and admonitions of our heavenly Father. That whole chapter has “proceeded out of the mouth of God”. Let none of us believe the lie which teaches us that we can simply choose of our own free will to be obedient so we can avoid all those curses and simply reap all the blessings of Deuteronomy 28. That is not the voice of the True Shepherd who teaches us:

Mat 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

The words which have proceeded out of the mouth of God happen to include verses 15-68 of Deuteronomy 28, and we need to notice that verse three of Isaiah 1 calls this “sinful nation” “MY people”. “My people do not consider… do not know [their] owner… [their] master’s crib”. The argument from those who have not been granted to believe that it is God’s elect who must “live… by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” is always the same: “All these negative descriptions of the sins of God’s people, are given to us only as admonitions of what we are to avoid doing. “They certainly are not”, so the argument goes, “typical of God’s elect. If Israel rebelled against God ten times in the wilderness and if their carcases fell in the wilderness (Heb 13:7), then that all happened unto them, and it is all written only for our admonition so we will not make the same mistakes. We are not being told that these things typify us.” That is the argument, but is that true?

Granted those things did happen to them and they were written for our admonition, but what is overlooked is the Greek word ‘tupos‘, which means ‘types” in the verses in 1 Corinthians 10 which tell us why these things happened to ancient Israel. The word ‘for’ is not in the Greek in this verse:

1Co 10:11 Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples [Greek: tupos]: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.

All that happened in the Old Testament certainly did “happen unto them for our admonition”. No one denies that we should learn from the mistakes of ancient Israel. But where in that verse are we told that God’s elect will not and have not likewise rebelled against Him? Where are we ever told that the carcasses of God’s elect have not and never will fall in the wilderness? How in any way does 1Co 10:11 contradict Moses’s and Christ’s statement that mankind must live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God? Of course the Truth is that the scriptures nowhere deny that mankind must live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

Does “live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” mean that since King David committed adultery with Bathsheba and then murdered her husband, Uriah, a captain in his own army, to cover up his sin, that you and I are required to commit adultery with another man’s wife and murder him to cover up our sin? No, that is not what “live by every word” means, any more than “the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias… verily I say unto you, …shall be required of this generation”, means that we are required to literally shed the blood of the prophets of our time.

Luk 11:51 From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.

Then what does ‘These things happened to them as types of us’ mean? Just five verses earlier in this same tenth chapter of 1 Corinthians we read:

1Co 10:5 but in the most of them God was not well pleased, for they were strewn in the wilderness,
1Co 10:6 and those things became types of us, for our not passionately desiring evil things, as also these did desire. (YLT)

The Concordant Version tells us the same thing:

1Co 10:5 But not in the majority of them does God delight, for they were strewn along in the wilderness.”
1Co 10:6 Now these things became types of us, for us not to be lusters after evil things, (CLV)

Has there ever been a man, other than Christ, who was not a “luster after evil things”? Adam, in the Old Testament, typifies who we still are in the New Testament before we are dragged by God to begin to be judged and converted. So we are told:

1Co 10:11 But, these things, by way of type, were happening unto them, and were written with a view to our admonition, unto whom, the ends of the ages, have reached along. (REV)

The Concordant Version again agrees:

1Co 10:11 Now all this befalls them typically. Yet it was written for our admonition, to whom the consummations of the eons have attained. (CLV)

So the scriptures tell us what we will do before they admonish us as to what we are commanded to do. In Revelation 1 we read that very message. This entire prophecy is addressed to “the seven churches which are in Asia”:

Rev 1:4 John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne;

The sins and shortcomings of these seven churches are all things which typify all of us simply because we are all first in Adam. So notice what the preceding verse tells us about the benefits to the seven churches if they “keep those things which are written therein”, both the good and the evil:

Rev 1:3 Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.

Again, just as clearly as it can be stated, we are told “the time is at hand [to] read, and… hear… and keep [the] things which are written” in the book of Revelation, a book filled with the sins of the seven churches, the war, famine and death of the four horsemen, the woes of the seven trumpet judgments, the seven last plagues, the great harlot, the judgment of the great harlot, and the lake of fire. How is it a blessing to read, hear and keep all of that?

Both this “vision of Isaiah [as well as] the revelation of Jesus Christ” will show us that if we do not first live out these sins with their accompanying curses, then we will never see our need for a Savior. As Christ said, He came to give sight to those who have been made aware of just how blind they have been, not to those who think they already have sight. He came to heal only those who have been made aware of just how spiritually sick they have been all their lives. He did not come to heal those who have not yet be made aware of their spiritually sick, diseased condition.

So in a very real sense these verses of Isaiah 1 are a very accurate summary of the second and third chapters of the book of Revelation because these verses describe for us the spiritual bondage in which “Judah and Jerusalem” were dwelling “as types of us” at the time this “vision of Isaiah” was penned. The book of Isaiah will add to our understanding of how we are to “read… hear… and keep” every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, and how the book of Revelation simply reiterates the message of the vision of Isaiah.

So this is who we are:

Isa 1:3 The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.
Isa 1:4 Ah 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 unto anger, they are gone away backward.

I have included verse three, which we covered last week, just to give us some context. God is telling us that, just like the seven churches of Revelation, we come to the point in our lives where we “leave [our] first love” (Rev 2:4) and we no longer even know our owner or acknowledge that it is He who feeds us, before He drags us to Himself through the plagues and curses which occupy the bulk of the text of both Isaiah and Revelation. It is our sins which provide God with the occasion He is seeking against the kingdom of our old man. Before any of us can be cleansed we, like Job, must be brought to see that we are “vile”. We must be brought to see ourselves as a dog returning to his own vomit and as a sow who returns to her wallow in the mire:

Job 40:4 Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.
Job 40:5 Once have I spoken; but I will not answer: yea, twice; but I will proceed no further.

2Pe 2:22 But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.

A sinful nation laden with iniquity, is what the kingdom of our old man is while he serves the doctrines of Babylon, because even after we are introduced to Christ in a most basic but very sincere way, we all forsake our first love, as the church of Ephesus within us typifies:

Rev 2:1 Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks;
Rev 2:2 I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:
Rev 2:3 And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name’s sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.
Rev 2:4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
Rev 2:5 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.

This is what we all do before we are made to see just how vile we are:

Isa 1:5 Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

Being sick in the head and the heart is not something Judah and Jerusalem just decided they wanted for themselves of their own fabled ‘free will’. This very same “vision of Isaiah” tells us exactly why this has “happened unto them”.

Here is a very revealing verse of scripture for all who are granted to receive it:

Isa 3:1 For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water,

There will always be those who will tell us that the only reason God took away the whole stay of bread and the whole stay of water from Jerusalem and Judah was because they forgot their God and because they freely chose to err against their own God. They always point to verses like verse 8 in Isa 3:

Isa 3:8 For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen: because their tongue and their doings are against the LORD, to provoke the eyes of his glory.

The only problem in always pointing to the verses which do say “Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen… because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord”, is that it simply is not the whole story of what the scriptures teach us about why they sinned and why we sin against our God. We simply cannot leave out what the scriptures state is the Maker and Creator of our sinful condition, who Himself tells us that it is He who “makes us to err from His ways, and hardens our hearts from His fear”, and give all the credit for our sins to ourselves and our fabled free will. That simply is not what the scripture teach was the reason Joseph’s brothers sold him as a slave into Egypt:

Gen 45:4 And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.
Gen 45:5 Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.
Gen 45:6 For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest.
Gen 45:7 And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
Gen 45:8 So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.

Twice Joseph tells his brothers “you sold me hither”, but then he concludes concerning the sin his brothers committed against Him, “It was not you that sent me here, but God”. According to Isaiah, according to King David, according to Solomon and according to Christ and according to the apostles Paul and James, the absolute Truth is that the sins of Joseph’s brothers, the sins of Jerusalem and Judah, and all things, good and evil, are one and all being worked after the counsel of God’s own will without regard for the fact that we often do not want to do the evil things we do (Gen 45:4-8; Psa 90:3; Pro 16:4; Isa 63:17; Mat 4:4; Rom 7:17-23; Eph 1:11, and Jas 4:13-15).

This verse from this “vision of Isaiah” is typical of all the others I have listed:

Isa 63:17 O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.

Paul makes this same point in Romans seven where he explains that our sins are not really our sins at all, but are the result of a law placed in our members by the “one lawgiver”:

Rom 7:17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Rom 7:20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
Rom 7:22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
Rom 7:23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
Rom 7:24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Rom 7:25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

Notice that verses 17 and 20 twice repeat the exact same statement: “… it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” This is the Truth of the Word of God from Genesis to Revelation. Yet it cannot and it is not believed by anyone who teaches the false doctrine of mankind being given by God a will that is free from His own will. The doctrine which teaches that man is a free moral agent is a lie which denies the Biblical doctrine which teaches us that God is working all things, the good and the evil, “after the counsel of His own will.

Eph 1:11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

Let’s keep that in mind as we read the last verse of this week’s study:

Isa 1:6 From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.

The image and the kingdoms of the beast, within and without, are all standing on feet made of iron mixed with miry clay (Dan 2:34-45) it is weak and sinful and cannot long stand. It is doomed to be destroyed. The fact is that it was “made to be taken and destroyed”:

2Pe 2:12 But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;

But it has been determined “before the world began” that every man would be “marred in the Potter’s hand”, become exalted in his own eyes, before being crushed and humbled. (Jer 18:4; Isa 14; Eze 28; Dan 2:34-45 and Mat 21:44; 2ti 1:9; Tit 1:2).

Daniel 2 gives us the significance of the symbolism of iron being mixed with miry clay:

Dan 2:43 And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.
Dan 2:44 And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.

It is when we attempt to mix the hardness of the base metal, iron, with the corruption that is miry clay, when we attempt to give structure and discipline to our lives of sin that our own inward kingdom will soon be destroyed. But there is a consummation to the ages, and at that time there will be an outward physical display of these inward spiritual types and shadows. The attempt by the beast to mix satanic apostate Christianity with satanic Islam, is as foolish as expecting the United States Constitution to mix with sharia law. They do not mix, and they will always be in conflict. “They shall not cleave one to another even as iron is not mixed with clay”.

It is “in the days of these kings [that] God… shall… set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed”. One thing we can say for certain, That day is nearer now than it was when these words were first penned two thousand years ago. We do not know when “the kingdoms of this world [will] become the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ”, but it will behoove us all to assume that it will be very soon (2Pe 3:3-12).