The Wicked Have Only One Hope: To Confess Their Sins.
Note that these few verses are a prayer that Isaiah himself offered up on behalf of the people. Confession before the Lord was desperately needed, with a spirit of wickedness sweeping the land and controlling society.
The Need for
Confession of Sins: Offered as A Prayer by Isaiah
12For
your sins, keep piling up before the righteous God and testify against you.
Yes, we know what sinners we are. 13We know our disobedience; we have denied the Lord our God. We know what rebels we are and how unfair we are, for we carefully plan our lies. 14Our courts oppose the righteous man; fairness is unknown. Truth falls dead in the streets, and justice is outlawed. 15Yes, the truth is gone, and anyone who tries a better life is soon attacked.
The Lord saw all the evil and was displeased to find no steps taken against sin.[1] (Isaiah59:12–15)
The People Needed to Make Five Confessions:
A.
They needed to confess their many sins (v. 12).
The three most common Hebrew words used for wicked behavior are used in this
verse: transgressions, sins, and iniquities. People must acknowledge that they are sinners who have
committed many sins and come far, far short of God’s glory.
B.
They needed to confess their hypocrisy
and their rebellion against the Lord. They had to admit that they had
transgressed by turning away from the Lord after professing to be His followers
(v.
13).
C.
They needed to confess their oppressive
behavior and lies (v. 13b).
D.
They needed to confess their unrighteous
and dishonest behavior (v. 14). They had to acknowledge and repent of
their lack of fairness, truth, and integrity in their lives.
E. They needed to confess their hypocrisy and persecution of the righteous (v. 15). Some who had turned away from their evil ways became prey to others. The wicked persecuted them. Note the Lord’s response: He saw all of their wicked behavior and was very displeased, for there was no justice in society, including in the courts and government of the nation. The only hope for the wicked of that day or any generation is to confess their sins.
V “Blessed are
they that mourn for they shall be comforted” (Mt. 5:4).
V “Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and
pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee” (Ac. 8:22).
V “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and
just to forgive us our sins, and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn. 1:9).
V “If my people, which are called by my name,
shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked
ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal
their land” (2 Chr. 7:14).
V “Now, therefore, make confession unto the Lord
God of your fathers, and do his pleasure: and separate yourselves from the
people of the land, and from the strange wives” (Ezr. 10:11).
V “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper,
but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them
shall have mercy” (Pr. 28:13).
V “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the
unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will
have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon” (Is. 55:7).
V “Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou
hast transgressed against the Lord thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the
strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the Lord”
(Je. 3:13).
V “Cast away from you all your transgressions,
whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for
why will ye die, O house of Israel?” (Eze. 18:31).
V “Therefore, also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning” (Joel 2:12).[2]
TRUTH IS THE
FOUNDATION OF MORALITY.
14Our courts oppose the righteous, and justice is nowhere to be found. Truth stumbles in the streets, and honesty has been outlawed. 15Yes, truth is gone, and anyone who renounces evil is attacked. [3]
Surprise is
sometimes expressed at there being no distinct prohibition of all lying in the
ten commandments. “False witness” alone is forbidden. However, the reason may
be that truth is assumed as too fundamentally necessary for anyone to suppose
that it could be dispensed with. Similarly, piety is assumed as a duty in the
commandments, where men are not bidden to worship God but warned against
worshipping more than one God and against improperly worshipping him. Truth
throughout Scripture appears as a quality assumed to be possessed by men rather
than as a virtue that they are to be exhorted to “put on.” It lies, in fact, at
the root of all absolute goodness.
I.
Truth
Lies at The Root of Justice.
The administration
of justice consists primarily of a series of efforts to find the truth. There
is always a question before the court, and the first question is, “Has the
thing charged been done or not?” What is the truth of the matter? When this has
been decided, if decided on the affirmative side, then a second question
arises, “What is the degree of the guilt?” It is essential for the judge to
have the most earnest desire to discover the truth and the highest power to
elicit the truth. Nor is this all. To everyone concerned in a cause—whether
prosecutor, defendant, witness, counsel, or attorney—the sole object ought to be the discovery of the truth.
The importance of veracity in the witnesses is universally admitted, but
veracity is incumbent on all concerned. A prisoner who knows himself guilty
would do best to confess his guilt. It is no real benefit to him to be
acquitted unless he is innocent. Truth ought to govern all the utterances of
counsel, who are not entitled to make any suggestions as they think may be
true. Chicanery, quibbles, and special pleading are unworthy of those who take
part in the administration of justice and exercise what is a sacred function.
The first requisite of all those who bear a part in the solemn work of “doing
justice” is that they should be “men of truth” (Exod. 18:21).
II.
Truth
Lies at The Root of Kindness.
The desire to be
kind is independent of truth, but the moment that the desire has to pass into
action, considerations of truth come in. Am I prompted to praise a person? But
if I praise him when he deserves blame, I am doing him the greatest unkindness.
If I even overpraise him when he deserves praise, I am doing him an unkindness
to a certain extent—an unkindness and a wrong. I am helping him to content
himself with a low standard of goodness. Again, suppose that I am prompted to
relieve a person who appears to me poor and distressed. To decide aright
whether I ought to relieve him at all, and, if so, to what extent, I require a
true knowledge of his circumstances. I do him an injury if I allow him to
impose upon me. I do him an injury if I repress efforts that he would otherwise
have made to help himself. In all the kindly acts we seek to do to others,
there is always room for, and generally much need of, careful consideration of
facts, and discovery of the exactly true state of the case, before we allow
ourselves to follow our impulses. Otherwise, we may make great blunders and,
while striving to be kind, be guilty of many unkindness.
III.
Truth
Lies at The Root of Piety.
Piety is a feeling of love and reverence towards some being, or beings, whom we feel superior to ourselves, and believe in affording us help and protection. It is impossible to say that many of the heathen, even the grossest idolaters, were not pious in a certain sense. But for piety to attain its full proportions and be the virtue it intended to be, it needs to rest upon a basis of truth. We must have true conceptions of the nature of that which is the object of our love and reverence. Until we conceive of that “eternal something outside us that makes for righteousness” as One, as a Person, as the Creator of all things, as omnipotent, as omniscient, as beneficent, and as perfectly good, we cannot have the feelings towards him that we ought to have or worship him acceptably. True piety is the worship of the true God. The devoted to false religions possess only a semblance of piety—a dwarfed and cramped, sometimes a distorted, imitation of it.[4]
Prayer: The Wicked Have Only One Hope: To Confess Their Sins.
Father God, we
acknowledge you as our Creator, the maker of Heaven and Earth. Father God, we look
to bless your Holy Name through living out your will here on earth. Father God,
we ask for your help to enable us to live out your will even as you conduct yours
in heaven. We acknowledge, Lord, that we cannot take care of our daily needs
without you decreeing it to be so. In our awareness of how weak and frail we
are, we ask you, Father God, to forgive us for our failures as we forgive those
who fail us. Father God, we ask you to lead us into the paths of righteousness,
delivering us from the temptations of this world that so quickly destroy us.
Keep and protect us from those that would do us harm. Protect our families from
falsehoods and lies that ruin our lives. Deliver us from our selfish rebellion.
We persist in willful sin, Lord, and we cannot fight against those destroying
our lives; we need you, Father God, to step in on our behalf and rescue us from
this decaying world. We acknowledge, Lord, that our problems are of our own
making because we have turned our back on your will, and your Word and the
vacuum and void we created are empty of your love, grace, and mercy. We have
filled that void with treachery and deceit, and we need help, Lord. We cannot
survive without you, Lord, and your merciful intervention on our behalf. Father,
we need you to deliver us from this bondage of sin and death. Please, Lord
Jesus, we beg you for your imminent return and restore this land and creation
to what you originally intended.
We ask in Jesus’
Name, our Lord and Savior, come, Lord Jesus, please come quickly to our rescue.
Amen
Our Courts Oppose The Righteous, And Justice Is Nowhere To Be Found. Truth Stumbles In The Streets, And Honesty Has Been Outlawed. Yes, Truth Is Gone, And Anyone Who Renounces Evil Is Attacked.
[1] Taylor, Kenneth Nathaniel. 1997. The Living Bible,
Paraphrased. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House.
[2] Leadership Ministries Worldwide. 2005. Isaiah: Chapters 36–66. Vol. II. The Preacher’s Outline & Sermon Bible. Chattanooga, TN: Leadership Ministries Worldwide.
[3] Tyndale House Publishers. 2015. Holy Bible: New
Living Translation. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.
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