Isaiah 59:2
Context of 57-58 (Sins of Israel)
Isaiah 58:1 “Cry aloud, spare not; Lift up your voice like a trumpet; Tell My people their transgression, And the house of Jacob their sins.
Isaiah 59:1 Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, That it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, That it cannot hear.
Isaiah 59:2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear.
Isaiah 59:3 For your hands are defiled with blood, And your fingers with iniquity; Your lips have spoken lies, Your tongue has muttered perversity.
Isaiah 59:4 No one calls for justice, Nor does any plead for truth. They trust in empty words and speak lies; They conceive evil and bring forth iniquity.
Isaiah 59:6 Their webs will not become garments, Nor will they cover themselves with their works; Their works are works of iniquity, And the act of violence is in their hands.
Isaiah 59:7 Their feet run to evil, And they make haste to shed innocent blood; Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; Wasting and destruction are in their paths.
Isaiah 59:8 The way of peace they have not known, And there is no justice in their ways; They have made themselves crooked paths; Whoever takes that way shall not know peace.
Isaiah 59:9 Therefore justice is far from us, Nor does righteousness overtake us; We look for light, but there is darkness! For brightness, but we walk in blackness!
Isaiah 59:10 We grope for the wall like the blind, And we grope as if we had no eyes; We stumble at noonday as at twilight; We are as dead men in desolate places.
Isaiah 59:12 For our transgressions are multiplied before You, And our sins testify against us; For our transgressions are with us, And as for our iniquities, we know them:
Isaiah 59:13 In transgressing and lying against the LORD, And departing from our God, Speaking oppression and revolt, Conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.
God does not want this before Him or with Him or any where for that matter of a fact
Psalms 5:4 For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, Nor shall evil dwell with You.
He does not want it – He does not allow it
Example of Nadab and Abihu
Leviticus 10:1 Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the LORD, which He had not commanded them.
Leviticus 10:2 So fire went out from the LORD and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.
Leviticus 10:3 And Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the LORD spoke, saying: ‘By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy; And before all the people I must be glorified.’ ” So Aaron held his peace.
Why is this an issue?
God is Holy
Why is this?
1 Peter 1:15 but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,
1 Peter 1:16 because it is written, “BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.”
ἅγιος hagios sacred (physically pure, morally blameless or religious, ceremonially consecrated)
He has been this way for how long?
What we have to realize is that:
All Sin is Against God
2 Samuel 12:9 Why have you despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon.
2 Samuel 12:13 So David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” And Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die.
All sin is against God and:
All Sin Separates
Big or small
How Sin affects relationships adversely [God and man]
When we break any of the 10 Commandments that deal with our relationship with man, we should become painfully aware that our sin separates even man from man (ex lying and stealing)
Damages even to the point of breaking it
Of course something like killing permanently severs a relationship on a physical level
It does the same thing between us and God. This is one of the main lessons that God is trying to get across to us during the Days of Unleavened Bread.
God is very serious about Deleavening
Exodus 12:17 So you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this same day I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance.
Exodus 12:18 In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at evening.
Exodus 12:19 For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, since whoever eats what is leavened, that same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a stranger or a native of the land.
Exodus 12:20 You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwellings you shall eat unleavened bread.’ “
This symbolized putting out sin
How serious was He about this?
God Turned His Back on Jesus
Isaiah 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
How long was their perfect and harmonious r/ship?
Matthew 27:46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?“ that is, “MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?
Matthew 27:50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit.
2 Corinthians 5:21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Matthew 27:51 Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split,
This is part of the plan so that man would not stay separated from God
Veil Torn
Example of the veil being a wall of separation between us and God
Ephesians 2:13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
Ephesians 2:14 For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation,
Ephesians 2:15 having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace,
Ephesians 2:16 and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.
Ephesians 2:17 And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near.
Ephesians 2:18 For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.
Christ Mediates
Now there is still a distance between us and God but Christ closed this chasm – through the forgiveness of sin, our relationships can be healed
A priest expedites access to God – Jesus Christ is our High Priest
1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,
Hebrews 8:6 But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.
Hebrews 8:7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second.
Hebrews 8:8 Because finding fault with them, He says: “BEHOLD, THE DAYS ARE COMING, SAYS THE LORD, WHEN I WILL MAKE A NEW COVENANT WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AND WITH THE HOUSE OF JUDAH—
Hebrews 8:9 NOT ACCORDING TO THE COVENANT THAT I MADE WITH THEIR FATHERS IN THE DAY WHEN I TOOK THEM BY THE HAND TO LEAD THEM OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT; BECAUSE THEY DID NOT CONTINUE IN MY COVENANT, AND I DISREGARDED THEM, SAYS THE LORD.
Hebrews 8:10 FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: I WILL PUT MY LAWS IN THEIR MIND AND WRITE THEM ON THEIR HEARTS; AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.
Hebrews 8:11 NONE OF THEM SHALL TEACH HIS NEIGHBOR, AND NONE HIS BROTHER, SAYING, ‘KNOW THE LORD,’ FOR ALL SHALL KNOW ME, FROM THE LEAST OF THEM TO THE GREATEST OF THEM.
Hebrews 8:12 FOR I WILL BE MERCIFUL TO THEIR UNRIGHTEOUSNESS, AND THEIR SINS AND THEIR LAWLESS DEEDS I WILL REMEMBER NO MORE.”
Hebrews 8:13 In that He says, “A NEW COVENANT,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
MEDIATOR, n. One that interposes between parties at variance for the purpose of reconciling them.
By way of eminence, Christ is the mediator, the divine intercessor through whom sinners may be reconciled to an offended God.
a person who attempts to make people involved in a conflict come to an agreement; a go-between
Being One
We need to be in a relationship with God; we are to be ONE. Sin and separation are the opposite of this
John 17:11 Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are.
John 17:14 I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
John 17:15 I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.
John 17:16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
John 17:17 Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.
Set them apart and make them holy by your word
John 17:18 As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.
John 17:20 “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word;
John 17:21 that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.
John 17:22 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one:
John 17:23 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.
Our Source
God is the source of our success
Ephesians 3:14 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Ephesians 3:15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
Ephesians 3:16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man,
Ephesians 3:17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
Ephesians 3:18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—
Ephesians 3:19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,
Ephesians 3:21 to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Sin cuts us off from THIS – our source.
Fellowship With God
1 John 1 our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
1 John 1:3 that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
1 John 1:4 And these things we write to you that your joy may be full.
1 John 1:5 This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.
1 John 1:6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
1 John 1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Our goal is to have and continue in this fellowship
We must separate ourselves from sin or sin will separate us from God
Revelation 21:3 And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.
Revelation 21:4 And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”