² Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the LORD has spoken: “Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. ³ The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.” ⁴ Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the LORD, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged. ⁵ Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. ⁶ From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and raw wounds; they are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil. ⁷ Your country lies desolate; your cities are burned with fire; in your very presence foreigners devour your land; it is desolate, as overthrown by foreigners. ⁸ And the daughter of Zion is left like a booth in a vineyard, like a lodge in a cucumber field, like a besieged city. ⁹ If the LORD of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we should have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.

Have you heard of olfactory adaptation? Mothers of boys, I’m sure you’ve encountered it. You enter your son’s room and say, “It smells like dirty socks in here.” To which he replies, “Huh? I don’t smell anything.” Olfactory adaptation—it’s when your sense of smell becomes less sensitive to a frequently encountered odor. Some have called it nose blindness. Your brain decides, “This smell is normal and I’m okay with it.” Only “those unaccustomed to [the odors]” can discern them.[i]

We could say that something similar happens to us morally. We encounter the stench of sin so frequently that we become less sensitive to its odor. Whether it’s in books, in commercials, in movies, in music, in politics, or (let’s face it) even in our own thoughts—evil is something we can grow accustomed to. Sure, we catch whiffs of obvious evils like murder, theft, cruelty. But the rot of pride, idolatry, self-righteousness, gossip, greed? Those smells can become so familiar that we hardly notice them. It takes someone unaccustomed to the odor of sin to detect it.

That’s exactly what happens in the prophets. Because God is holy, he never grows accustomed to sin. He discerns it most clearly. And the prophets are his mouthpiece. They’re especially sensitive to evil. The prophet detects what the people cannot. Such is the case in our passage today: Isaiah smells the people’s mutiny, and they are rotten. Yet, remarkably, there’s still hope by the end. Today’s big idea goes something like this: without a clear sense of our mutiny, we won’t cherish God’s mercy.

God as Creator

Let’s start with a clear sense of our mutiny. Isaiah helps us sense our mutiny by first considering God as Creator. Verse 2, “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken.” Israel has heard such words before. Deuteronomy 32:1—Moses calls on heaven and earth to witness Israel’s rebellion. Before that, in Deuteronomy 4:26, God warned Israel that if they worshiped idols, “I will call heaven and earth to witness against you.” God now summons heaven and earth like witnesses in his courtroom.

But more than that, think earlier to Genesis 1—God created the heavens and the earth. When he speaks a word, they listen. Heaven and earth are personified here as a way of showing how all creation submits to God. Sun, moon, stars, land, beasts—God tells them what to do and they follow. More than that, they have participated in the Lord’s dealings with Israel. God would call on the heavens to produce rain, the earth to produce crops, so that Israel prospered. But as we continue in Isaiah, heaven and earth will also respond to God in the undoing of Israel, leaving them like a barren wilderness.

The picture is that when God speaks, heaven and earth stand ready, giving full attention to their Maker. Sadly, the prophet does not find the same attentiveness in Israel. You can see it in verse 3. God created people in his own image to know him, relate to him, exercise dominion like him. Part of that was ruling over the beasts of the earth. But Israel has become worse than beasts. “The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib [feeding trough], but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.”

My dad raises cattle—so did my grandpa. Cattle will chew up the edge of a picnic table, poop all over the hay you just put out, hurt themselves running through fences—these are not intelligent creatures. But when my dad calls, they come running. He’s got the ranch cubes. He’s got the sweet feed. Likewise, oxen are dumb. Donkeys are dumb. But they know who takes care of them. The tragedy is that Israel does not.

We need to see how sin is a very unnatural thing. It’s often said that “to err is human.” We need to be more careful. Humans do err, and quite often on this side of Adam’s rebellion. But to err is not basic to being human. As we observe in the person of Jesus, true humanity is without sin. Sin is contrary to the way God made us to be. It’s absolute anarchy against the laws of our Maker, an attempt to overthrow his good order. It’s enough to call the natural order as witnesses against us.

When you ignore God’s word to do your own thing—when you slander or lack self-control, when you squander your money or tell a lie, when you hate your brother or envy your sister—you are acting in ways that are contrary to nature,[ii] contrary to the way God made you and his world to work. Morally speaking, you are making yourself worse than a beast, because even the beasts know their owner. Creation listens when God speaks. The wind and the seas obey Jesus’ voice. Question is, do you obey his voice? Do I? Do we listen when our Maker speaks?

God as Father

But as heaven and earth gather to hear God’s assessment, our sense of the mutiny becomes even sharper by considering God as Father. Verse 2, “Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me.” The imagery goes back to Exodus 4, where God calls Israel his firstborn son. That same imagery continues later when Moses retells Israel’s story in Deuteronomy 32:10-14. God found Israel in a desert land, in the howling waste of the wilderness.” “He encircled [Israel], he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.” In verse 11, the Lord “guided him. He made [Israel] ride on the high places of the land.” Israel “ate the produce of the field…[God] suckled him with honey out of the rock…Curds from the herd, and milk from the flock, with fat of lambs…with the very finest of the wheat…”

Point being, God is not an abusive or negligent father. He’s generous, kind, tender, caring, protecting, always present. From the beginning of their existence, he has nurtured them, raised them, known them intimately. And you’d think that any child growing up with that kind of Father would want to know him back, would want to come and sit and say, “Father, tell me again how you made the world. Father, tell me again how you rescued us. Father, I love being with you. Thank you for taking care of me.”

But verse 2 says, “They have rebelled against me.” Some of you parents have done your best to reflect God’s generosity. Sure, imperfectly—I get that. But you’ve sought to model tender care; you’ve raised your kids in a nurturing environment. Yet a child has rebelled and chosen not to know you back. God knows what that’s like; and I hope you keep turning to him for understanding, comfort, and help.

In addition to that, it’s humbling for us to remember that we have been rebellious children ourselves. In our sin, we have grieved the heart of our Father. These words don’t come from some distant god who doesn’t really know his people. They’re coming from a good Father who’s engaged with his children, who attends all their games (so to speak), who’s always there for us.

And yet they rebelled. Other places translate the same word, “transgressed.” They turned their back to God as Father. They broke things off with him. It’s one thing when a child forsakes a bad parent. But this is a perfect parent who gives his children everything. It’s insane. That’s what our sin is like—sin is looking at a good Father who always has your best interest at heart, who always shows up, who always provides and saying, “I don’t even want to know you. Just give me my stuff.”

God as Holy One

With each line of Isaiah’s prophecy, the stench of sin grows worse. He next helps us sense of our mutiny by considering God as Holy One. “Holy One” is one of Isaiah’s favorite titles. We find it in verse 4. I counted forty-four total occurrences in the Old Testament. Thirty of those belong to Isaiah’s prophecy.[iii] Surely that has something to do with his own calling in 6:1-4. Isaiah sees the Lord high and lifted up with the seraphim crying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.” We’ll talk about God’s holiness more when we get to chapter 6. But for now, just know that God’s holiness has to do with his majestic and moral otherness. He’s in a category all by himself. Nothing impure, immoral, or evil exists in the presence of God’s transcendent splendor.

And as the Holy One of Israel, he set Israel apart to be holy like him—to be distinct from the other nations in how they worship and love and do justice. He told them in the Law, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” But now, when Isaiah looks at the nation, he can’t help but say, “Ah!” Older translations have, “Alas!” It’s a cry of grief in light of pending doom. Isaiah laments Israel’s depraved state.

They are a nation who goes on sinning. That means they miss the mark of God’s standard. They’re laden (i.e., weighed down) with iniquity. As children, they should’ve emulated their Father. But here he calls them “offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly.” Willfully, they are heaping their sin to the degree that, by the end of verse 4, “they are utterly estranged.” Ezekiel 14:5 uses the same language to describe how Israel became estranged from God through their idols. Point being that you can’t even tell them apart from the pagan nations.

What’s beneath it all? He says, “They have forsaken the LORD, they have despised the Holy One of Israel.” They treat God lightly. They don’t find him worthy of their devotion. He became to them as a god to be discarded, ignored. He was a waste of their time—unless they were in a jam: “Then we’ll burn a few offerings.” They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of their own making.

This is how spiritually blind sin will make you. When you “get used to sin,” it will cause you to despise the Holy One instead of worshiping him. He is infinitely excellent. But sin will cause you to treat God as though he’s unworthy of your love and obedience. Sin is not a small defect; sin is an offense against God’s infinite worth. No matter if it’s murder or anger in your heart; whether it’s adultery or lust of the eyes; whether it’s stealing or the self-righteous thought that says, “Glad I’m not like that guy”—all of it says to the incomparable Holy One, “I can think of something better than you. You’re not worth my attention right now.” Sin abounds when God is not esteemed.

God as Covenant Lord

What did it lead to? Severe consequences. Isaiah laments in verse 5, “Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel?” The word “struck down” appears repeatedly in the curses of the covenant God made with Israel. Which leads us to one further way Isaiah helps us sense our mutiny. He considers God as covenant Lord.

God made a special covenant with Israel. This covenant was a formal declaration of the terms of their relationship. Part of that covenant included blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. Deuteronomy 28 gives us a taste of those curses: “The LORD will strike you with wasting disease and with fever…The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, and with tumors and scabs and itch, of which you cannot be healed…The LORD will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind…The LORD will strike you on the knees and on the legs with grievous boils of which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.”

When Isaiah laments, “Why will you be struck down?” he has the curses in view. That’s why verse 6 describes a picture of an injured body: “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 bruises and sores and raw wounds; they are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil.” True to his word, God is pouring out the curses.

Israel was suffering the consequences of their rebellion; and the purpose was to drive Israel back to the Lord. God explained it for them in Deuteronomy 30. If ever they experienced the curses and remembered their meaning and returned to the Lord, he says, “then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you…He will gather you again…and make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers…He will circumcise your heart, so that you will love the Lord your God.”

This is what baffles Isaiah: “Why will you continue to rebel?” “Can’t you see what your covenant Lord is trying to teach you? Won’t you learn from his discipline? If he was faithful to his word about the curses, will he not also be faithful to his word about restoring you? Why keep living this way? You’re all battered and bruised, and you won’t even stop long enough to consider how God might heal you.”

For that reason, Isaiah continues with more curses in verses 7-8. In Deuteronomy 28, God had warned them: “[If you disobey my covenant, I] will cause you to be defeated before your enemies…A nation that you have not known will eat up the fruit of your ground…They shall besiege you in all your towns.” Now here, Isaiah says, “Your country lies desolate; your cities are burned with fire; in your very presence foreigners devour your land; it is desolate, as overthrown by foreigners. And the daughter of Zion is left like a booth [think make-shift tent] in a vineyard, like a lodge [better: hut] in a cucumber field, like a besieged city.”

Historically speaking, it’s hard to tell when the curses of verses 7-8 happen. Isaiah might be describing the earliest attacks by Assyria, some that were happening during Isaiah’s ministry. Or he might be describing future attacks—the coming exile is inevitable. He describes it like it’s already happening.

Either way, the point is the same theologically. And here is where we learn something else about sin: if we ignore our sin, it will harden our hearts to the Lord’s discipline. It will build up impenetrable callouses so that we’re no longer sensitive to his warnings. Don’t mess around with sin. Hebrews 3 says, “Take care, brothers [and sisters], lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”

Don’t ever entertain thoughts like this: “It’s not as big a sin as other people have. It’ll be okay if I do it again. After all, isn’t God forgiving? Yeah, I’ll repent… tomorrow.” If that’s how you’re thinking, your senses have already grown too accustomed to evil. You’re not understanding the nature of sin and how stubborn it will make you to God’s kindnesses. Like Israel, you’ll eventually find yourself ruined beneath God’s curse—not the curses of Deuteronomy 28 but the curse of hell itself.

God as Merciful Savior

Where, then, is our hope? If the nature of our sin is this awful, if it hardens us and makes us despise God’s holiness, if it merits God’s curse, what hope do we have? That brings us to the remarkable words of verse 9: “If the LORD of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we should have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.”

Genesis 19 tells the story: because of their rampant wickedness, God wiped these cities from the face of the earth. He poured out brimstone and fire from heaven till all that was left was a smoldering ruin. No wonder people didn’t like the prophets. Can you imagine saying this to a bunch of Jews who think, “We’re good. God is on our side. We’re his chosen nation. We’re better than all the others.” Isaiah says, “Excuse me. About that. You’ve become indistinguishable from Sodom and Gomorrah.”

But here’s where God’s mercy shines. Israel did not get wiped from history. Was that because they’d finally decide to turn over a new leaf? Was that because they finally got their act together? No. It was only by the mercy of God. Mercy means that God looks on them with pity and shows compassion. Even when justice demands total obliteration, he keeps some in Israel for himself. He promises to preserve a remnant—not because those people deserve it but because he’s rich in mercy.

It would’ve been just for God to let everybody perish—that’s what they deserved. But in mercy he chooses to save some. The covenant curses would be awful. Exile would eventually decimate Israel. But no matter how bad things would get, God would keep a people for himself. And his mercy didn’t stop there. From that small remnant of verse 9, God would eventually bring a Savior.

Isaiah talks about him in chapter 53. But first I want you to recall several words from our passage. One is “transgression”—remember, I told you the word “rebelled” in verse 2 has to do with transgression. Another word is “iniquity” in verse 4: “a people laden with iniquity.” The other word is “struck down” from verse 5: “Why will you be struck down?” The last thing to recall is the injured body from verses 5-6.

Now listen to this from Isaiah 53:4-5. “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten [i.e., struck down] by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” Do you see the connection? God provides a perfect Savior to remove transgressions and bear the punishment of those to whom he shows mercy.

The New Testament sees the fulfillment of this Savior in the person of Jesus Christ. God put Jesus on the cross to die for our iniquities, to remove our transgressions. If you place your trust in Jesus Christ, you will find healing from the consequences of all your rebellion. Through Christ, your condemnation is removed such that your covenant Lord is satisfied. Through Christ, you are made holy and able to dwell with the Holy One. Through Christ, we’re reconciled to the Father; he adopts us and makes us his heirs. Through Christ, we can now walk with our Creator and live as he commands.

Give thanks for God’s mercy. People will sometimes ask me, “Why doesn’t God save everybody?” But given the horrors of our mutiny, the better question is, “Why does God save anybody at all?” That God saves anybody (any of us) should leave us marveling at his mercy. Just like the hymn we sang earlier: “Why was I made to hear Thy voice / And enter while there’s room / When thousands make a wretched choice / And rather starve than come? / ‘Twas the same love that spread the feast / That sweetly drew us in; / Else we had still refused to taste, / And perished in our sin.”

The apostle Paul marveled at this same mercy. In Romans 9:29, he quotes from Isaiah 1:9. He’s showing how God chose to “make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory. He says, “even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles.” He then quotes Hosea about God’s promised mercy for Gentiles; and he follows that with two quotes from Isaiah. One is our text from verse 9: “As Isaiah predicted/foretold, ‘If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.’”

When Paul said this, Israel at large was still hardened in unbelief. But that didn’t mean God’s word had failed. God preserved a remnant, just like Isaiah promised—and Paul was part of that remnant. God’s plan was right on track. Now, his mercy works in a shocking way. Being Jewish didn’t mean you were automatically in. Only the remnant within Israel is saved—not by their own doing but because of God’s mercy. And being a Gentile outsider didn’t mean you had no hope—God’s mercy extended to them as well. In other words, God’s mercy kills pride (because nobody deserves to be saved) and it gives hope (because some of the most unexpected people can be saved).

Then eventually his argument crescendos in 11:30, when he says “God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!” Mercy leads Paul to praise God.

It also leads him to proclaim God and what he’s done in Christ. To Jew and Gentile alike, he preached about the mercy of God. He knew God had a remnant among the Jews; he knew God had a people among the Gentiles—all because of mercy. Brothers and sisters, may it be our joy as well to worship God for his mercy and to win others to his mercy. Without a clear sense of our mutiny, we won’t cherish God’s mercy. But the more you sense your mutiny, the more you’ll cherish God’s mercy and tell others about it.

One last point on verse 9. Some of you are discouraged by the state of the church today. You see false teaching. You see scandals. You see hypocrisy. You see leaders fall. For some of you, these very things are causing doubts to rise. Not only are you questioning whether Christianity will last, you’re also wondering whether to continue in it yourself. Maybe you’re on the brink of sharing your own deconstruction story.

Listen, Isaiah witnessed the same things in his day. But he doesn’t leave us with despair. He points us to God’s mercy. Israel was in a terrible state; yet God promised to preserve a remnant. The hope was never in the people; it was always always in the mercy of God. Likewise, with God’s people today, our hope is never in the people. It’s always in God’s mercy.[iv] Don’t abandon the faith just because things look terrible. God has a long track record of keeping his people even through the terrible.

He will do the same for us. The same way Isaiah’s prophecy kept a remnant holding on through the worst of times, let Isaiah’s prophecy keep you as well. Let Isaiah’s vision renew your sensitivity to sin. Smell it for what it is. But then look again to God’s mercy in Christ and give thanks. No matter how bad it gets, God’s mercy will preserve his people. So put your trust in him.

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[i] The idea for this opening illustration came from this sentence in Bruce Waltke, An Old Testament Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), 811: “As odors are discerned only by those unaccustomed to them, so also the prophets, having experienced God’s holiness, discern sin.”

[ii] Regarding sin being “contrary to nature,” see John N. Oswalt, Isaiah 1-39 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 85; Alec Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah (Downers Grove: IVP, 1993), 42.

[iii] Isa 1:4; 5:19, 24; 10:17, 20; 12:6; 17:7; 29:19, 23; 30:11, 12, 15; 31:1; 37:23; 40:25; 41:14, 16, 20; 43:3, 14, 15; 45:11; 47:4; 48:17; 49:7; 54:5; 55:5; 60:9, 14.

[iv] John Calvin, Isaiah 1-32 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 53: “This statement ought to yield powerful consolation even in those heaviest calamities in which we are apt to think that it is all over with the Church; that, though everything should go into confusion, and the world, as we say, be turned upside down, we may persevere with unshaken fortitude, and may rest assured that God will always be mindful of his Church.”