The offensiveness and the doom of sin.
The passage brings out in a very graphic form—
I. THE OFFENSIVENESS OF SIN.
1. Assumption. "Walking after their own thoughts" instead of reverently inquiring God's will (Isaiah 65:2).
2. Positive disobedience in the manner of Divine worship (Isaiah 65:3).
3. Superstitious practices, implying discontent with the disclosures God had made in his holy Word (Isaiah 65:4).
4. Irreligious self-indulgence (Isaiah 65:4).
5. Spiritual pride. "I am holier than thou" (Isaiah 65:5) All these things were hateful to the Holy One of Israel; they constituted "rebellion" in his sight (Isaiah 65:2); they amounted to a defiant provocation of his wrath (Isaiah 65:3); they were as a continual smoke in the nostrils (Isaiah 65:5). All sin, whatever be its form or name, is "an abominable thing which God hates:" it is to his pure eyes unutterably loathsome; it is as the leprous skin to the eyes of man—he "cannot look upon" it. It draws down his righteous condemnation.
II. ITS INEVITABLE DOOM.
1. We must not argue non-observance or indifference from temporary silence. "Behold, it is written before me: I will not keep silence" (Isaiah 65:6; Psalms 1:1-6:21).
2. Guilt accumulates with time (Isaiah 65:7). God mercifully postpones punishment, thus giving opportunity for repentance and escape. But if there be impenitence and continuance in sin, there is an awful "treasuring up of wrath," an accumulation of guilt against a day of account. Nations, families, Churches, individual souls, may well take earnest heed to this solemn truth.
3. There is an absolute certainty and fulness of penalty to the obdurate. "I will recompense, even recompense," etc.; "I will measure their work," etc.
4. Those who have abused their trust must look for a humiliating displacement (Isaiah 65:1). God will remove the chosen instrument of his truth and grace, and he will find another to do his work. Let the too-confident "children of the kingdom" beware lest they have to make room for those whom they have been accustomed to despise.—C.