Do you remember the nursery rhyme, “The Little Old Lady Who Lived In a Shoe”? It begins like this: “There was an old lady who lived in a shoe, she had so many children, she didn’t know what to do.” Have you ever thought this about your sins, that you have so many that you think to yourself, “ Boy! I have so many sins that I don’t think that God can ever forgive me”! But He can, yet we try all kinds of “remedies” to rid ourselves of our sins and especially the weight of those sins, but nothing ever seems to work. Do you know what God thought about the sins of Israel in the book of Isaiah? He told them, “You make all these sacrifices to me as if each one gets a sin forgiven, but I don’t want to hear them! Why do you keep offering them to Me? I’ve had enough of your burnt offerings as well. You can’t sacrifice enough bulls, lambs, or male goats to be forgiven; who keeps telling you to do this? Your offerings are useless, your gatherings and assemblies are worthless! Even your festivals that I require of you are meaningless. In fact, they are nothing more than a burden to Me! Quit making these sacrifices. Quit making offerings. And what’s more, you can even quit making so many prayers before me, I’m tired of them! I’m not even going to listen anymore because they are not backed up by your actions! You don’t help the poor, you don’t feed the hungry, You don’t demonstrate anything that shows me that you belong to Me.
“Listen, Israel! Pay attention. I’m speaking to you. You have brought up your children telling them it really doesn’t matter if they worship me or not. You prove that by your actions. You teach them to rebel against me and live any ole’ way that they want to live. You even act like you don’t know me!” Then the Lord tells them, “The ox knows its owner, the the donkey knows where its master’s feeding trough is, but you, but My people, do not understand who or what I am! It’s as though you have abandoned Me. You despise even spending time with me in worship or in My Word, the Bible. You have turned your back upon Me, and you wonder why I don’t answer your prayers!”
Have you ever felt that way, like the Lord doesn’t even listen to you anymore? Listen to what the Lord tells the children of Israel in Isaiah 1:18, He says, “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Let me put this verse another way. The NET Bible, that is, the New English Translation translates this verse as saying, “Come, let’s consider your options,” says the LORD. “Though your sins have stained you like the color red, you can become white like snow. Though your sins are as easy to see as the color scarlet, you can become white like wool.” Red dye is pretty hard to get rid of. In fact, it would probably take a lot of bleach to wash your clothes in to try to rid them of that dye, and still they would come out a little bit pink in color. The Good News Bible puts it this way; “The Lord says, now, let’s settle the matter. You are stained red with sin, but I will wash you as clean as snow. Although your stains are deep red, you will be as white as wool.” As long as you and I try to do the “washing”, we will never get ourselves clean. But if we allow the Lord to wash us in the “cleansing blood of the Lamb”, then we can get rid of our sins.
