In Chapter 1 I am confronted with Isaiah's audience. Although they regularly offer sacrifices and keep the law's prescribed feasts and requirements, they have meddled with idolatry to such an extent that they are equal to the wicked Sodom and Gomorrah. Sodom and Gomorrah's wickedness was so extreme (including homosexual rape) that God destroyed these towns in a sudden shower of fiery explosions.
Isaiah's comparison with Sodom and Gomorrah should have been shocking and humbling. But the amazing thing is that these people are so content with living in a superficial faith practice and a fully pagan life, that they don't even recognize their hypocrisy. They are the walking "spiritual dead"--just look at how Isaiah describes them.
Isa 1:4 Alas, sinful nation, A people laden with iniquity, A brood of evildoers, Children who are corrupters! They have forsaken the LORD, They have provoked to anger The Holy One of Israel, They have turned away backward.
Isa 1:5 Why should you be stricken again? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, And the whole heart faints.
Isa 1:6 From the sole of the foot even to the head, There is no soundness in it, But wounds and bruises and putrefying sores; They have not been closed or bound up, Or soothed with ointment.
Here is a nation of people who think their offerings make them ok with God but they are rotting away with sinful lifestyles! God says there is nothing that will stop their rebellion--like Zombies they keep going back more and more for the pleasures of idolatry that are destroying their souls.
God promises He will deal with them in judgement, but He also pleads with them to "come and reason with Me". Looking into the dead eyes of a church that finds Him "boring" and "irrelevant" in the light of entertainment and social issues, God is seeking for a glimmer of recognition that will transform a "zombie" into a living, repentant, faith-filled follower.
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