Reward or Consequences

Pastor Bill Farrow

Isaiah 1:19-20

19  If you are willing and obedient,
You shall eat the good of the land;

20  But if you refuse and rebel,
You shall be devoured by the sword”;
For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

Isaiah 1:19

If ye be willing - If you submit your wills, and become voluntary in your obedience to my law. 

And obedient - Hebrew If you will hear; that is, my commands.  Once again we see the Scriptural emphasis on the human side of the salvation equation.  this is not to negate the sovereign hand of God, nor is it to place any undue ability at the feet of men, but simply to underscore the ongoing Scriptural themes of man’s responsibility to submit to and obey the command of God.  There is a simple condition put forth here, and we must understand that the condition is truly meant to encourage obedience, and is not deceptive.  These people had a real choice set before them.  God is not playing with them, nor is He indulging in semantic tricks or ploys.  He is presenting them with a real choice that they could grasp and make us of – yet they did not.  The balance in the Scripture between what we cannot fully understand, the sovereign will of God, and what we can understand, man’s responsibility to heed and obey the call of God, must be maintained in our mind.  We cannot emphasize one or the other, or we end up falling into heresy.

Ye shall eat … - That is, the land shall yield its increase; and you shall be saved from pestilence, war, famine, etc. The productions of the soil shall no more be devoured by strangers, (Isa. 1:7; compare the notes at Isa. 65:21-23). This was in accordance with the promises which God made to their fathers, and the motives to obedience placed before them, which were drawn from the fact, that they should possess a land of distinguished fertility, and that obedience should be attended with eminent national prosperity. Such an appeal was adapted to the infancy of society, and to the circumstances of the people. It should be added, however, that with this they connected the idea, that God would be their God and Protector; and, of course, the idea that all the blessings resulting from that fact would be theirs; (Exo. 3:8: ‘And I am come down to deliver them out of the band of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey;’ compare Exo. 3:17; 13:5; Deut. 28:1-9). In accordance with this, the language of promise in the New Testament is, that of inheriting the earth, that is, the land, (Note, Matt. 5:5). The expression here means, that if they obeyed God they should be under his patronage, and be prospered. It refers, also, to Isa. 1:7, where it is said, that strangers devoured the land. The promise here is, that if they were obedient, this calamity should be removed.

Isaiah 1:20

But if ye refuse, ye shall be devoured with the sword - Your enemies shall come in, and lay waste the land. This prediction was fulfilled, in consequence of their continuing to rebel, when the land was desolated by Nebuchadnezzar, and the nation was carried captive to Babylon. It illustrates a general principle of the divine government, that if people persevere in rebelling against God, they shall be destroyed. The word devour is applied to the sword, as if it were insatiable for destruction. Whatever destroys may be figuratively said to devour; (see the notes at Isa. 34:5-6; compare Isa. 5:24; Lam. 2:3; Ezek. 15:4; Joel 2:3; Rev. 11:5 - where fire is said to devour).  That they Israelites ultimately did not submit to this word from God is irrelevant to any consideration of whether or not this is a genuine offer of God.  Nor does it make their ultimate judgment any less a function of God’s eternal decree.  It simply is one of those things that is difficult for us to grasp, and we ought to allow it to be so.  It is good that god is smarter than we, and it is good that there are things in the Bible that are beyond our capacity to fully grasp.

The mouth of the Lord - Yahweh Himself. This had been spoken by the mouth of the Lord, and recorded, Lev. 26:33:

And I will scatter you among the heathen,
And will draw out a sword after you;
And your land shall be desolate
And your cities waste.

On these points God proposed to reason; or rather, perhaps, these principles are regarded as reasonable, or as commending themselves to men. They are the great principles of the divine administration, that if people obey God they shall prosper; if not, they shall be punished. They commend themselves to people as just and true; and they are seen and illustrated everywhere.

Reward and consequence are placed before all men, not just before believers.  All men must grapple with the demands of God for submission and obedience – and all men must reap the consequences of their decisions!