Thought on Isaiah 65:3‑5

"A people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face; that sacrificeth in gardens, and burneth incense on altars of brick...which say Stand by thyself, come not near (nigh) to me; for I am holier than thou. These are a smoke (stench) in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day." (Isa.65:3‑5)

Not only in the days of Isaiah was that spirit manifested. We have it today, with ourselves, in the professedly Christian church, all too often a smug self‑righteousness which is the very negation of all for which Christ stood. There were Pharisees two thousand years ago who "trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others." (Luke 18:9)They have their spiritual descendants today; if the Lord Jesus was right when He told those of his own time that they were of their father the Devil, we should logically come to the same conclusion now. That might come as a shock to some who labour under the delusion that they and they alone have the monopoly of Divine Truth. Better that kind of shock than the one that would inevitably come if they should stand and hear the Saviour say "I never knew you...ye that work iniquity." (Matt.7:23) "There is a generation" said the Wise Man in Proverbs "O how lofty are their eyes! and their eyelids are lifted up." (30:13) Complacent in the oversight of the little religious clubs they control, secure in the knowledge of their own assured salvation, contemptuous of believers whose understanding of the Divine mysteries differs anywise from their own, and resolved to allow no breath of air from outside to disturb the serenity of their sacred enclosure! But nothing can hinder the development of Divine Truth as it becomes known to successive generations, and nothing can restrain the strivings of the human spirit after a more accurate understanding of the ways of God. The very impulse so to strive was at the first built in human nature by God.

Sacrificing in gardens; burning incense on altars of brick! It is a terrible condemnation, and so easily earned. It is tempting to apply the terms to certain church buildings or particular Christian groups. But the Most High is not talking about our denominational affiliations when He talks like this, nor yet our preference for one or another kind of worship, whether rich in ceremonial or Puritan in simplicity. He is talking about those who use their position in the church to build a wall around their flocks to separate them from others of Christ’s brethren, to compel them to gather around a man‑made altar instead of the table of the Lord. Such, He says, are as the acrid smoke of a fire burning all day long and getting into the nostrils—an ever‑present irritant and vexation. That is a very different thing from the incense which ascends to God from his faithful as a sweet‑smelling savour. We all do well to remember that.

AOH