All Those Sacrifices

The multitude of your sacrifices— what are they to me?” says the LORD. “I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.  Isaiah 1:11

We could talk about the cold...  Ah well, winter is here and it's a thing to endure for a while. We could talk about our failure in the area of sacrifice too. However, it can become a temptation if we shovel too much guilt about sacrifice so that someone falls into thinking that we can impress the Lord by the amount of our sacrifices. The Israelites at the time of Isaiah had the quantity part down all too well. What they lacked the Lord spells out in the verses following our one for study this morning. 

From here we might think that the ancient Israelite worship system was all about the blood and guts of animal sacrifices. And like Israel had done in Isaiah's day, that would be to forget the worship bit of the whole thing. One can just see their priests preaching about more sacrifice to please the Lord... And then the Lord sent His prophet to say that He has more than enough of that stuff. Worship of the Lord would include listening to His prophet and doing what the Lord desired. Things such as learning to do right, defending the oppressed or correcting the oppressor, pleading the case of the widow, and others. The Lord even wanted to reason with them about it in that great eighteenth verse. 

How great is it that the Lord Himself would reason with us? 

Bucky