[1:4-18] Everything that God does is right and just. He can be trusted even in the midst of His judgment. God’s people were sinful. Verse 4 says, “…loaded down with a burden of guilt.” They had rejected the Lord and turned their backs on Him.
J. Vernon McGee says, “There are three steps in the downfall of any nation. 1. Religious Apostacy, 2. Moral Awfulness, and 3. Political Anarchy… the problem was not in the government. The problem is in the temple. It always begins with religious apostasy.”
Verse 5 asks, “Why do you continue to invite punishment?” God wants the people to know that had there not been a few believers who loved and obeyed Him, He would have wiped them out like Sodom and Gomorrah. He points out that the problem was Religious Apostacy in the temple. The people had a spiritual problem. Verse 12 says, “When you come to worship me, who asked you to parade through my courts with all your ceremony?” God called them out on their meaningless ceremony and lack of dependence upon God.
God wanted them to return to Him. He lovingly invites them in verse 18, “‘Come now, let’s settle this,’ says the Lord. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Thou they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool.’”
