The vision received by Isaiah son of Amoz concerning Judah and Jerusalem during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

New Bible Commentary, p 634. Isaiah means 'Yahweh (is) salvation', a name  well suited to the 'evangelical prophet'.  The list of kings indicates that he prophesied for at least forty years, from about 740BC, tha last year of Uzziah until some point after the Jerusalem seige of 701BC in the time of Hezekiah, whose reign continued to 687/6.

Isaiah gave God's message to his people over a long period of time.  It seems they didn't listen for a long period of time!  How well do we listen to what God is trying to tell us?

Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom;
attend you people of Gomorrah, to the instruction of our God:

Sodom and Gomorrah were cities where the people were thoroughly rebellious and followed evil practices.  The cities were totally wiped out by God in the days of Abraham  (Genesis 18, 19)

New Bible Commentary, p. 634.  To be addressed as Sodom was virtually charge and sentence all in one.  As a disaster site, Sodom meant all that Pompei or Hiroshima have come to signify to us. for ill repute it stood alone - until Isaiah spoke v 10.

This opener should have made people sit up and listen.

V 11.

  Your countless sacrifices, what are they to me? 
     says the Lord.
  I am sated with whole-offerings of rams
     and the fat of buffaloes;
  I have no desire for the blood of bulls,
     of sheep and of he-goats.

God says through Isaiah that he rejects the offerings and sacrifices that the people brought when they worshipped him.  The sacrifices themselves give God no pleasure.

It was part of the Jewish law that specific sacrifices needed to be made, but people were relying on the sacrifices and offerings, thinking that these made them 'right' in God's eyes.  It is not the fact that we go to worship, nor the forms of the worship service that God delights in.  There is no particular liturgies, music, form of dress, decoration of worship buildings or trappings of worship that God prefers us to use when we worship him.

V 12 - 14

  Whenever you come to enter my presence -
  who asked you for this?
  No more shall you tample my courts.
     The offer of your gifts is useless,
  the reek of sacrifice is abhorrent to me.
  New moons and sabbaths and assemblies,
  sacred seasons and ceremonies, I cannot endure.
I cannot tolerate your new moons and your festivals;
  they have become a burden to me, 
     and I can put up with them no longer.

NLT: Why do you keep parading through my courts with your worthless sacrifices? The incense you bring me is a stench in my nostrils!  Your celebrations of the new moon and the Sabbath day, and your special days for fasting - even your most pious meetings - are all sinful and false.  I want nothing more to do with them.  I hate all your festivals and sacrifices.  I cannot stand the sight of them!

NIV:  meaningless offerings........... I cannot bear your evil assemblies.........They have become a burden to me.  I am weary of bearing them.

These are strong words, which are meant to shock people out of their complacency.  The Jewish people, as do many of us Christians today, had become complacent in their worship rituals, thinking that as long as they did the necessary, the rest of their lives were their own affair.

I remember one Sunday morning, after having thoroughly lost my temper with my family (none of whom are church attenders), storming out the front door and trotting off to church with my Bible under my arm, looking as if butter wouldn't melt in my mouth.  Halfway there, it struck me!  What right had I to go to worship a holy God when I had left such bad feeling at home?  What a hypocrite I was being! I felt like turning right around and not attending church that morning. (I think that last bit was Satan getting at me, by the way!)  
As  I confessed my actions and feelings to God, he graciously let me know that if I'd been going to church to worship myself, then I shouldn't go.  But the fact that I wasn't perfect didn't make God less perfect.  If I thought he was holy and worthy of my worship, then I'd be a hypocrite if I stayed away.  It was not the going to worship in my 'Sunday best' with my Bible tucked under my arm that pleased him, nor the witness I showed to my family and neighbours by my church attendance. It was my repentance, my praise and adoration of him that made it worth while that morning.

V 15.

     When you lift your hands outspread in prayer,
  I will hide my eyes from you.
  Though you offer countless prayers,
      I will not listen.
  There is blood on your hands;
    
Nathan Nettleton paraphrase:
All I see on your hands is blood;
........all I hear in your prayers is excuses.

NLT: For your hands are covered with the blood of your innocent victims.

All God could see on their raised hands in prayer was the blood of the sacrificial animal.  He didn't see repentance in the people, which is what he longed for.

New Bible commentary, p 634.  ...God's tone sharpens from distaste to revulsion, ....

What is the point in going to church to worship God if our worship offends him?
 

Vs 16, 17

     wash yourselves and be clean.
  Put away the evil of your deeds
     away out of my sight.
Cease to do evil and learn to do right,
pursue justice and champion the oppressed;
give the orphan his rights, plead the widow's cause.

NIV v 17:  .
learn to do right!
Seek justice,
encourage the oppressed (or, rebuke the oppressor).
Defend the cause of the fatherless,
plead the case of the widow.

How can we make sure our worship is acceptable to God?  Here are God's instructions- to clean up both our inside act and our actions towards other people before we come before him. He wants us not only to repent of our wrong thinking and selfishness, but to show that we've done so by our actions and the way we live our lives. ie - to put our money where our mouths are! (and not just our money - that can be the easy way out, too)

Nathan Nettleton put it in today's terms:
Clean up your act;
........scrub yourselves clean, inside and out;
................don’t let me see any more corruption from you.
Quit your evil,
........learn to do the right thing;
make justice your goal,
........prevent the use and abuse of people;
stand up for the vulnerable,
........take sides with the forgotten.

( I can hear you asking: did I go home that Sunday and apologise to my family?  I don't remember, but , knowing me, I suspect I didn't!  I was probably a bit nicer to them after that - well, anyway, for at least the next few days. <sigh - how difficult it is to be perfect!>)

Vs 18 - 20

  Come now, let us argue it out,
     says the Lord.
  Though your sins are scarlet,
     They may become white as snow;
     though they are dyed crimson,
     The may yet be like wool
     Obey with a will,
  and you shall eat the best that earth yields;
     but, if you refuse and rebel,
     locust-beans shall be your only food.
  The Lord himself has spoken.

NLT: v 20. But if you keep turning away and refusing to listen, you will be destroyed by your enemies.  I, the Lord, have spoken!

God says,"Let's argue this out - let's talk it over together"  He wants us to get things straight with him.  He wants everything laid out on the table before him.  This is not the offer of a terrifying, unapproachable God.  This is the offer of a loving father who wants us to know he's willing to listen; who wants us to think things through and understand both our own actions and his way of thinking as well.

Here is hope.  Our sins are like scarlet dye.  Those of us who do the washing know what happens if we put new red clothing in with the whites and wash them together, don't we.  And so do those long-suffering people who have to wear pink underwear afterwards!  It seems impossible to get the red stains out of the clothes that should be white.  But God says he can get rid of the red stains in our lives.

We have a choice.  We can obey God, accept his offer of forgiveness and cleansing though faith in Christ
and share in the wonders of his kingdom, or we can refuse and take the consequences.