One of the awesome things I’ve noticed as we’ve gone through Isaiah over the last few months has been amazing contrasts we see in the character to God, the paradoxes in his divine nature and his sovereign action.
We saw it in dazzling brilliance last week when Cameron spoke to us from Isaiah 55. We saw that the gap between us and God is as far as the heavens are from earth – infinitesimal. And yet we also saw how he warmly, personally invites those who are thirsty to drink at the free fountain of his grace.
In chapter 40 we read that God sits enthroned above the earth and its people are like grasshoppers, the rulers of the earth like chaff swept away by the wind. Yet in the same chapter we read that the LORD gives strength to the weary and the weak and will take them with him in glory.
And of course in Isaiah 53 we read of God’s servant who will be beaten and killed for those who have gone astray and yet will also be glorified forever.
Finally, we come to Isaiah 66 and again we see these great contrasts in God’s character. We began our series in Isaiah 1 and there we were hit full on with the disdain the LORD felt for Israel’s unfaithfulness and yet there was also hope – a promise that those who were stained by sin could be washed clean. And chapter 66 concludes as the prophecy begins – with a warning of judgment but also a promise of God’s continued goodness, a great hope for the future.
Judgment and Humility
We all have some sort of hope. Most Australians are convinced they are going to heaven. I listened to some of the eulogies at Pro Hart’s funeral last week and they all expressed this assurance that the artist was in heaven. Now I know very little about Pro Hart and I don’t know where he stood with Christ – I’m not trying to make a comment either way on the actual destination of Pro Hart’s soul. But what is significant is this assumption. “We’re good people according to 21st century Australian standards, therefore we’re going to heaven. We go to church, therefore we’re going to heaven. I think I believe in God, therefore I’m going to heaven.”
But when we read Isaiah 66, we see that God is not impressed by so-called religiosity like simply going to church and saying the Lord’s Prayer over and over. There is a coming judgement, we’re warned, and those who make the sacrifices, those who present the offerings, those who walk around performing like one of God’s people will be treated harshly.
Those who slaughter an ox, or present a grain offering, or make a memorial offering – it is as if they have been giving pig’s blood or worshipping before an idol. God is not impressed.
The question is, though, what does please God? And what is wrong with these sacrifices and offerings – didn’t God command that they be given, after all?
The key is to understand the contrast and the irony in vss 1-4. The LORD begins by giving himself a bit of an introduction in vs 1: “Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool,” he begins. The whole universe is mine, God proclaims, and I rule over it. But then there’s the accusatory question: “what is the house you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest?” The problem is, people are trying to limit God to their own religious rituals and there own constructions. They don’t realise their own insignificance before God’s throne. It is God who provides rest for his people, not the other way around! In Isaiah 6, the prophet received a vision, and vs 1 records how he “saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple”. Do you see the irony? The people seek to build a house for God, a place for God to rest, but, as vs 2 says, his made all things. Moreover, the vision in Isaiah 6 makes the concept appear laughable. This supposed house of God – the temple – is completely filled by merely the train of God’s robe – the little end bit that drags along the ground. That is the size and majesty of God, and yet we who are but dust don’t listen to him. Instead, we try to fit him into our own rituals and our own buildings without ever realizing the amusing futility of it all.
If religious practices don’t impress God, what does? Well, it’s realizing who we are before the LORD and responding appropriately. Vs 2b: “This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” It’s the exact opposite of the self-righteous self-confidence exhibited by those who are offering the sacrifices. Don’t just do religious stuff, listen to the word of God. That’s their problem in vs 4: when God called, no one answered, and when he spoke, they did not listen.
We cannot presume to limit God to what we want to think of him. Being humble and contrite in spirit means that we know our lives are like flowers which bloom one minute and the next are blown away in the wind. It means that when we read God’s word and pray to him, we let the God of the universe speak to us rather than having already decided what we want him to say. As Neil reminded us earlier in our series – He is God and you are not!
Humility before God is incredibly difficult to maintain because we want to feel that we are something, that what we can do really matters to God, that somehow he needs us. If we saw people in 21st century Australia doing the modern-day equivalents of the sacrifices and offerings in vs 3 – going to church, giving to charity, that sort of thing – then would we think of that as an abomination before God? If we’re doing those things, would we consider it an abomination before God? That’s the conclusion of vs 3 – their soul delights in their abomination. We might be doing all the right things to appear religious. We might feel we are doing all the right things to be good Christian men and women. But do we have a humble and contrite spirit before the God of the universe, who has heaven as his throne and the earth as his footstool? I’m sure those destined to fall under the terrible judgement of God in Isaiah 66 didn’t regard their sacrifices as abominations. So we don’t fall into that trap we need to constantly remind each other of the awesomeness of God.
The parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in Luke 18 demonstrates this in a very clear way. The Pharisee thanked God that he was righteous, he looked up to heaven with confidence and reminded God of all the good things he did. But the tax collector was humble before God. Have mercy on me, a sinner, he said. And Jesus proclaims that it was him who went home right with God – he who was humble and contrite in spirit.
Those who frequent the temple but have no humility before God are counted his enemies. The people of Israel were under this strange misconception that because they were chosen by God that meant that had God’s blessing no matter how they treated him and no matter how they behaved. Look at vs. 6: 6Hear that uproar from the city, hear that noise from the temple It is the sound of the LORD repaying his enemies all they deserve.” At an initial cursory glance, a Jewish reader may not have been particularly surprised by it – God is judging his enemies. But on closer examination, we see that it is the location of this judgment that is critical. It’s not a foreign nation. It’s not a judgment against Egypt or Babylon or Edom. The sound of God repaying his enemies is heard in the city – the holy city, Jerusalem – and in the temple. In the very dwelling place of God where the ultra-religious priests live and work. That’s where God is judging his enemies. And he is judging them because they are not humble before him.
Judgment and Grace
This judgment is tempered, however, with grace. After his message of warning in vss. 3-4, vs. 6 brings a message of hope and of mercy. And whom is this mercy directed towards? Vs. 5 – those who tremble at the words of the LORD. As we’ve already said, it is those who humbly acknowledge the glory of God who are esteemed. These are the people who are being persecuted and excluded by their own fellow Israelites because they worship the LORD God who rescued them out of Egypt with a mighty hand.
From vs. 7 we see a glorious picture of the salvation that God’s people have waiting for them. We see the analogy of the mother and child. The servants of the LORD are to be confident that God will finish what he has started. He will fulfill his promises. Throughout Isaiah, God has been promising his people a saviour, a time of peace and prosperity under the mighty hand of the LORD. Does God close up when the womb when the time for delivery comes? No! Salvation springs forth from the womb of Zion, her children will be born and be comforted and nursed and protected in the arms of the loving God.
Sometimes the metaphor used here can seem a bit confusing – at one point the children seem clearly to be representative of the faithful servants of God, while the birth of the son in vs. 7 that begins this time of salvation could be compared to the Root of Jesse in Is 9 where Isaiah prophesies that this salvation will ultimately come through the one who will reign on David’s throne forever – the person we know to be the Lord Jesus Christ. Or how the mother is identified as Jerusalem, but also as God in vs. 13. But putting such small confusions aside, in these verses we have a picture of the kingdom of God. Peace will be extended upon her like a river, the wealth of the nations will come flooding into God’s holy city. God himself will comfort his servants, holding them in the arms of Zion. If ever the word Zion comes up in a Bible reading a school (or the name Nebuchanezzar, for that matter) all the kids immediately say “hey, they got that out of the Matrix”. I quickly correct them and say that the Matrix got that out of the Bible, but the images of Zion in both media are remarkable similar. When Neo the main character in the film asks what Zion is, he gets told “If the war ended tomorrow, Zion is where the party would be”. It’s the last human city, the bastion of civilization. And ike the Zion of the Matrix, Jerusalem will be the city of comfort and refuge and hope.
Judgement and Glory
Again, though, Isaiah returns us to a warning. This grace is for the servants of the LORD, but God’s foes face a very different future. Vss. 15ff provide a majestic apocalyptic vision. The LORD is coming with fire on a great chariot to execute his judgment over the earth. Those who consecrate themselves in the temple, together with those who eat detestable things, will be slain.
And the nations will be draw together to see the glory of God. That is the high point of this final chapter of Isaiah, greater than the peace and comfort that had already been described. The high point is this picture of the glory and awesomeness of God. People from all over the earth will come on wagons and chariots and camels and mules and in holdens (particularly old rustbuckets with dents all down the side and holes in the roof) and maybe even some fords (though probably not). And they’ll all come together to behold the glory of God. This is something beyond the great international events that we celebrate – beyond the United Nations, beyond the Olympics. It’s the multitude in white robes that bows down before the Lamb of God in Revelation.
This glory is not restricted to the Jews, and it’s not restricted to Jerusalem. The faithful from all nations will come and even those in distant lands who have not heard or seen God’s glory will join in worshipping the Lord of the Universe. And our name will endure forever – because we are servants of the most high God whose kingdom will endure forever. Much of the apocalyptic imagery in Revelation is borrowed from Isaiah and we know that this glorious picture is of the servants of Christ, united in the washing they have received by the blood of Jesus and united as they bow before the throne of God and cry out together in a loud voice: "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb." (Rev 7:10)
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But the conclusion that Isaiah gives us is interesting. Read vss. 22-24. Rather than simply ending of the high note of vs. 23 – this picture of the glory of God – we also have a horrifying description of those excluded from his glory. It is not merely a description of death; it is one of the best descriptions we have in the whole of Scripture of the eternal damnation of hell.
And who is it that will face this damnation? Those who have rebelled against God. Not just the fools who say “there is no God”, but also the religious hypocrites who frequent churches and are taken in by vestments and sacraments but not the awesomeness of God, and the deluded who think that their offerings and their lifestyle mean that they are a shoe-in with God. And also the many, many Australians who think they are right with God because they’re good people. I talk to kids all the time about death and heaven and being right with God and, apart from the Christians, there are two common responses: I just don’t care (to which I don’t respond “you should” but “you will”) and “I’m alright – the Crocodile Dundee answer – “me and God, we’re mates”. They are hopeful, they think they’re alright. But is it a false hope?
There was an explosion at a mine in West Virginia in the United States in December of 2005. More than a dozen miners were trapped underground, battling against time as the air became more and more toxic. They had been down there for almost two days, and many of their relatives had gathered together in Sago Baptist Church in the nearby town of Tallmansville. Suddenly, they received the call they had been waiting for. Their men were alive. A local parishioner ran upstairs and started ringing the church bells. There was dancing and hugging and crying. The Governor of West Virginia, Joe Manchin, yelled to the assembled media that they could now “believe in miracles”. Against the odds, something amazing had happened. They thought there was no hope, but now the message had come through – they’re alive! “Charlotte Weaver, wife of Jack Weaver one of the trapped miners, said “Miracles happen in West Virginia and today we got one. I got scared a lot of times but I couldn’t give up. We have an eleven year old son and I couldn’t go home and tell him that Daddy wasn’t coming home. This is a miracle.” Pause
Three hours later another call came in from the mine. Due to a miscommunication between rescuers and the mining company, a mistake had been made. The twelve miners had all been found, that part was correct. But all except one were dead. The families were hysterical, they were distraught, they were angry. It had been a false hope and a false belief.
Those who blindly assume they are on God’s good side without ever meeting him on his terms not ours are in for a terrible, tragic surprise, a shattering of hope just like those gathered at Sago Baptist Church. For they will not stand with Yahweh at Zion.
Instead, it is the humble, faithful servants who will bow down before the LORD and behold his glory. It is those who tremble at the Word of God. It is those who see and treat God for who he really is – not a human creation, but as the creator, sustainer and redeemer; as king of the whole universe. Don’t be someone who is religious. Be someone who is a humble worshipper of the real God.
