FBC Morning Light – July 5, 2022

God's Transcendence in Isaiah 66

Well, a good Tuesday morning to you. I hope you had a good holiday yesterday. Got maybe some extra rest and refreshment. Had an enjoyable day, perhaps with some family and friends. But nevertheless, I hope you had a good day.

Here on this Tuesday, July 5th, we're looking at Isaiah chapter 66. When I read those first couple of verses in this chapter, I was reminded of an experience my wife and I had about 18 years ago. We had the opportunity to visit and minister in Singapore, visit a missionary that we have there, our church supports, and spent a couple of weeks in Singapore and then a little bit at some time a week as well in Malaysia.

During one of our afternoons when we had some downtime while we were still in Singapore, the missionary took us to an area of the island city nation that was kind of like a Buddha complex, if you will.

In this complex, there were several different temples, Buddhist temples, and it was really kind of fascinating to go from one to the other. Every one of them was very meticulously maintained, very clean, pristine, and actually kind of put a lot of our conservative, Bible-believing churches in America to shame.

A lot of our churches aren't very well cared for, and it's a tragedy, it's a shame. But I digress. These Buddhist temples, very meticulous, but the thing that stuck out to me was that every one of those different temples had in the middle of it a statue of the Buddha.

Some of the temples were small, and one of them particularly was very large, and the larger the temple, the larger the statue of the Buddha. The point is that these temples, these houses, housed the God.

You wouldn't find him anywhere else, unless there was a statue there too. But no, the God is in the house. But listen to what the Lord says in Isaiah 66, 1 and 2. He says, Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool.

Where is the house that you will build for me? And where is the place of my rest? You get his point, don't you? That there isn't a house that could contain him. That's what Solomon said after he built the temple.

And you see, we think, well, wait a minute, there was a temple in the Old Testament. That was God's house in the Old Testament, wasn't it? Well, even when Solomon had built that temple and had it completed, he acknowledged the fact that, no, this house that I've built cannot contain you.

You are the God of the universe, Solomon essentially said. There is no structure on the planet that can contain you. The best that we could do in this temple was to, and by God's design and God's inspiration, build this Holy of Holies room in the temple where there was the Ark of the Covenant, on the top of it was the mercy seat, but there was not a statue of God in there.

Nothing that said, this is God. All that mercy seat, if you will, did was symbolize the fact that God dwells with his people. God dwells with his people. So God doesn't look to a house as a place of rest where people have to go to if they're going to meet with that God.

Instead, God tells us in verse 2 what he does look for, and here's what he says. He says, on this will I look. I won't look on a house, on this will I look, on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit and who trembles at my word.

That person can be anywhere on the planet. Those persons, that group of people can be anywhere on the planet. There are groups of people, there are people in the United States, there are people in Singapore, there are people in India, there are people in China, there are people in Russia, there are people in Ukraine, there are people in Brazil and Argentina, and all over this planet, upon whom the Lord looks.

His eyes look upon them because they are of a poor and contrite spirit and they tremble at his word, and he looks at them all at the same time. Now, if he was contained in some kind of a house, he couldn't do that.

He could only look at those who happen to be inside that house at that particular time, but that's not the case. Even right now, as you're listening to the word this morning, and you're trembling at it, you're respecting it, you're honoring the God of this word, and your heart is poor and contrite, there are people on the other side of the planet who are exhibiting the same qualities.

They are followers of Christ and they have the same attitude toward God and toward themselves. They are poor and contrite in spirit and they tremble at God's word and God sees us all at the same time.

Aren't you glad? Our Father and our God, we are thankful today. We're thankful that you do see us no matter where we are, when we are of a poor and a contrite spirit. Now, I pray that you would bless these thoughts to our hearts today, and we ask it in Jesus' name.

Amen. All right. Well, have a good rest of your Tuesday, and I trust the Lord will bless you in it. Good day.