A Word in Season: Where God Dwells (Isaiah 66:2)

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Thus says the Lord, Heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool.

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Where is the house that you will build me? And where is the place of my rest? For all those things my hand has made, and all those things exist, says the

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Lord. But on this one will I look, on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at my word.

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God, making known his word through the prophet Isaiah, reveals himself, as he does so often in the course of that prophecy, in something of his glory and his majesty.

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We sometimes speak of him as the God of heaven and earth. Heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool.

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It's hard for us to begin to conjure up the majesty that belongs to the living and true

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God. All that ever has been is at his command. He has called it into being and he keeps it in its being.

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Everything that is, has been made by him. And so the question is, what will you take of what

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God has made in order to construct a fitting dwelling place for him? Where is the house that you will build me?

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And where is the place of my rest? Here we are, such feeble and foolish creatures.

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What scraps of God's creation will we take, even the best scraps, and try and build something that God would deign,

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God would stoop down to dwell in? And yet the prophet says that God has identified the man on whom he will look with favour.

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This one, on this one, I will look. To this one,

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I will give my attention. To this one, I will draw near. To this one,

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I will show favour. And again, in the light of what has been said, we might say, well, what kind of man attracts the attention of God in this way?

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What kind of person is this great and glorious God going to look upon? What strength would they have?

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What intellect might they possess? What wealth or fame belongs to them if this

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God is going to pay any kind of attention to them? And the answer may confound us.

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I will look on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit and who trembles at my word.

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That's not the way the world thinks, and too often it's not the way that believers think. We imagine we have to be something special in order to get and to keep the attention of God.

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On the 2nd of April, 1815, the great Baptist pastor and preacher and theologian,

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Andrew Fuller, was preaching the last sermon that he would preach on this earth. We're told that it was marked for its solemnity and earnestness, and it came from this text,

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Isaiah 66, verses 1 and 2. And Fuller had three points. God's approval of poverty of spirit or genuine humility, of contrition of spirit or true repentance, of tenderness of spirit, or a godly shrinking from sin and temptation.

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That is the kind of person with whom God delights to dwell. That's the kind of heart to which

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God draws near, not one that puffs itself up in the sense that we might be able to climb up to God, but one that is conscious of its own emptiness and sinfulness and so calls out to God for favour.

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In Fuller's language, it's poverty of spirit or genuine humility. Not someone who thinks highly of themself, but someone who recognises their utter emptiness and worthlessness.

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Then contrition of spirit. This isn't just, oh, I'm no good. This is, no, I have sinned against God.

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I deserve not his favours, but his judgements. And then this tenderness of spirit, the one who trembles at the word of God, the one who takes seriously every word that proceeds from the mouth of the

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Lord and who fears the God who has spoken with a holy and a righteous fear.

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Does God look upon you with favour? Does God draw near to you?

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Does God, by his spirit, dwell in your soul? Such favour, such mercy, such blessing is not obtained by the great and the boastful of this earth, but by the poor and the contrite and the one who trembles at the word of God.

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When we come to a proper recognition of our own poverty and sinfulness and need, then