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I'm not going to say anything. I'm just going to ask you now. Would you turn in your copy of God's Word? to Isaiah chapter 6. We will read a few verses here, and then we will turn to Isaiah chapter 57.
But let's first begin with Isaiah chapter 6 and I will read Verses 1 3 -5 in the year of leprous King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne Lofty and exalted. With the train of his robe filling the temple.
Seraphim stood above him each having six wings. With two he covered his face and And with two he covered his feet and with two he flew and One called out to another and said holy holy holy is The Lord of hosts.
The whole earth is full of his glory. And the foundations of the thresholds trembled At the voice of him who called out while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I said woe is me for I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips.
For my eyes have seen the king the Lord of hosts. Would you now turn to Isaiah? Chapter 57. And we will read only one verse in that chapter Verse 15 now in Isaiah 6. He saw the Lord high and exalted or high and lifted up.
Here the same two Hebrew words are used and Now we hear this high and exalted one speak. For thus says that high and exalted one of Isaiah 6 thus says the high and exalted one Who lives forever whose name is holy.
I Dwell on a high and holy place and Also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. May God add His special blessing to the reading and the reflection upon and the preaching From these verses in this evening hour and I ask you now to pray with me.
Thank you. Heavenly Father for these inspired insights from your word. Grant us the ears truly to hear them. Remove the scales from our eyes that we may behold Wondrous things out of your law and Open our hearts to believe and to love them.
And I pray these things for the glory of Jesus Christ. Amen. It will happen in a couple of months. Mark my word for one week every August. The American television channels inflict us With his low-grade movies and With him and with apocryphal stories about him.
The media regale us with the solemn spectacle of thousands of Americans going into mourning. Marking the anniversary of the death of Elvis Aaron spell with only one a Elvis Aaron Presley known affectionately by his fans as The king during the special observance that is planned each year on August 16th.
Thousands of fans will walk through the gates of Graceland his mansion in Memphis, Tennessee. Now I was never a fan of Elvis Presley myself. But I must candidly admit that a certain sadness creeps over me every year as I watched the mass media report that event on The anniversary day itself literally thousands of Presley fans gather at Graceland to hold a candlelight vigil in his memory as The cameras sweep the audience.
One can observe fans in tears All in somber reflections stand in silence in the flickering light of a thousand candles and Some even go into a swoon and faint away. One certainly gets the impression That someone very dear to them has died.
A newspaper reporter from the Boston Globe Interviewed one such devoted fan Named Dennis wise. Dennis wise really really loved Elvis Presley. So much so that after Presley's death He had had his face lifted by a plastic surgeon To resemble him he had had his hair contoured To match the style of his departed idol and in the interview he said this yes, sir Presley's been an idol of mine.
Since I was five years old I have every record he ever cut twice over. I Have pictures in the thousands Magazines pillows T-shirts figurines cups and plates. I Have every book I can find about him some even in Japanese and Chinese.
I Even have leaves From the lawn of Graceland. In school when Elvis began to wear white boots. I bought white boots. The kids all call them fruit boots. I saw him in concert every opportunity that came my way.
I Tried to get close to him every time. But he was always surrounded by too many people. I Even stood on the wall at Graceland over 12 hours once to get a glimpse of him. But I never could get close to him.
I Never personally knew him and he never knew me now my beloved. When you hear a testimony like that What's your reaction? I mean after perhaps a moment of initial amusement. Shouldn't we deep be deeply saddened by it.
For it reflects feelings of devotion approaching those That one normally reserves for the worship of one's God. I mean after all shaping's one shaping one's face to conform to the image of another. The Bible speaks, you know about the Christian Being conformed to the image of the Son of God.
Collecting mementos artifacts and memorabilia. Hanging on every word by him or about him. Surely such devotion borders on if it is not actually worship and in the latter case such worship constitutes an idolatrous blasphemy.
Surely, this is a cause for sadness. But for me the saddest words from that entire interview were these. I never got close to him. I never knew him personally and He never knew me sad because of his misplaced and unrequited devotion, of course but all the more tragically sad because of What could have been his of true and proper devotion to be found in What the Christian gospel offers him by way of contrast?
You see everything about the Christian faith is unique and one of the unique features of the Christian gospel is its reassuring promise and guarantee That one can know the one living and triune God in a rich and real way.
That confounds the comprehension of the unbeliever. Oh. The bumper sticker one occasionally sees on some cars Is somewhat trite that reads God is not dead. I talked to him this morning. But we understand the theology Behind the statement like that you see our God is alive and we believe that we can know him and Fellowship with him and converse with him and he with us and We don't have to buy a ticket to watch him perform now this reality of knowing God Is a central thrust of Holy Scripture and in the last text we read Isaiah 57 15 an Old Testament verse which is beautifully New Testament as well in scope and concept.
Isaiah is passionately concerned that people know who his God is What he is like And where he can be found. So to the question That a little child might ask daddy mommy Where does God live? Isaiah declares He lives in two places he lives in The high and lofty place and he lives in the place of the contrite.
Here are the two themes of our text Where does God live? He lives in lofty places and he lives in lowly places. In these two places our God can be found in These two places does he make his presence known?
Now before we go any further this evening, may I ask you? Does Isaiah's Reminder that these are the only two places Where God lives Disturb you at all. I think it should I Confess as I reflect on Isaiah's statement that I become Deeply agitated in my spirit by his reminder that God lives in the high and lofty place and He lives in the lowly place.
Because I know That I simply do not appreciate as I should What it means either? To approach God and To worship him in the lofty place Where he dwells in his terrible holy transcendence or to feel genuine wretchedness in Heartfelt contrition in The lowly place where he descends in his gracious condescendence and I would dare say my beloved friends that you too Perhaps even most Christians today are in a similar condition.
You see most professing Christians today prefer to approach God on Middle ground that is neither lofty for God Nor lowly for them, but my beloved middle ground is simply not where God lives. There is no middle ground in this relationship and If that is where we poor creatures of sin think we are standing today with God on Middle ground with him.
I must warn us all that we are not in fellowship With the true and living God at all for he is simply not there Standing on middle ground. We are standing all alone Talking to an idol we've created in our minds with whom we can feel comfortable and Who requires nothing of us beyond what we want a tender But we are not talking with the true and living God on middle ground.
This evening I want you to explore with me the two places our text says God lives. Come with me to the text and let's mine it together for its life-giving or I Want to say no more than it says. But I want to say all that it does say and it has been my prayer that God's Spirit would speak to our hearts through it.
So would you consider with me first? The theme of God's loftiness. Isaiah begins by affirming three true But incredibly difficult concepts for us to grasp about our God. He is high and lofty and he inhabits eternity and his name is holy.
Let me try to help us understand these three these ideas. By relating each concept to the Israelite monarchy first being high and lofty means at the very least That God who is spirit Incomprehensible spirit infinite Eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness Justice goodness and truth is above us infinitely above us.
He is man's absolute sovereign we are his subjects. And just as the earthly king in Israel sat elevated and Exalted above those who approached him in the throne room So also God sits high and exalted above us as We read in Isaiah 6 1 moments ago.
I saw the Lord seated on a throne high and exalted then Listen to these words of Isaiah in the middle of his book in chapter 40. Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket. They are regarded as dust on the scales.
He weighs the islands as though they were fine dust. Before him all the nations are as nothing. They are regarded by him as worthless and Less than nothing. To whom then will you compare me or who is my equal?
Says the Holy One. Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God the creator of the ends of the earth. I think I hear Isaiah saying by these three passages at the beginning and in the middle and at the end of his prophecy I Think I hear him saying Get it straight Jerusalem.
You are not his equal. By an infinite degree he is above you and you'd better never forget it. A W Tozer wrote something that speaks to all of this some 30 or so years ago in his book the knowledge of the holy That I believe is still frighteningly true today.
He writes a condition Has existed in the church for some years and is steadily growing worse. I Refer to the loss of The concept of majesty from the popular religious mind. The church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and Has substituted for it one so low so ignoble as to be unworthy of Thinking worshiping men.
The low view of God entertained almost Universally among Christians today is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us. For with our loss of the sense of the majesty of God has come the further loss of religious awe and consciousness of the divine presence.
We have lost our spirit of worship and our ability to meet God in adoring silence. Modern Christianity is simply not producing the kind of Christian Who can appreciate? true life in the spirit. The words be still and know that I am God Mean next to nothing to the self-confident bustling worshiper in this period of the 20th century.
Is he right? Perhaps more than we would like to think. Christians simply do not tremble Before him today as they should. So I must ask you men and women. Do you recognize? That God is your sovereign Infinitely high and exalted above you.
It is necessary to your spiritual health and mental well-being As well as to every true worship experience that you do. Second Isaiah says our God inhabits eternity. Have you ever? Tried to define time not to mention attempting to define eternity.
My senior colleague in the Department of systematic theology at Covenant Seminary in St. Louis for some years Was dr. J. Oliver Buswell jr. Who had been president at Wheaton? Before he came to us as system attrition and he religiously required his students year after year to memorize his definition of time and eternity.
Time he said Is the mere abstract or ideational possibility of the before and after relationship in durational sequence and Eternity is infinite time that is time so defined Extrapolated in both directions to infinity.
Now do you understand? Did you get it no. Well, don't feel bad for even if you understood Buswell's definitions, I know that none of us here Can comprehend a Self-conscious Tripersonal being Who never had a beginning and who has always existed.
We are time-oriented. Isaiah would live to see four kings. Come to the throne of Judah in the brief span of his own prophetic ministry and then die some. In the case of a Uzziah a miserable leper's death.
But Isaiah's God ah his God inhabited eternity. Before the mountains were brought forth. Before the foundations of the earth were laid even from everlasting to everlasting. His God was already and Always there and always will be there above the passing of kings from thrones Above the shifting circumstances and vicissitudes of life.
Our God inhabits eternity my friends. He is always there. Third. Isaiah says That our God's name is holy which means at the very least That he is holy. But what does it mean to say that God is holy? Permit me to try to help us grasp this concept by two different scriptural allusions.
First. Go back mentally to Isaiah 6 for a moment. Did you note the creatures flying about the throne of God? Extolling according to John 12 31 The glory of the pre-incarnate Son of God with their antiphonal singing.
The Apostle John also beheld this scene in Revelation chapter 4 and He gives us the additional details that these that these creatures were for in number full of eyes in front and behind. Who night and day never stopped saying holy holy holy Holy holy holy Is the Lord God Almighty.
Now take careful note these heavenly beings are Unfallen creatures they've never sinned nevertheless With Four of their six wings they feel it only right that they cover themselves in the presence of this Holy God because of the unapproachable light of the triune God's all-glorious holiness.
About which they sing without ceasing. I hope that helps you Sinless creatures feeling the need to cover themselves in the presence of this Holy God. When I was a little boy in Sunday school Presbyterian Sunday school My Sunday school teachers told us now Children when you pray you should bow your heads and you should close your eyes and not look around Because you don't want to be distracted by Johnny or by seeing something.
No, no That's not why we should bow our heads and close our eyes When we go to prayer. If sinless creatures Feel that they must cover themselves in his presence surely sinful beings such as we Should feel the need to bow our heads To close our eyes when we go into his presence in prayer.
I Have been deeply moved when I visit the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London and I watch Peter masters the pastor pray he comes to the pulpit and he covers his face. Second I'm trying to help you understand what it means When we're told that God is holy.
Second recalled Uzziah About whom we read earlier in 2nd Chronicles 26 In this poor man, we see what happens to the sinful creature Who dares to walk into God's holy presence uninvited as Though it were his perfect right to be there and this is true of us as well Just as we cannot look for a moment at the brilliant boiling light of the Sun Without Doing destroying damage to our eyes.
So also we cannot in our raw state Look at the God who dwells in the unapproachable light of his all-consuming holiness without doing irreversible and eternal harm to ourselves. Now all of this I think should deeply disturb us for how often have you and have I have we?
Use I alike Entered into the very presence of God in worship sat before his powerful wonderful word from another world as we're doing now and Handle things such as the communion elements That he declares are holy and set apart for a very special purpose all the while Just assuming that it is our perfect right To be in his presence apart from his grace.
When you came to church today What was on your mind? Did you come to worship the high and Lofty God who inhabits eternity Whose name is holy? Did you come to be lifted up to heaven by the prayers and praises in Zion and to sit under the judgments of his word or Did you come perhaps simply to be gripped again somehow?
By that religious feeling the church attendance often invokes Or Simply to be entertained by the music or the preacher Just as the people of Ezekiel's day Came to him To be entertained. Is it possible dear friends?
That some of us came to church today simply to be entertained By the preachers words or to visit and to fellowship with friends with no Real thought that this place Is to be primarily a house of worship and prayer.
Is it possible that we have not given God his rightful due where is honest Reverential all of the Living God in the 21st century church. Where is the trembling that should occur as we read of his threatenings to the one Who does not love and serve him?
Where is the man? Is he here? Where is the woman is she here? Where is the boy? Where is the girl? Are they here? Where are they? I ask who were conscious that they are right now in the presence Of the lofty Holy God Who inhabits eternity and who is a consuming fire?
To his enemies. The story is told of Alfred Smith One-time governor of New York State Who was prevailed upon on one occasion to speak at a convention banquet Attended almost entirely by out-of-state conventioneers Who as the writer who reported the story says?
Obviously had at best a supercilious Condescending semi inebriated half-interest in him. It was evident to all who possessed even a modicum of appreciation for the conditions of the moment that Governor Smith was being treated by them as some kind of fun joke Which was confirmed when the Toastmaster After a flippant jaucous introduction Climaxed his remarks and now boys.
I give you a great guy Alfred Smith now Governor Smith was the last man in the world To insist on empty form or idle ceremony, but sensing an affront to his office. He responded briefly and tersely Gentlemen When I was a little boy on the east side My father took me one day to a great civic parade.
I held his hand tightly and I thrilled as battalion after battalion of infantry marched past to stirring drum and martial music. Suddenly my father stiffened and I felt almost electricity pass from his hand to mine Son he said Take off your hat.
The governor of New York is passing by. I took off my hat Gentlemen the governor of New York bid you good night, and he left the platform and Walked out the door. Are there times. Do you suppose are there times when God?
Simply wants to walk out on Congregations perhaps at times even on this one Who think they can meet God on middle ground That is comfortable Where he is simply a good guy rather than meet him in adoring silence and With the reverential fear that befits the undeserving sinner standing in the presence of infinite majesty.
I Asked you and I wonder have we come to the place? Where we think of our God so much as our buddy And as our pal That he is no longer really our God The high and lofty one I think I hear Isaiah saying get it straight Jerusalem.
You better not monkey around With the everlasting God Who dwells in the most prominent place and Whose name is holy? Well, we have considered now the lofty place where God sits upon his heavenly throne in Incomparably awesome transcendence and We have seen that Isaiah tells us three basic facts about our God's loftiness.
He sits enthroned in the high and lofty place he inhabits eternity as the God who knows neither beginning nor ending and His name is holy, which means that he is holy so transcendent Lee holy that even sinless seraphs Have to cover themselves in his presence.
So transcendent Lee holy that no sinful man can stand uninvited in his presence and live. Hence, we must be ever aware That we sinful creatures of this world are not his equal. And that we have no right to approach him in worship in our raw natural state.
Consider with me now the second theme of Isaiah 57 15 the theme of God's lowliness where does God dwell as we noted. Isaiah says that his God lives in the high and lofty place and This fact is disturbing enough for it means that we cannot come into his presence at all Apart from aid coming to us From outside of ourselves.
He is beyond our reach Infinitely so unless we have an advocate of some kind who can bridge the infinite distance between us. But the second part of Isaiah's statement disturbs me equally as much as the first.
For I confess With shame-facedness my beloved that there are large times in my life When I prefer to meet God on middle ground and I'm simply not comfortable When Isaiah informs me that in addition To his high and lofty place.
The only other place he lives is in the place of the contrite. And that if I would meet him at all, I Must first meet him there. And in Isaiah 66 to God declares and even more explicit terms. This is the one I esteem he who is humble and contrite in spirit and who trembles at my word.
Let's investigate this second portion of the text with great care as well. The first thing I want us to note is that the Hebrew word which is translated contrite Literally means Crushed and it describes one Who has been?
Spiritually crushed. Crushed. One understands with his mind what contrite means. But one experiences with his entire being what crushed means. Crushed Suggests pain and remorse and brokenness and dejection At the end of oneself.
And who are the crushed? In Isaiah 57 15 The crushed are those who have come to grips honestly with the total ultimate sinfulness of themselves. In Isaiah again helpfully illustrates this for us. For when Isaiah the Prophet saw the glorified Son of God in all of his glory and And heard the seraph singing of his transcendent holiness that fills the whole earth he cried Woe is me.
That is I stand under divine judgment. For I am undone. For mine eyes have seen the king the Lord of hosts. Now this is very instructive for what Isaiah is telling us is that he had never seen himself as he really was until he had seen the awesomely terrible glory of the Holy God and When he did come to grips with the incredible moral dimensions of the Living God He felt crushed by the inescapable weight of the sheer godness of God the weight of his glorious grandeur particularly the grandeur of his holiness and What's the lesson in this for you and for me?
It's this when we truly understand who God is and what he is like and where he dwells. We suddenly realize that we fall infinitely short of his expectations for us. We can no longer be happy with ourselves.
We know we need to recalibrate our opinion about ourselves. We know that we must leave our comfortable middle ground. We realize that we don't belong before him by right of birth or Of place or of nature in our raw natural state.
We suddenly realize that no worship experience. I repeat no worship experience is genuine Apart From this sense of crushingness That no worship experience is real apart from the recognition that one is nothing before God Unless he is bathed in the mercy of God in Christ.
I Suddenly understand that I must really mean it when I sing and from my smitten heart With tears two wonders, I confess the wonders of redeeming love and my unworthiness. The second thing I would note here is that Isaiah's declaration That he lives with the contrite is really just a further revelation of God's infinite grace.
For when he comes to you in your crush in this You will find him With you there Crushed and Broken too. Will you look with me for a moment at Isaiah 53 5. Isaiah for informs us in this verse that in God's incredible love for you and me When he and the person of his son came to dwell with you He came as the one who was bruised for our transgressions and He was crushed the same Hebrew word he was crushed For your iniquities at Calvary now what design what purpose lies behind Christ's willingness and desire to come and to dwell With the lowly and contrite him in spirit as himself the crushed one.
We must be extremely careful when we answer that question. For we have no right to determine for him his reasons for doing what he does. We must let him inform us of his motives for doing what he does and here he tells us look at the text.
He states quite clearly that he as himself crushed Comes to contrite ones in order to revive them To quicken them to raise them up to give them new life and new hope in This single simple statement. We are informed of The source of all true spiritual life in the church it is Christ and his spirit.
True spiritual life indeed all true spiritual renewal Comes from none other than the crucified and risen Christ the high and lofty one who is himself the baptizer of his people and his outpouring of Revivification and quickening Isaiah informs us Comes to those who with a particular heart attitude Have been gracious that have been graciously implanted within them.
And what is that heart attitude? It is he singularly says it he states that he comes not only to the crushed But he comes to those who were lowly in spirit to revive them. I tell you my beloved the Church of Jesus Christ needs the gale of The reviving spirit of God sweeping through her limbs today Calling her back to forsaken revealed truths Lifting up her fallen hands Strengthening her weakened knees Fanning her smoking flax back into a bright and warming flame Infusing her with boldness and courage and Empowering her to attempt great deeds for God.
And if that gale is not presently ours It is doubtless because we are not sufficiently low in the dust before him. Are you in a state that may justly be labeled? Lowly in spirit. If not, guess what's wrong.
You're not sufficiently low before him and hungering thirsting after his righteousness. For if you were Our Lord has declared that God Will fully satisfy your hunger and your thirst. My friends I remind us that our God looks not primarily at our outward dress.
But he looks at our hearts. What does he see when he looks beyond your dress. And your best Amy Vanderbilt social decorum. Does he see hearts conscious that apart from his grace? They are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
Does he see hearts beating in true humility before him? Does he see hearts that understand without him? One can do nothing good. Or does he see proud and haughty spirits Insisting on their own autonomy on having their own way.
Dear ones do you want genuine renewal in this church? I know you do. Then cry out to him not only today, but continually. For that lowliness of spirit before him that he honors with his presence. Importion heaven for new depths of humility before him.
In order that he might revive you and regale you with his power from on high. For we have his word on this matter both in the Old and New Testaments. God opposes the proud But shows grace to the humble spirit of the Living God descend upon this church, I pray and humble us in the dust Before you.
I Close now with the final summary about this text as a whole. Oh my beloved friends in the most fragile of words. What Isaiah says about the two places where God lives. He lives in the high and lofty place where he sits in his dreadful transcendence.
Where our only proper response is to worship and To adore him through the merits of Christ's doing and dying. And he lives in the lowly place in his amazing condescendence among the spiritually crushed people of this globe.
Who bow before him in contrition and humility and cry out? For his gifts of grace in Christ who like Bartimaeus of Jericho Loudly cried Oh Jesus thou son of David. Have mercy on me so both to believer and If there is an unbeliever to you as well.
Gathered in this place today. I would admonish you all in these two places Find your God for only in these two places. Does he live? And only in these two places. Will you ever find him. Let us pray tonight our blessed God.
We have considered the places where you live. We thank you that we can know you Personally even in the midst of our knowledge of our own unworthiness and sin and Even as we know that when the desires of your great heart have been so freely open to us We have been so slow to worship you in reverence and all Tonight I thank you for the mighty truth that you have flashed even if only momentarily before our eyes from this text in Isaiah.
We pray for your gracious presence in our lives That drawn by the sweetness of your grace and the bliss of your beauty. We may turn our eyes and hearts away from the deceptive and dying but oh so alluring lights of this world and may we know you enough to long after you and Longing for you may we know you even better.
Grant us such heart desire for you. That our greatest passion in life will be to know you better Than we know anyone or anything else in this world. And to enjoy you more than we enjoy anyone or anything else in this world more than our spouses more than our children more than our homes more than our jobs.
Give us while we sit before you now The awareness of the great ocean of your love sweeping over us and covering our sin. Be with us throughout our days. Turn all of our sadnesses to joy Quiet our inner turmoils and give us your peace That passes all understanding and we ask all of this Through the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ and his merits alone.
Amen.