Trembling Before the Word of God

Well, I always like to get the pastor's blood going quickly by saying, we're gonna do something completely different tonight. At least I don't think I've ever done this before, but turn with me to Isaiah chapter 66.

Now you say, that sounds familiar if you were here Sunday night, it should be familiar because that's the text. Now, sir, it would worry me personally if I preach the sermon on a text and the very next service the other elder said, let's try that one again.

That's not what I'm doing. Actually as the pastor will tell you on Lord's Supper night, you only have a very, really small window to really make much in the way of comments, just as you do on a Wednesday night as well.

I was just really blessed and challenged by this text and there's much more to it that the pastor didn't have a chance to get to obviously and so I wanted to, while it's still fresh in our minds, or at least hopefully still fresh in our minds, go back to this text and expand upon some of what comes after what we actually looked at because it is just, I think, tremendously relevant to where we are today.

God as Creator and the Humble Worshiper

So Isaiah chapter 66, thus says the Lord, heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. Where then is house you could build me? And where is a place that I may rest? For my hand made all these things, thus all these things came into being, declares Yahweh, notice it's the Lord, Yahweh.

But to this one I will look, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit and who trembles.

At my word.

That of course is what we are focused upon on Sunday evening. We continue on. But he who kills an ox is like one who slays a man. He who sacrifices a lamb is like he who breaks a dog's neck. He who offers a grain offering is like one who offers swine's blood.

He who burns incense is like the one who blesses an idol. As they have chosen their own ways and their own and their soul delights in their abominations, so I will choose their punishments and will bring on them what they dread.

Because I called, but no one answered. I spoke, but they did not listen. And they did evil in my sight and chose that in which I did not delight. Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at his word.

Your brothers who hate you, who exclude you for my name's sake, have said, let the Lord be glorified that we may see your joy. But they will be put to shame. Now this text we already, as we began looking at it Sunday evening, what a tremendous description.

I would highly recommend to everyone the memorization, at least of these first two verses, because especially in our day and age where we have scientism as the high religion of our land, we should be reminded regularly of these words.

The Lord talks about the fact that he is the creator of all things. Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. That kind of language is meant to communicate to us the grandeur of our God and the fact that he, unlike the gods of the peoples around Israel, does not come forth from the created order, is not dependent upon the created order.

The created order is not bigger than he is. He is the one who made all these things. He made them in their grand and glorious fashion and they exist by his will, not the other way around. And so the question then is being asked, given that I'm the creator of all these things, have you all gotten into the idea that this temple, this temple somehow can encompass.

Me?

This temple is obviously for people who do not have true faith in God. Things like temples and church buildings and edifices can become amulets. They can become the very identification of the God. One of the main reasons why we are told not to make images and things like that is because it is man's, as Calvin said, man's mind is an idol factory and it is so easy to move away from a personal relationship with the living God into the idolatry of a place or.

A thing.

And that's what these people have done. And in fact, the rest of the text tells us that in essence you have people coming to the temple. Remember when Jeremiah stands outside the temple and he delivers the message and people are going, but the temple, the temple, the temple, how could God destroy us?

The temple's still here, the temple's still, he'd never let that temple fall in the hands of his enemies and they trusted in the edifice. And so you had two kinds of people coming into the temple. You had people who still had faith in God and they were worshiping God aright.

They recognized the temple was not anything that could take God's place, it wasn't some type of magic amulet. And then you have people who are still coming and doing religious stuff, but they're idolaters.

They have turned what was supposed to be something that could be used for the worship of God into an idol itself. And so you have a mixed company. And that comes up later on down there in verse 5. Your brothers who hate you, who exclude you from my namesake have said, let the Lord be glorified that we may see your joy, but they will be put to shame.

These are fellow Israelites, these are people who dress like them and attend the temple worship and all the rest of this kind of stuff and will use it. Notice they say, let the Lord be glorified, let Yahweh, they use the very name of God.

But they exclude the true believers because of his namesake. There's a division, there's hypocrisy and one of the greatest difficulties, one of the hardest things to bear for a godly person is the presence of hypocrites within the covenant people in the Old Testament.

Certainly we all recognize that scandals within the church today are often thrown up in our face as an example of the failure of Christianity, whatever else it might be. But the fact of the matter is God has decreed that we will live in days where there are many people.

Y 'all noticed, good illustration. One fellow asked to pray at the inauguration and they found out he said homosexuality is a sin, you are excluded. Didn't take them long to find somebody else who claims to be a Christian who will get up there and say God bless us gay and straight.

And that's what he did.

And the world looks at that and goes, well you see those Christians can't even figure out which end is up and we in our hearts are greatly troubled by that kind of division.

That exists.

And so these people have looked at the house of God and they have turned into something it should not be. And God says my hand made all these things, thus all these things came to being declares the Lord.

You need to understand everything as far as you can see and we can see a whole lot farther now than it could back then with our technology. We know the vast size of this universe and God says I made it all.

I made it all. Now you might wonder why so big? Well in our day and age we now know how big it is and all that means is we should glorify.

Him all the more.

Isn't it amazing. The more we know about the physical universe the less likely it seems to be that we glorify him for his creation. Because we figure well if it's that big then some ancestral God of the Israelites can't.

Be the creator of all this.

Well exactly. Where did it come from? It's amazing but I'm not going to get into that right now because that really wasn't.

My point.

Then we already had the tremendous description of the true worshipper of God to him who is humble and contrite of spirit and who trembles at my word. Now we focused upon that Sunday evening. You'll notice it does appear later on and I want us to note that in just a moment when.

We look at that.

But then you have in verse 3 you have this description and you'll notice what it is. He who kills an ox that is something prescribed in the sacrificial law is like one who slays.

A man which is not.

He who sacrifices a lamb, sacrificial law, is like one who breaks a dog's neck, not. He who offers a grain offering, law, is like one who offers swine's blood, definitely not. He who burns incense, yup, is like the one who blesses an idol, obviously the exact opposite.

What's the point?

The point is God does not accept false worship. God does not accept false worship. You may be following, you may follow the prescribed orders. You may be offering the grain offering. But if you're a hypocrite, if you're a person who does not tremble at God's word, you don't have a humble and contrite heart, then your offering of a grain offering is like one who offers swine's blood.

Now that, you notice what they're, what Isaiah is doing here, what the Lord is doing through Isaiah is giving these descriptions that would have been incredibly reprehensible. They would have been something, oh, I would never do something like that.

But if you engage in worship as a hypocrite, that is what you're doing. Because in essence, when you bring the wrong heart, when you're using worship as a cover for your sin and your love of your own depravity, you are making a mockery of God's worship and you're making a mockery of God's truth.

And so, he who burns incense is like the one who blesses an idol. And we know that in, earlier in Isaiah, it has been said, anyone who chooses to worship the idol is toevah, an abomination to God. Yeah, the idol's an abomination, but the one who chooses to serve and worship the idol becomes what he worships.

He becomes an abomination in God's sight. But then notice, as they have chosen their own ways and their soul delights in their abominations, there is the description, there is the description. Here you have people that from the outside, from the observation we would make of them, like they're doing what the law says, they're giving grain offerings that cost them to do something like that, they're burning incense, they've sacrificed on the altar, but of course we know God looks upon the heart.

And he says, as they have chosen their own ways. They know God's ways. So, in other words, it's possible to choose your own way even while outwardly acting as if you're worshiping God. As they have chosen their own ways and their soul delights.

Notice the word delights in their abominations. It's interesting that that term delights can also, in the range of its meaning, can simply mean to choose or to choose something you delight in and therefore to delight in something.

And so their soul, their innermost man delights in their abominations. Now they're not bringing swine's blood into the temple precincts. They're not doing that outwardly. But I think we've got a real, almost a prophetic picture of the religious situation that Jesus faces in his ministry that comes out with such clarity in Matthew chapter 23.

White and sepulchers, oh you look good on the outside, but inside you're filled with.

Dead men's bones.

What do dead men's bones do?

Do they make you impure on the outside? Oh you've spiffed everything up, it looks wonderful. But inwardly, abominations. And their soul delights in their abominations. In other words, if you could somehow see what their mind and their heart was constantly focused on, it's not God, it's not God's truth, it's not God's ways, it's their own abominations.

And that can be as simple as idolatry, giving to the created order that which belongs to God, fulfilling their own lusts, their own desires, whatever. So because of that, what does God say? I will choose their punishments, and I will bring on them what they dread.

Now they're delighting in their abominations, but God will choose their punishments and bring on them what they dread. They have chosen, notice this, they have chosen their own ways, but God says, so I will choose their punishments.

I will bring on them what they dread, because I called, but no one answered. Now sometimes people try to, you know, they don't understand what we mean, what we believe about God's sovereignty, you know what I'm saying, what we mean when we talk about the ends and the means and things like that, and they'll go, well, because I called, but no one answered.

You Calvinists say no one can answer anyways. So why would this be relevant? I spoke, but they did not listen. Well, of course they can't listen, they're dead, they're deaf, and so on and so forth. So this doesn't make any sense in your system.

But the fact of the matter is, God did call. We have Isaiah's ministry, we have Jeremiah's ministry, we have all the prophets, and yes, we do realize outside of God's grace, man's just going to love his sin and continue loving his abominations, but the fact of the matter is, it does not change the moral culpability of the person who hears that message.

Man's not a, unlike what people like to say, we think, man's not a robot, and God does not judge us based upon some degree we don't know. He judges us based upon what we do know, what God has revealed about his law, what God has revealed about his truth.

And so I called, but no one answered. I spoke, but they did not listen. And they did evil in my sight and chose that in which I did not delight. Do you catch the words here? It's very, very interesting.

They chose that in which I did not delight. They delighted in their abominations. They chose their own ways. They chose that in which I did not delight. Same terminology, same words being used. And so, they did evil in my sight.

That's easy for most people, well, you know, they lied, stealed, they stole, cheated, whatever. You know, you can go start going down the list of vices. A lot of people don't like to define evil in this way.

That is, they chose that in which I did not delight. It is evil for God's creatures to love what God does not love.

Have you thought about that?

One of the reasons we need to hold so firmly and think through the ramifications of God being our Creator is that that's the foundation of this concept. You see, the only reason that it makes any sense that I should delight in what God delights in and I should hate what God hates is not just because I'm trying to be a parrot and imitate something, but if God is my Maker, if I am made in the image of God, then I am never more truly human than when I love what God loves and hate what God hates.

And I am never less human than when I love my own ways and don't even give consideration to what delights God. If I am made in His image, if I am His creature, if He defines who I am, if I'm just the random chance of atoms and molecules bumping together over billions and billions of years, then none of this makes a lick of sense, and I can do whatever I want.

So they chose that in which God did not delight, and that is called doing evil in His sight. Wow, that's not the most normal definition, is it? That's certainly biblical. Then, hear the word of Yahweh, you who tremble at His word.

There's that phrase again. There's that phrase again. The ones to whom God's eyes turn, broken, contrite spirit, who trembles at His word. Your brothers who hate you, who exclude you for my name's sake, have said, let the Lord be glorified that we may see your joy, but they will be put to shame.

The promise to the true, faithful remnant, the remnant of grace, is that they will be put to shame. It may not look that way now. Right now it looks like you're the one being put to shame. And there are many times in history when it seems like the evil, even the evil who bear the name Jesus in some way, shape, or form, they have control and Christ's true followers are persecuted by them.

There were many times like that in church history. We think about the fact that Calvin's Geneva produced a steady stream of martyr missionaries who went straight from Geneva into Italy to bear witness to the gospel and gave their.

Lives for so doing.

And during that time, it looks like these people who call themselves Christians, let the Lord be glorified, and then lit up the missionaries, looks like they're in control. The promise is, they will be put to shame.

Trembling at the Word in the Church Today

But I want to, in just the last moment here, at phrase, you who tremble at His word.

Do we know who those people are?

Can we identify them? Well, I don't think they wear a particular t-shirt. I don't think they have a, you know, a yellow rubber band around their wrist that says trembler.

On it or something like that.

I suppose you could start a movement or something. But it just strikes me that as I look at, quote unquote, the church today, that I have identified many times, one of the primary problems that we have is that we have so many men in positions of leadership that do not tremble at His word.

I mean, think about it. On the scholarly level, amongst the scholars, so many treat the word in a disrespectful fashion. They think they're smarter than God. They can cut the word into pieces and judge it and tear it apart and they don't have to view the word the way Jesus did.

They don't have respect for it. They end up teaching heresy and begetting people to teach heresy in pulpits. But then in churches, even in evangelical churches, when the word of God is treated so flippantly, it's just quote a verse and then off into personal stories as if they're sermons or just entertainment or just the stuff that will get people to come and throw some money in the plate.

But you don't actually concern yourself about what Paul says, I'm innocent of the blood of any man. I have not held back from you any of the truth of God.

That attitude.

It's awful rare, awful rare to tremble at His word. And yet that is a that is a description that we must take to heart, especially we must take to heart because we open this word every time we get together.

It is very, very rare that there is a time we get together, that there is not an exhortation.

From this word.

And so we it's easy for us to look outside, but we need to look in our own hearts and ask, do I tremble at the word of God or have I become accustomed to it? That's a question that we must ask ourselves.

By God's grace, we'll continue to do so.

Pastor.