Let us turn once again to that
portion of Scripture we were considering this morning in Isaiah
Isaiah 57 13 to 15 When thou cryest, let thy companies deliver
thee, but the wind shall carry them all away. Vanity shall take
them. But he that putteth his trust
in the Lord shall possess the land, and shall inherit my holy
mountain. and shall say cast ye up cast
ye up prepare the way take up the stumbling block out of the
way of my people for thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth
eternity whose name is holy I dwell in the high and holy place with
him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the
spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. We saw it this morning to say
something in particular of the way in which the Lord himself
prepares the way for his people to be brought unto himself and
we consider that both in a negative and in a positive sense there
must be that removing of the stumbling blocks out of the way. Spoke then about false faith,
false confidence must therefore be exposed and that's what is
being said. God dismisses whatever religion
they may have thought themselves to have. I will declare thy righteousness. and thy works, he says, for they
shall not profit thee. When thou cryest, let thy companies
deliver thee. How they were looking to the
multitude of their idols. How they were entering into league,
into confederation with so many of the heathen nations round
about them. And God, as it were, mocks them.
let thy companies deliver thee, he says, but the wind shall carry
them all away. Vanity shall take them. But he
that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land and shall
inherit my holy mountain. We spoke positively then of how
God is concerned to establish in his people that real faith,
that true faith. that faith that must center all
together and only in Himself. And now I want us to move on
to consider how God not so much brings the people to Himself
but how He rather comes to them and makes His dwelling in their
hearts in particular in those words that we have in verse 15, Thus saith the High and Lofty
One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, I dwell in
the high and holy place, with Him also that is of a contrite
and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and
to revive the heart of the contrite ones. God's dwelling God's dwelling,
though we're not reminded very much of the immensity of God. We read that prayer, that remarkable
prayer that was prayed at the dedication of Solomon's temple. How the king seeks to address
himself unto the Lord God, desiring that God would come and manifest
His presence, His gracious presence, there in that temple which of
course as we know is but a type, a remarkable type of the Lord
Jesus Christ himself. What does Solomon say? Will God
indeed dwell on earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven
of heavens cannot contain them, much less this house that I have
built. Now God is that one who is in
all places. He is that God who is the omnipresent
one. And you know how David, Solomon's
father, acknowledges exactly the same when he writes there
in the Psalm, in the 139th Psalm. It's a celebration, is it not,
of that omnipresence of the Lord God. He says that encompasses my path
and my lying down. and art acquainted with all my
ways or whither shall I go from thy spirit whither shall I flee
from thy presence if I ascend up into heaven thou art there
if I make my bed in hell behold thou art there if I take the
wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the
sea even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall
hold me God is that one who is in all places but here we're
thinking of not so much that omnipresence of God that attribute
that belongs to him but we're thinking of that special presence
and in particular that gracious presence when God in the course
of bringing his people to himself, making a way for them to return
to him, comes himself and dwells in their very hearts. Now, there
are, as I'm sure you're aware too, principal dwellings of that
special presence of God. He dwells, does he not, in the
heaven of heavens. He dwells in eternity. He is outside of time and of
space. But God also comes and dwells
in a very special manner in the hearts of his people, the hearts
of the humble. And those are the two things
that I really want us to consider from the words of the text. I
dwell, he says, in the high and holy place with him also that
is of a contrite and humble spirit. First of all to say something
with regards to the heavens. This high place where God is. When we come to the word of God
we see how the word heaven or heavens is really used in a threefold
sense. Sometimes the word is used in
reference to the planet Earth and the atmosphere about the
earth, the atmospheric heavens. In Job 35 verse 5, We read the
words, Look unto the heavens and see, and behold the clouds
which are higher than that. Clearly there, I think it's Eli
who's the speaker, he is referring to the lowest of the heavens,
the atmosphere, the place where the clouds are. And even that
is higher than any man, We read of the fowls of the heaven. It's
where the birds fly. That is the basic meaning of
the word heaven or heavens when we find it here in Holy Scripture. But often, as you know, the word
is used more particularly in reference to what we might term
stellar space, the starry heavens, the vastness of the universe. When we look beyond the atmosphere,
when we look out on a clear night into the star-spangled skies,
And it is God, of course, who is the maker of all these things
by the word of the Lord, it says. Were the heavens made, and all
the host of them by his breath? It is God who has created these
things. All the constellations of the heavens are the works
of his hand. And in that ancient book, the
book of Job, see how Job himself makes reference to some of those
constellations. In Job chapter 9, and there at
verse 7 following, he speaks of God which commandeth the sun,
and it riseth not, and sealeth up the stars, which alone spreadeth
out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea, which
maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south,
which doeth great things, past finding gate, yea, and wonders
without number." Oh it is God who has made everything. It is
God who has created all the stars in the skies. And that is the,
these are second heavens really. That is stellar space that we
look into. But then also we read of the
third heavens, and it was that third heaven that the Apostle
Paul was favored to be transported into. It was a spiritual experience.
wasn't that he was taken in his physical body to that place,
but he certainly had such an experience as really was past
any description. And you know how the apostle
writes of that there in 2nd Corinthians chapter 12? So overwhelmed by it, he doesn't
really make mention of his own name, he speaks in the third
person. I knew a man in Christ about 14 years ago. Not something
that had recently occurred. It was an old experience. He'd
not said a word concerning these things. Whether in the body I
cannot tell, or whether out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth,
such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such
a man, whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell,
God knoweth, how that he was caught up into paradise. and heard unspeakable words which
it is not lawful, or as the margin says, which it is not possible
for a man to utter. He is speaking there of being
taken altogether outside of time and outside of space. He is referring to paradise,
he uses that word. He was caught up in the paradise.
Clearly, he is referring to that place where God is. And when we think of the third
heavens, it tells us much concerning God, because that is God's special
dwelling place. I dwell, he says, in the high
and holy place. It is that third heaven that
he's being referred to here in verse 15. Three things we learn
then with regards to God. First of all, are we not reminded
here of God's eternity? As I said, it's outside. It's
outside of all creation. We can't really begin to conceive
what that means. We think of the vastness of the
universe, but we're outside of all of that. It's where God is. It's eternity. And again how
plain the scripture is, when it declares, here in verse 15,
He is the one that inhabiteth eternity. Thus saith the High
and Lofty One, that inhabiteth eternity." That's where God is. Men might say, when they go into
the starry heavens, but they don't see God. Well, God is not
in creation. God is in creation in that God
is omnipresent. He's in all places. But we're
speaking of that very special presence where God's real dwelling
is. And it is in eternity that God
dwells. Again the psalmist says, from
everlasting to everlasting thou art God. Before ever there was
any creation, before ever time itself began, God was. He is the eternal one. And when
we think of the third heavens we are reminded of that blessed
truth, the eternity of God. But then also when we think of
the third heavens, Another great truth that we should recognize
is the absolute sovereignty of God. What does he say here? I dwell in the high place. What is the high place? It is
the place of supreme and absolute power. Again listen to the language
of the Psalmist there in the 113th Psalm. Verse 4 he says, The Lord is
high above all nations, and His glory above the heavens. Who
is like unto the Lord our God, who dwelleth on high? Oh, he sits on the circle of
the earth, we read in this prophecy of Isaiah. He sits on the circle
of the earth and he looks upon the inhabitants and there is
grasshoppers. And he takes up these nations
as a very little thing. They're compared to dust on a
balance or a drop in a bucket. The Lord is high. above all nations
and His glory above the heavens. There is none like unto the Lord
our God. Our God is in the heavens, we
read in another Psalm, Psalm 115. Our God is in the heavens,
if done whatsoever He pleases. And remember how this great God
humbled one of the mightiest emperors that the world has ever
known. how that great Babylonian nebuchadnezzar
was brought down from his high place. He was the creator of
what was considered one of the seven wonders of the world, the
hanging gardens of Babylon. And there he was, admiring his
great city, admiring himself, and God takes his reason from
him. And he begins to behave now like
a brute beast. he's demented and yet God is
pleased having humbled him then to restore his reason to him
and he makes that great confession he acknowledges the God of Israel
there in Daniel chapter 4 all the inhabitants of the earth
he said are accounted as nothing and God doeth according to his
will among the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth
and none can say unto Him, what doest thou? You see, God is sovereign. God is sovereign. He dwells in
the high place. He dwells in eternity, but He
also is that One who from that great vantage point oversees
all the affairs of men and nations and is executing all His goodwill
and pleasure. He knows the end from the beginning.
All His decree must be accomplished. Or when we confess God, if we
really confess Him at all, we must acknowledge that He is that
One who is Sovereign. And then thirdly, when we think
of this special dwelling place of God, does it not remind us
also of the holiness of God? How is it described here in the
text? I dwell, he says, in the high
and holy place. We sing the hymn sometimes Heaven
is that holy happy place where sin no more defiles, where God
unveils his blissful face and looks and laughs and smiles. Or what is it that makes heaven
such a happy place to those who are in that blessed paradise
of God? What makes it so happy to them? It's a holy place. The guy in the hymn says, Sin
my worst enemy before shall vex mine eyes and ears no more. My
inwards foes shall all be slain. nor Satan break my peace again. Nothing unclean can enter into
that blessed place. All God is the Holy One. And
where God is, is holiness. And yet, we read those strange
words in the 113th Psalm. We refer to it just now, but
then it goes on in that 6th verse concerning God who humbled himself
to behold the things that are in the heavens and in the earth. Yea, the heavens are not clean
in his sight, we read in the book of Job. Why, his angels,
his angels he charged with follow. All we read of those angels,
those seraphim who are about the throne of God, remember back
in the sixth chapter where we have the call of the prophets
and he sees the throne of God, And he sees the angels about
that throne of God. And what do they do? They sing
the praises of God. One cried unto another and said,
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is
full of his glory. And the post of the door moved
at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with
smoke. Here is the praise of the angels saying they rejoice
in the holiness of God. Heaven, that holy place, that
happy place. This is where God is and when
we come to worship God, do we desire that God in his mercy
might grant to us some foretaste of that blessed abode, that place
where congregations ne'er break up where Sabbaths have no end.
Isn't that what the Lord's Day should be? The foretaste of heaven
itself? The wise man says in Ecclesiastes,
keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God. Be more
ready to hear than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they
consider not what they do. Be not rash with thy mouth. Let
not thy heart be hasty to utter anything before God, for God
is in heaven, thou upon earth, therefore let thy words be few. How solemn a thing it is to come
into a service of worship, and yet how many take that high,
that holy name of God so lightly upon their lips. and yet the
commandment is so plain thou shalt not take the name of the
Lord thy God in vain." Oh God forbid that our worship should
be but a vain display. He is that God who dwells in
eternity. He is that God who is sovereign
over all things. He is the Holy One of Israel
and so He declares concerning His dwelling place Thus saith
the High and Lofty One, that inhabiteth eternity, whose name
is Holy. I dwell in the High and Holy
Place." But here is the amazing thing. There is a second special
place where God dwells. With Him also. Or it's with an individual, is
it not? It's so personal with him also that he's of a contrite
and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive
the heart of the contrite ones. All these are the ones that God,
you see, is determined to bring unto himself. As we said this
morning, they are the ones who are trusting in him. He that
putteth his trust In me shall possess the land and shall inherit
my holy mountain and shall say, cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare
the way, take up the stumbling block out of the way of my people.
God is determined that he will make a way for his people to
come to him. He will make a way whereby he
will come to them. And so in the second place, let
us consider this other place where God dwells, the hearts.
The hearts of those who are the humble. And what a contrast. The Lord is high. The Lord is
high and yet He loves to come to the lowly. The psalmist says
though the Lord be high, yet have He respect unto the lowly.
all that humility. And of course we see it in God
Himself. Think of the gracious condescension
of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know that great passage that
we have in Philippians chapter 2 where we read of the person
of Christ and how he humbles himself to accomplish a remarkable
work who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to
be equal with God, yet made himself of no reputation, says Paul,
and took upon him the form of a servant that was made in the
likeness of men. And being found in fashion as
a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross." All the humiliation that we see there
in the Lord Jesus Christ as He comes. And He makes Himself of
no reputation. That's gracious condescension
that we witness in the Incarnation. But we see it time and again
in the life of the Lord Jesus. Think of His ministry, those
that He comes to preach to. Oh, He comes for sinners. They that are whole have no need
of the physician, He says, but they that are sick. I came not
to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Sinners are high
in His esteem, and sinners highly value Him. Oh, this is the way
of the Lord. And when we think of that great
work that He came to accomplish, who is it that He dies for? He
dies for sinners. He has suffered for sins. He has suffered the just for
the unjust to bring sinners to God. It's those who have nothing
of themselves, they're undone. They're unjust, they're deserving
of the wrath of God. They've sinned against God. They
only deserve the just punishment of their sins and yet these are
the very ones that the Lord Jesus has come to say. Friends, when
we look to ourselves, how many of us, none of us really, can
speak of humility and contrition? He comes, it says, to dwell with
him also that he's of a contrite and humble spirit. But that is
not nature. That is far, far from nature. By nature we are the offspring
of Adam and Eve. We're proud creatures, all of
us, without exception. Yes, unbelief is at the root
of the sin of Adam and Eve there in the Garden of Eden. It's disobedience
to God's commandment, it's embracing, believing the devil's lie and
rejecting the Word of God, it's unbelief. But with that unbelief,
as you know, there's so much pride bound up. Why? What does the serpent say to
the woman? God doth know that in the day that ye eat thereof
your eyes shall be open and ye shall be as gods. Ye shall be
as gods. And there's the temptation. Pride. Pride. Oh, it's an evil, wicked
thing that's dreadful sin of pride. And when the Lord speaks
to the Jews in His day, and oh, He comes to His own, and His
own receive Him not. all as many as receive him to
then gives him power or authority to be called the children of
God, but he comes to his own that they are rejecting him.
Why are they rejecting him? It's their pride. That sanctimonious
religion of the scribes and the Pharisees who were over much
righteous. They needed no righteousness
of another, they were righteous themselves. That was That was
once Paul, when he was Saul the Pharisee, touching the righteousness
of the Lord, he could say he was blameless. He was a righteous
man. That's pride. And the Lord says
to those Jews, ye are of your father the devil. He was a liar
from the beginning. But not only a liar, how is that
proud creature? Paul speaks of pride, the condemnation
of the devil. Pride. And we have that passage
formally here in this book. I know it's really speaking of
that proud monarch Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 14.
But surely there's a wider application than that. Verse 12, Thou art thou fallen
from heaven, O Lucifer. The day starts. How art thou
fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou
cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations? For
thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I
will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit also
upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north. I
will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like
the Most High. Now, as I said, historically
it is a description of Nebuchadnezzar. That is so clear from what we
have at verse 4, Thou shalt take up this proverb against the king
of Babylon. and say, Oh, have the oppressors
ceased, the golden city ceased. And we've already referred to
those events as we have them recorded in Daniel chapter 4
where God did humble that man in the midst of all his pride.
But the commentators are ready to acknowledge that this passage
that we've just read from verse 12 following really describes
Satan who is behind all that pride. Pride, the condemnation
of the devil. Pride, accursed pride, that spirit
by God abhorred. Do what we will, it haunts us
still and keeps us from the Lord. None of us, by nature, fit the
description that is given then of that one in whose heart the
Lord comes to dwell. Him that is of a contrite and
humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the
heart of the contrite ones. All God has to humble us. It
is God himself who must do the work. What is that pride? Why? It's idolatry in a sense. As I said here in the context
of the chapter, the Lord God is speaking out against the idolatrous
practices of Israel, inflaming yourselves with idols under every
green tree, slaying the children of valleys under the cliffs of
the rock, we read in verse 5. But you don't have to have some
physical idol to be an idolater. Pride is idolatry. when we don't
give God that place that is His jewel He is the one who is to
be exalted remember how covetousness is yet another form of idolatry
and here in verse 7 we read for the iniquity of His covetousness
was I wrath and smote Him all that covetousness that inordinate
desire Is that not giving God the place that is his rightful
place? And how these prophets time and
again in the Old Testament speak out against all idolatry. How these people were so given
to their idolatrous ways. Look at the language that we
have later in Jeremiah's book. And there in Jeremiah 6 at 13
from the least of them even unto the greatest of them. Everyone
is given to covetousness, and from the prophet even unto the
priest, everyone dealeth falsely. How God condemns it! Their hearts
goeth after covetousness, says another of the prophets, Ezekiel.
Paul speaks of that covetousness which is idolatry. And here, as we said this morning,
the Lord is dealing with His people because of their idolatry,
because of that multitude of idols that
they had made and that they were looking to and trusting in. For when thou cryest, let thy
companies deliver thee, He says, but the wind shall carry them
all away. Vanity shall take them. be it those physical idols, be
it those men, those nations round about that they were trusting
in, as they were so fearful of the Babylonians, instead of trusting
in the Lord. Oh how God is that one who must
therefore come and deal with his people. in order to prepare
that way whereby He might dwell in their hearts. And how does
God do it? How does God do it? He comes often times to His children
to chastise them. He will chastise them. He smites
them. That's what it says here in verse
17. He was wrath He smote his children. Micah
says, The Lord's voice crieth unto the city, Hear ye the rod,
and doth appointed it. Or when God comes to smite his
people, how does he do that? He brings trials, troubles, difficulties,
afflictions. Afflictions make us see what
else would escape our sight. How very foul and dim are we
in God, how pure and bright. He shows us what we are. He reveals
to us something of our sinnership. That's the point and purpose
of God's chastening. And He shows whom He loveth that
He chastens. And scourge of every son whom
He receiveth. Or if you enjoy chastening God,
He's dealing with you as with sons, says the Apostle. What
son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? How God has to deal with
His people. How He was dealing with Israel.
and he doesn't just chase and sometimes he hides himself he
hides himself because of their sins and do we not see that again
in that 17th verse I hid me he says and was wrath for the iniquity
of his covetousness which is idolatry was I wrath and smote
him I hid me and was wrath and he went on forwardly in the way
of his heart he kept on turning away and turning away oh how
God deals with his people your iniquities have separated between
you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you but
God has a blessed end in view and he knows that end from the
beginning though his ways are so contrary at times he has a
gracious end in view he will ultimately bring comfort to his
children look at verse 16 he says I will
not contend forever neither will I be always wrath for the spirit
should fail before me and the souls which I have made Again
at verse 18, I have seen his ways and will heal him. I will
lead him also and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners. And what he's got doing, you
see, by these means he is humbling his children. By these means
he is bringing them back to himself. It's not just those chastenings,
those scourgings. It's not just God smiting His
children, or hiding His faith from His children. No, when He
comes in the Gospel, how graciously He deals with
them, or His intent on their ultimate restoration, He will
humble them. He will make them contrite. He
will make them to grieve and to sorrow over their sins. And it's not just a law work. Oh, there must be that of the
gospel. Law and terrorists do but harden all the while they
work alone, but a sense of blood will pardon. Soon dissolves the
heart of stone. This is how the Lord deals with
His people. He humbles them in order to bring
them to himself in order that they might be prepared that he
comes and makes his dwelling place in their hearts or he will
revive them. I dwell, he says, with him also
that he is of a contrite and noble spirit to revive the spirit
of the humble. and to revive the heart of the
contrite ones what does he say to this man will I live even
to him that is poor and of the contrite spirit and trembles
at my word or that God would cause us then to tremble at his
word to remember who he is and the revelation that he's given
of himself that he is that high God that Eternal God, that Sovereign
God, He is that Holy God, that is His Name. And when we feel ourselves to
be all on holiness, how we must stand in awe before such a God
as this, how we must come and constantly sue for His mercy,
for the demonstration of His grace and of His goodness. We
doubt that Israel of all and all that He would deal with us.
And that we might learn from all these things that are written.
Why are they written? For our learning, says the Apostle.
That we, through faith and comfort of the Scriptures, might have
hope. When thou cryest, He says, let
thy company deliver thee, but the wind shall carry them all
away. Vanity shall take them, But he that put of his trust
in me shall possess the land, and shall inherit my holy mountain,
and shall say, Cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the way, take
up the stumbling block out of the way of my people. For thus
saith the High and Lofty One, that inhabiteth eternity, whose
name is Holen. I dwell in the high and holy
place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit,
to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the hearts of the
contrite ones. Oh, the Lord grant His blessing
upon His Word. Amen.