Isaiah 66, verses 1 through 4. And what we have in these first
four verses are three thoughts, three things at least. We're
going to see the enormity of our God. Secondly, the enormity
of His condescension. that God, who He is, would condescend
and submit Himself to sinners like ourselves. And then thirdly,
we're going to see the utter worthlessness of false religion. The utter worthlessness of false
religion. Verses 1 and the first part of
verse 2, let's look at the enormity of our God. He says, thus saith
the Lord, the heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house that you build
unto me? And where is the place of my
rest? For all those things hath my
hand made, And all those things have been, saith the Lord. Look with me, some parallel passages
to help expound this, to help explain this. Turn to 2 Chronicles
chapter 16. 2 Chronicles chapter 16. Before I make comment, we'll
look at 2 Chronicles 16 and then we'll go to Acts 17 and Acts
7. Stephen actually quotes this
verse before he gets killed. 2 Chronicles 16. I wrote it down wrong. 2 Chronicles
6 Verse 18, But will God in very
deed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven
of heavens cannot contain thee, how much less this house which
I have built. David's getting ready to... Solomon's
getting ready, he's praying here, and he realizes the enormity
of the task, but he understands that though he is going to build
the temple, His father David couldn't build it because he
was a man of war, but David got the materials together, but he
couldn't, he was not allowed to build this house, this temple.
And Solomon was going to proceed with the work, but Solomon says
here, he understands that God, who's, as Isaiah said, that the
heaven is God's throne, Much less in the earth is his footstool.
So where's the house that's going to contain God Solomon? Understands
that and he's reiterating that he's saying I know Who I worship
and I know who I serve. He's God overall. He's God majestic
sovereign and incomprehensible And he wants he's desiring that
I build a house but I understand that this house is not where
God's going to dwell and It can't contain them. It can't contain
them. Turn to Acts chapter 17. Acts
chapter 17. And you're probably saying, well,
everybody knows this. No, everybody doesn't. Acts chapter 17, and look with
me at verses Let's start in verse 22 of Acts
17. And Paul stood in the midst of
Mars Hill and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all
things you are too superstitious. For as I passed by and beheld
your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To the
unknown God, whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare
I unto you. God that made the world and all
things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth,
dwells not in temples, made with hands. Neither is worshipped
with men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he gives
to all life, breath, and all things." Now in Acts chapter
7, this is Stephen here. He's answering his accusers before
he gets stoned to death for preaching and believing the gospel. Acts 7. And verse 48 he's quoting this
passage here in Isaiah How be it the Most High dwells not in
temples made with hands as sayeth the Prophet heaven is my throne
The earth is my footstool What house will you build me sayeth
the Lord or what is the place of my rest? We see in this first
verse in this first part of the second verse the enormity the
vastness the largeness of our God the God of this book. Our God is not found in one place. He's found in every place. Our God is not contained by anything
or anyone or any force. There's no force There's no metaphysical
presence. There's no there's none of these
things that governs our God. He is under no one. He is over all blessed forever. Our God rules and reigns and
governs as he deems fit and as he sees necessary. Where can
you go and God is not there. I know people like to think they're
hiding. People like to think they do things in secret. That's
why so many abominations take place at night. He's there. You can't outrun God. You can't
hide God. You can't. He sees. He knows. He understands all things. He
says the heavens, my throne and earth is my footstool. Where is the house that you're
gonna build unto me and the place of my rest for all those things
my hands have made? What can you think and God has
not already found it out before you've already thought it Who can alter change or turn
God's mind his will or his purpose I None turn to Psalms 135 David
knew this right? Well, and I think we've I know
we've looked at this many times But it's always good to rehearse
these things in our hearing Psalms 135 Verses 5 and 6 David says for
I know that the Lord is great and that our Lord is above all
gods Whatsoever the Lord pleases That
did He in heaven and in earth, in the seas, and all the deep
places." One of our pastor friends, one
of our brethren, he said his son was getting ready to go serve
the country, the armed forces, and as he was leaving, he was
concerned about some things. He wasn't a believer at the time.
And he was embracing his dad and he said, you know, I'm leaving
home. I've got to go overseas. It's
going to be pretty tough over there. They don't like Americans,
et cetera, et cetera. And my pastor friend, he said
to his son, he said, God's over there in that country too. God's
there. There's nowhere you can go that
God is not. And David says, he's great and
whatsoever he pleases, he does in heaven, he does it in earth,
he does it in seas and all the deep places. Turn to Job chapter
34. Job chapter 34. And look at, I just love this
verse here, Job 34 and verse 29. When he, when God gives quietness,
who then could make trouble? When I worked for the city of
Cape, there we had one guy in particular, we called him the
instigator, because he just loved to... And then he got mad when you
didn't get upset, when you didn't swallow his instigations, stirring
up something, gossiping, all these different things. And I
would get upset because I was his boss and I would get upset
some things, but there's times I wouldn't get upset. And then
he'd get upset that I wasn't upset. Well, why? Because when
God would give me or gives you through Christ quietness, who
can make trouble? Oh, stock market. Oh boy. This factory is about ready to
shut down. Well, it's one of my bigger customers. This place
is... Did you hear what's happening
over there? Did you hear what's going on over there? Temperature
is rising. The earth is getting too hot. When God gives quietness, who
then could make trouble? Either God is on the throne or
He's not. I'm not saying we don't struggle
with these things. If you follow me around in a day's time, you'll
see I get all nervous, too. Get a little grayer. Some of that's natural. Some
of that's just worry. But don't. If God gives quietness,
who then can make trouble? And when He hides His face, who
then can behold Him, whether it be done against a nation or
against a man only? Whether it's an individual situation
in a city, in a town, in a county, on a street block, in a single
house, or a whole nation. If He hides His face, He's not
going to be found. If He gives you quietness, nobody's
going to give you trouble. Our God is enormous. God is not
worshipped Going back to our text, and as I was reading this,
I thought, oh, how fitting. How fitting. We're getting ready
to add on. And here he is reading the text
and says, you're going to build a house for me and where am I
going to dwell in? Can we build? We are adding on not to impress
God, We are adding on not because we will be closer or be able
to worship him better, but we're adding on because we need the
room. You see what I'm saying? When we gather together here,
this is just a structure. If God is here at all, he's here
because his people are here. Now, don't get me wrong, I wish
this thing was eight times as big. I wish it was huge. I know other Sovereign Grace
works that they've got the place so big and there's not many people
in it. But we're kind of going the other
way. But none of these preachers and none of this place in this
book are you going to find that the location or the place God is not worshiped through
buildings. He is not impressed by anything our hands have done
But through the person and work of his son for us and in us It
is not the structure. It's the message It's the person
the spirit and truth in love about Christ in grace. That's
what we gather together to worship and if you read Hebrews 10 when he talks about
not forsaking don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together
He's not talking about the place. He's talking about the act Forsake
not the assembling of yourselves together. He's not talking about
The location he's talking about when you meet this is where we
meet at one time we met up the road in a rental property and
another time we met out at the workman's house and So it's not
the structure. If this structure burns tomorrow,
we'll worship God together wherever we can gather together. We might
have to drive out to Patton. Or we might have to meet underneath
a huge oak tree. Wasn't that done before? Did
somebody in the Old Testament do that? Yes. It's the people. You say, well, that's obvious
to all. Oh, it is. When you're with somebody,
they drive and say, oh, there's the house of God. And they point
to a building. No. Melinda was substituting
this week, and she had a National Geographic documentary that she
had to show on Mecca. And the narrator, the Muslim
convert, he made this quote, Every religion has a place that
is synonymous with its belief. Isn't that fact accurate? Mecca
and in that the video went on to just talk about Mecca is the
it's the spiritual center of the world Muslims faith is the
faith of the world or it should be The Vatican you see how impressive
that is care was there brought back pictures They think and
certainly the Muslims they think Mohammed or Jehovah or their
God, they think He is there. Every religion has a place. I'm
going to tell you, if your God or my God is in a place, it's
a vain place with much fanfare. It doesn't matter if it's glitter
or fanfare, if there's no truth and no gospel. Because we don't
have a place, we have a person. And there's a big difference.
And most, if not all, false religions, they, we don't know why they
get such elaborate, I mean elaborate buildings, because they're trying
to impress God. And He says, the heaven's my
throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house that you're
gonna build unto me, and the place for my rest? And every
believer knows that. We're passing through, this is
our tent, this is our tabernacle, this is our tent of meetings,
nothing to it, but if God is here, if that's your kind of
glory, like in the Old Testament, if God is here, we're content
and we're happy. We have a person. We have the
person and we meet here, but here could be there or could
be anywhere. If Christ is not upheld and taught
and preached and believed upon and trusted in, the place matters
not. And there was one who was telling
me a whole lot of other things that this guy was saying about Mecca, the
place, the place, the place. And you say, well, you know,
what do they call Jerusalem? The holy land. No, it's right
here. If you're a believer, it's out,
it's in Patton. It's in Springfield. It's in
Fruitland, where our holy God is, is where he's worshipped. You see what I'm saying? It's
not the place. You talk to any of the Israelites. I brought this up before. When
I was in college, we had a guy, a Jew, who wrote a paper. The teacher wanted us to write
about an experience that we'll never forget. And his experience
was touching the Wailing Wall. And it was a very well-written
paper. I mean, I got an A. It was so
good that the professor read it to us out loud. And even then,
I thought, these guys, I mean, they are emotionally attached.
We don't believe God's in that wall. Get a bulldozer and tear
it down like any idol and see what happens. You go drive by
and you got these little bitty shrines and a little bit of some
puppet or a little woman or somebody holding a little baby in there.
We don't worship that. We don't bow to that. All right.
When you're driving by it, get out, knock on the door, say,
tear that idol down. That's not an idol. Just walk
over and kick it down. Now, don't do that. Don't trespass. Jedidiah, don't you do it. I
can see he's got... But what I'm saying is, you pull
it away, and that's with baptism, that's with infant baptism, that's
with anything that people say, oh, it's not the gospel, it's
not the big deal. And you take it away from them. And they get upset. They're attaching something to
it that God says don't. Right? Because He, as we saw
in Acts, He's not worshipped with hands. He's not worshipped
with all this, all this stuff that goes on in the name of religion
and they call that a worship service. It just feeds the flesh.
And God's not in it. I don't care how sincere, if
mama does it, daddy does it, it doesn't matter. If God, if
it's not the truth, God's not in it. And that article that that man
wrote, he said that he had an experience, it changed his life.
As he got closer to it, the energy got more and more and he finally
was able to touch it and he fell down. Well, I see that on television
when some Pentecostal guy walks up and touches somebody in the
head and they fall down. Emotionalism. But when people
tie that stuff to God, they think because of that they're closer
or they're nearer. No. He says, tear it down, tear it
down. So we see the enormity of our
God. He's worshiped in spirit and
in truth. Secondly in verse this letter
part of the second verse we see the enormity of his condescension
We know who God is. It's just amazing that he's he's
on his throne and he Tells us who he is and what he's gonna
do and he says here in this verse but to this man even though I'm
holy and I'm high and I'm lofty and I'm exalted and I can that
I can speak in worlds will be made and But to this man will
I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and
trembles at my word." Now before we go anywhere, he says, to this
man. Now first and foremost, That man, because there's only
one person who's truly poor in spirit and only one that was
contrite. We're born proud and we're born,
we think we're born self-rich and we're born self-righteous
and we're born, we're not contrite. We don't have a contrite heart.
We got a stony heart. It's got to be taken out and replaced
with a contrite heart. So first and foremost, God is delighted
and pays attention to and is all about Christ, that man. And even though our great and
sovereign God is higher than the heavens, holier than any,
and purer than anything, we can comprehend He, by His own voluntary,
free, and supreme will, chose to look upon us, the elect sheep
only, through that man, that only truly contrite man, the
man Christ Jesus. And as He is so, as Christ is
so, He makes us acceptable to his father. He breaks us. He
makes us to understand that we're poor in spirit. Blessed are the
poor in spirit. Because we're like Christ. We
thought we understood the gospel and thought we understood religion.
We're proud about it. Our pedigree, our lineage, our
heritage. You know, I was not raised Baptist,
I was raised Methodist. And it was kind of like, well,
this is our heritage. I remember when I went to college and they
were asking a questionnaire and they asked what religion you
were, which they can't do that anymore. And I put down whatever it was,
and I've been raised my whole life, I put down the wrong answer.
I put down two religions. And then I told my mom, and she
goes, well don't you know anything? You've been a Methodist all your
life and you wrote down these two things. And I said, well,
I was kind of confused. Shows you how much I paid attention. There are those, and then when
I came over here, and all this Baptist stuff, and I hear about
Southern Baptists, and people get, they get all excited about
that stuff. Oh, our forefathers, and the heritage. Get rid of
it. If it doesn't point to Christ,
it doesn't matter. You know, there's a movement now in the
Southern Baptist Convention. That's what I've been hearing
for 20 years. They're trying to get back to
the doctrines of grace. No, they're not. It'll never
happen. And if it does, they'll get to the doctrine. They won't
get to the Christ of the doctrine. They'll have all their I's dotted
and their T's crossed, and it'll just be formalism. What sayeth this book? And he
says, amazingly, that he looks to that one who is poor and of
a contrite spirit and trembles at my word. Our God, the only
true and living God, dwells in us through the spirit of grace
and supplication, creating in us these qualities that He delights
in, poor, contrite, and trembling at His word. Let's look at those.
Poor, not financially, But in spirit, through conviction and
convincing of sin at his truth, as his truth is revealed to us
by his amazing free grace, no works mingled by us, we see that
we are nothing and that he is everything, poor in spirit. We
realize that we could not take one step. towards him. I read something
or heard something the other day about a preacher, a great
preacher in Britain. And he was recounting to his
listeners a great battle that took place outside of Britain
about a great man in battle, got his head cut off, picked
up his head, and walked back to the gates. And he says, I'll
believe that. I'll believe that he walked the
whole way if he could have taken the first step. I'll believe
that sinners are saved by their free will when you can show me
out of this book that they were able to take that first step. They can't do it. When that head
was severed, that body dropped, and that was it. When we fell in the garden, That
was it. That was it. Poor. We see that we are zeros and
that He is everything. And then He says, I will look
to this man who is also a contrite spirit, broken over our corruptions and
sins and what we are by nature. It's more than just a sorry attitude.
Most of the time when you're sorry about something, and I
know this and our kids know this, Adults still experience it. Usually
you're sorry over something when you got caught. You know, when
you got your hand in the cookie jar and you look. When I was
a little kid, we used to raid the food pantry almost. It was
just a weekly thing. And we knew when we walked down
the hall, My art room was the last one, and we walked down
the hall, and the pantry was all the way on the other side
of the kitchen. But we knew what side of the floor to step on
because the boards wouldn't creak. And it got to be a game if we
could get caught. And we'd get caught, we'd get swatted, and
we'd be sorry, and we'd never do it again. That's not contrition. Contrition is more than just
a sorry attitude, it's real remorse and broken over our flesh and
its ways. Paul says, woe, woe is me. In Isaiah, we saw when the Lord
convicted him, he was saying, woe is this person, that person,
when God does something for us, we say, woe is me. I'm a man
of unclean lips. Let me read Let me read an article
to you, what I mean by broken and contrite and poor. When one
is spiritually... I'm going to read an article
here by J.C. Philpott. When one is spiritually reborn, he sees
at one and the same moment God and self, justice and guilt,
power and helplessness, a holy law and a broken commandment,
eternity and time, the purity of the Creator and the filthiness
of the creature. And these things he sees, not
merely as declared in the Bible, but as revealed in himself as
personal realities involving all his happiness or all his
misery in time and in eternity. Thus it is with him as though
a new existence had been communicated, and as if for the first time
he had found that there was a God. And it is as though all his days
he had been asleep and were now awakened, asleep upon the top
of a mast and the raging waves beneath. as if all his past life
were a dream and the dream was now at an end. He has been hunting
butterflies, blowing soap bubbles, fishing for minnows, picking
daisies, building houses of cards, and idling life away like an
idiot or a madman. He had been perhaps wrapped up
in a religious profession, advanced even to the office of a deacon,
or mounted in the pulpit. He had learned to talk about
Christ, election, and grace, and fill his mouth with the language
of Zion, but what he did But what did he know experientially
about these things? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Ignorant of his own ignorance, and of all kinds of ignorance,
this is the worst. He thought himself rich, and
increased with goods, and had need of nothing, and knew not
that he was wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked." That's
what God does when He gives us a contrite heart. We see Him
and we see ourselves. And when I first heard of this
gospel, there's only one gospel, one faith, one baptism, it made me real mad. It made
me angry because I thought all that stuff I heard came from this book that I never
opened. It wasn't preached right. It
wasn't preached if it was preached at all. It was not Christ-centered. It was all about what I could
do for mom or dad or what I... all these different things. No.
When we see the enormity of God, we see the enormity of our sin,
and we see the enormity of His condescension. God becoming flesh. Trembles he says I will look
upon this man who is poor is a contrite spirit and trembles
at my word That is to say the person who trembles at God's
Word has the ultimate reverence and respect for Jehovah for Jehovah's
Word and Jehovah's Son So whether it's God's written word or the
living word grace understood begets godly trembling We don't treat this book like
a trivia book. We understand that this is our
bread. This is the written word about
the living word. I hear people say, Bible trivia
and play these games and stuff. I won't do it. This book is not
to be trivialized. This book speaks of life and
grace. You know, in my opinion, so I
step aside here, I don't even like people throwing it around
or mishandling it. It's God's Word. But you see,
everybody in America has got one on their coffee table. It's
gathering dust. The words of life about free
and sovereign grace, about the Lord God, our Redeemer. Well,
lastly, We look at God's enormous contempt for every false religion,
verse 3 and 4. I could spend a lot of time here,
but I'll just read it, make a few comments, and we'll close. Is as he that slew a man so he's
talking about sacrifice talking about atoning work. So it's mocking
the death of christ He that sacrifices a lamb as if he cut off a dog's
neck He that offers an oblation as if he offered swine's blood
he that burns incense as if he blessed an idol Yea, they have
chosen their own ways and their soul delights in their abominations
Also says God will choose their delusions and will bring their
fears upon them because when I called None did answer when
I spake they did not hear but they did evil before mine eyes
and chose that in which I delighted not It matters not how big the
building is or the cathedral is. It matters not how many times
a week or how long they meet. It matters not how orthodox and
straight shooting their doctrine is. If Christ is not at the heart
and center of it, God will destroy it. But we're offering blood. God looks at us like a swine's
blood. A lamb looks like he just broke a dog's neck. It's that
which we think is our highly esteem and what religion, false
religion, sacred. God just tramples on it and says,
it's disgusting. It's disgusting. And I don't know if it was right
or wrong or if I'd, you know, however I did it, we speak the
truth in love. We don't go out of the way to be mean to people
and upbraid them and stuff like that. Somebody said to me something
about their religion and it was all superstitious. And I just
started laughing. I mean, I thought they were joking. And then when
I started laughing and I saw how they got real mad, I realized
that I stopped and then I got serious. I said, God has got
no respect for that at all. You know, well, we're all working
for the same place, working I quit working. I'm resting in Christ.
So no, we're not. We're not. We're not. If Christ is not at the heart
and center of the message of the worship service, it's going
to be destroyed. There's some key words in here.
Look at it in verse 3. The they have chosen their own
ways. There's the problem, not God's
ways, their ways. Well, this is the way the other
pastor did it. Well, this is the way we do it.
Well, this is the way this is how I was raised. This is what my denominational
ties say we should do. Who cares? If I tell you something to do
that's not in this book, who cares? Right? Own way. Own way. I told Melinda, I said, I have,
I don't know how many thousand dollars worth of good books.
Some I haven't even opened. I don't know how good they are.
If they're not good, if they're good or bad or whatever. Some of the
Puritan works and all these different things. But I have to be very
careful. When I study and I read and I
look things over, that I preach to you what I know, what God
has taught me here. I read you articles by other
brethren because they're smarter than I am. They've been around
longer than I am. I'll quote Pastor Terrell. I'll quote Pastor
Mahan. I'll quote Pastor Fortner. But
it's quoting them. And as much as they are in the
truth, we listen. But what sayeth this book? I remember one time I was asked
to preach for a pastor in West Virginia, Scott Richardson, and
they got like 80 people or more in the church. And this is what
I'm used to. And I started getting nervous. And old Scott, he's
about 83, 84, 84, 85 years old now. And he just looked at me with
those big ol' eyes and he goes, what's the matter? He goes, you
got awful quiet. I said, I'm nervous. I'm scared. I said, I'm not used
to this, these many people. And he goes, just tell us what
you know. Not what I read that he said
and not what they said about this passage. And no, they're
helps. I'm not saying that. They're believers. Just like
if I fellowship with you and you say, boy, look at this and
Lord, show me that. Oh, I'm going to use that. That's good. We
feed off one another and we grow with one another. I'm not saying
that. But what I'm saying is the final authority is right
here. Final authority, because again, I'm a sinner preaching
to sinners. It may be what is in these last
two verses, it might be called by a denominational name, but
if it's not, but if it's man's ways, It is not the sure way
of Christ, but rather there's a way that seems right unto man,
but the end thereof is the way of death. They may claim all
they want to, but God delights in that man
who's begat many sons and daughters just like him. Thus saith the
word. He says it. I didn't say it.
I delight not." If it's not according to Christ in this book, He says,
I don't delight in Him. So let's close. Turn to Nehemiah
9. So when I read and I study and
I prepare and I preach something like this, I get nervous. Because
I think, Lord, help me to, and all of
us together, to be found in Him and found in His Word, not the
opinions, because there are so many religious opinions. So many
religious opinions. I remember, I hope I never forget
or not long to forget, not soon to forget, spending time with
Pastor Henry the last couple of times he's been here. And
I'd visit with him and I'd have questions written down. And I'd
say, you know, just as a pastor, dealing with these different
things. And he would tell me how he dealt with some things,
right or wrong, But every question He'd say, now let's see what
the book says. Let's see what the book says. Here's my prayer
for me, and here's my prayer for you here today. For us, a
local body, a local assembly. Here's my prayer, Nehemiah 9, and verse 19. And I close. Yet thou in thy manifold mercies,
Forsook us them not in the wilderness and aren't we in a wilderness?
He's talking about those The Egyptians are the Israelites
as they went through the wilderness Aren't we in a wilderness this
world is a wilderness to us yet thou and thy manifold mercies
forsook us them not in the wilderness the pillar of the cloud Departed
not from them by day To lead them in the way neither the pillar
of the fire by night to show them light and the way wherein
they should go." Now, you know as well as I do, when we studied
this, when we studied this in numbers, when we studied this
years ago, the pillar, the cloud, daytime, and then they had a
fiery pillar that went before them. And when it stopped, they
stopped. If it went 10 feet in a week,
they went 10 feet and they stopped. But that was the spirit. It's
a type and a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ and the spirit of
grace. When it went, they went. When it moved, they moved. And
it was mercy. It was God's mercy to them to
show them what they should do as they were in this wilderness. By God's grace and mercy, He's
condescended to show us what we are to do, and how we are
to worship, and love, and all these things in this book, and
through the preaching of the Gospel, and through the truth.
My prayer for you and for me, is if God is not in it, we wouldn't
want to go there. You know, before we decide to
do anything, we get the men to get together, and then the men
tell the ladies, because the ladies are believers as well,
with knowledge and wisdom. We pray, Lord, give us direction. Don't know what the indirection
is? Stand still. There's a time to stand still
and see the salvation of the Lord, and there's a time to get
on and go. But that's my prayer for us and
for me, your pastor. The cloud stays, we stay. If
the pillar goes, we go. That we would have light to walk
therein, day and night. Now, that's 12 hours a day, 12
hours a night. That pretty well takes everything
in. They say 24-7, we're being watched 24-7. There's no more
than that. There's no more than that. May
God be honored and glorified among us. Ron, would you close
this please?