Who May Dwell with the Infinitely High and Holy God? (Isaiah Sermon 68)

So as we come this morning to Isaiah 57, I’m going to bring us immediately right to the middle of the chapter. Verse 15 this is one of the great verses in the Bible. And without any delay, I want to go right to the marrow of the bone or the kernel of the nut. I want you to look with me at the words of the text that you just heard read, Isaiah 57:15, “For this is what the high and lofty one says. He who lives forever and who’s name is holy. I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.” So in this amazing verse, the God of the universe, infinitely high, infinitely holy, describes himself for us. He tells us what he’s like.

And not only that, he describes his dwelling place, he describes where he lives. And beyond that, and this is incredibly gracious, he describes people he’s willing to live with in that high and holy place. People who are contrite, broken hearted because of their sins. Now this verse is going to occupy a good deal of our attention right at the beginning of the sermon, but really just going to look on it for just a few minutes. We’re only going to have a few minutes to swim in the sea of this truth, to drink in the beauty of it and the glory of it. But it’s vast and soaring truths are going to occupy our minds for all eternity. We’re going to spend actually eternity thinking about these things. We will see in eternity how pure and holy and exalted and lifted up God is. We’ll see it with our own eyes. And not only that, but we will have a sense even in heaven, I believe without any regret, without any pain, a sense of how sinful we were and how much we needed a redeemer, Jesus.

And that understanding of the holiness of God and our own sinfulness will work together to make us eternally peaceful and filled with praise and glory to God. That’ll go on for all eternity, I believe. We are going to fall down in humble adoration at the amazing grace that saved us and brought us to such a holy place. We’re going to be amazed, and we’re going to fall down as an Isaac Watts’ hymn that we’re going to sing at the end of this worship time. How sweet and awful is the place? How sweet and awful is the place with Christ within the doors. While everlasting love displays the choices of her stores, while all our hearts and all our songs join to admire the feast, each of us cry with thankful tongues, “Lord, why was I a guest?” As we unfold, Isaiah 57 we’re going to see how sweet and awful heaven is.

Awful, I think Isaac Watts meant they’re breathtakingly are inspiring, something like that. A kind of holy awe should come over us. I think it came over Isaiah as he wrote these words, when he saw the holy exalted lord on his throne. We sinners can say with Isaiah, “Woe is me for I am ruined. Why am I not destroyed by such exalted holiness? We sinners, how would we ever be permitted to enter such a holy place? Lord, why was I, why was I a guest? How could it be that I would be a guest?” Now this chapter continues the rhythm that we began seeing last time I preached to you, Isaiah 56. The two chapters really go together is there’s this rhythm from the wheat to the weeds and back to the wheat again into the weeds. The righteous and the wicked, the righteous and the wicked because this goes back and forth between the two.

Remember how I talked about that a few weeks ago from the parable of the weed and the weeds? Matthew 13, Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a field that a man sowed with good seed, but at night the enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. And then when the wheat sprouted and formed heads in the weeds were also made evident, and this gives us that sense of the mixed up nature of the world we live in. Much of the distress we feel as Christians, even in the political process is because of the mixed up nature of the world. The wheat and the weeds in close proximity.

And we know that in the end, as the text says in Matthew 13, the son of man will send out his angels and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all of those who do evil. And they will throw them into the fiery furnace where there’ll be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. That’s where we’re heading. That’s where it’s going. Now when we are there in that high and holy place and when we are shining radially with the glory that’s not ours. It’s the glory of Christ in us.

And we will be mindful of the fact that our sins were as great as those that were condemned, no difference ultimately. And we will be filled with awe at God and this high and holy person in this dwelling place. Now the more we can do that now the better. So that’s just the whole thesis of my sermon here. The more we can just have a sense right now of the exalted nature of God and of his holy place and of our sinfulness and the grace he’s shown us in Christ, the better.

I. A Stunning Invitation from the Infinitely High and Holy King (vs. 15)

So let’s start and look in detail at verse 15. We have a stunning invitation here from the infinitely high and holy king. I actually think verse 15, if you look at it rightly, is a Gospel invitation. Look again at the words of verse 15, “For this is what the high and lofty one says, he who lives forever and whose name is holy. I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit to revive the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the contrite.” So as I’ve said, God describes himself, his dwelling place, and the people he delights to dwell with.

Now you may ask a pastor, “Those are three points. Why don’t you just preach that as your sermon?” It would have been a great sermon, but there’s more in that chapter than that. And I want to see all that there is in the chapter. So we’re not going to be able to spend as much time on each of those three sub-points as I’d like to. But first, look at how God describes himself. He says he is the high and lofty one. God is infinitely greater than we are. He’s so much vastly above all of his creation that the gap between God the creator and every creature is infinite.

The gap exists between God and even his holy angels that have never sinned, and there’s no defilement in them at all. That’s why the seraphim I think in Isaiah six, cover their faces and their feet in His presence. They’d never sinned, they’d never violated any of God’s laws. And yet they recognize the holiness of God means that He is infinitely above them. A. W. Tozer, put it in his book, The Knowledge of the Holy, he said, “Forever God stands apart in light unapproachable. He is as high above an archangel is above a caterpillar. For the gulf that separates the archangel from the caterpillar, is but finite. While the gulf between God and the archangel is infinite.” That’s the holiness of God. It’s the very thing, the exalted nature, of God that Isaiah saw in his calling to be a prophet. “In the year the King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple. And above Him there were Seraphs each with six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two, they were flying and they were calling to one another: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty, the whole earth is full of His glory.’ And at the sound of their voices the door posts and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke.” Holiness of God.

And it’s portrayed often in scripture, as exaltation, lofty-ness, height. I remember years ago, I was in Pakistan 1987, I was in the North-West Frontier province. I saw the second highest mountain range in the world, the Karakoram mountains. And I took the Karakoram highway and went through those mountains from Pakistan and China. In order to make that journey cross that border I went through the Khunjerav pass. The Khunjerav pass is the highest border passing between two nations on earth. It’s 15,397 feet above sea level, almost 16,000 feet above sea level. It’s the highest I’ve ever stood on the ground. And yet for all of that, as that highway snaked its way up to that pass, and then down into China, for much of that journey, the Karakoram mountains were right up against the highway, and towered vastly above the highway hundreds even several thousand feet right up off the highway. That has the power to make you feel real small, insignificant. Now listen, if finite mountains can do that, how much more of this infinite God who made them. The greatness of God.

So the loftiness of God, the exaltation of God is meant to make us feel small, it’s meant to humble us. This is what the high and lofty one says. That’s how He identifies Himself. He is high and lofty. He also says that He inhabits eternity. I like that translation a little bit better than lives forever. He inhabits eternity. It’s kind of like eternity is His personal playground. He’s very at home in eternity, it’s His living room, that’s what eternity is like for God. He dwells in eternity. The eternality of God, He lives unchanged forever and ever. There are no limits to God. He is an infinite being. This is beyond anything we can comprehend. One thing we simply can say, is He cannot die, He is immortal, He inhabits eternity, meaning He will live forever and ever. Hebrews 6:18 says it’s impossible for God to lie. I think this text says it’s impossible for God to die. He is immortal. He inhabits eternity. He lives forever. His kingdom will have no end. As the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar wrote, “I praised the Most High, I honored and glorified Him who lives forever. His dominion is an eternal dominion as kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing He does as He pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back His hand or say to Him, ‘What have you done?'”

That’s the kingship of God. That was the most powerful man on earth. Daniel chapter four. Nebuchadnezzar writing those words, he was in awe of the eternal king, and that is God. His kingdom, will never end because He lives forever. Also he says His name is holy. That means His reputation is holy. His name is set apart, it’s a unique name, a special name. So His reputation, because of His person and His accomplishments because of who He is and what He’s done, His name is Holy. It’s set apart. So in the 10 commandments we are not permitted to take His name in vain. We should honor and revere the name of Almighty God. And so in the Lord’s Prayer, we say “Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be thy name,” may your name be held in honor, on earth as it is in heaven. That’s the sense of the greatness of the holiness of the name of God. And His name is holy, it means that He is a holy being, separate from all creation, but especially separate from evil, from all wickedness. His eyes are too pure to look on evil, He cannot tolerate wrong. Habakkuk 1:13.

“God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all.” 1 John 1:5. And it says in Hebrews 12, “Let us worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.” The picture of God is a consuming fire, has a sense of His Holiness. This is the God of the Bible, this is how He describes Himself.

But He also describes in this verse his dwelling place. He says, “I live in a high and holy place.” Let me tell you about my home, let me tell you about my throne room. I want you to picture it in your mind, I want you to understand where I live. God’s dwelling place is as lofty is exalted as He is, it is unreachable, absolutely unreachable by any creature-ly efforts. Satan tried didn’t he, tried to scale the heights. He tried to scale the heights of divine grandeur and topple God from His throne, he didn’t make it. He was cast down to the earth, and condemned. Arrogant humans tried to build a tower to reach God and they didn’t come close. God had to go way down and see this little tower that they were making, this tower of Babel. I mean, God dwells in a high and holy place, we can’t reach Him through human efforts we can’t even scale there in our minds through philosophy. It’s just impossible for God to be reached by human wisdom.

God dwells in a high and holy place. He’s completely set apart from all creation. He’s pure, he’s set apart from sin, free from any kind of evil, and his capital city in the coming world, the new Jerusalem, will be as holy as He is. Absolutely free, radiantly glorious, free from all evil. Revelation 21:27 says, “Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” Those are the only ones that will enter that Holy City. So this is the dwelling place, the throne-room of God. Now, I want you to picture this in your minds eye. I often talk about this in evangelism. I picture the throne-room of God in a kind of a physical way, because that’s about all my mind can do.

So I picture it this way: A majestic throne-room, like maybe one of those great oriental polatench, something like that. And he’s up on this beautiful exalted throne, a glorious throne. There’s this Heavenly courtroom with holy angels all around. I always in this image picture a perfectly white, beautiful, silk carpet just filling the throne-room. I picture it that way. And there’s a guardian at the door with a fiery sword flashing back and forth to guard the entrance. The place is perfectly clean, it’s free from all the filthiness. But here I come, I am a pig farmer. I’ve been feeding pigs. I’m covered with pig filth, I’m covered with dung, I’m covered with mud, and I approach the throne-room and I’m immediately stopped by the guardian with his flaming sword. You can’t get in here, not like that.

I’m aware vaguely at that moment of my filth. So I reach into my pocket and I pull out a mostly clean handkerchief, and start to wipe my brow and my face and my hands. “Stop”, the guardian says, “There’s nothing you can do to clean yourself up. Nothing.” This is the plight of the human race. God’s described what kind of place he lives in, and we are the prodigal sons and daughters who have traded our Father’s inheritance for riotous living with whores and banquets and alcohol, and all manner of wickedness. We squandered the wealth until it was gone, and we found ourselves starving and feeding pigs and covered with filth. And can we clean ourselves up? Now we cannot. The wonder therefore of the Gospel is not that everyone doesn’t get saved, it’s how does anyone get saved? How does anyone of us, we race of pig farmer, how does any of us get in through the door? How do we end up in that high and holy place?

Well, this is the grace of God in Christ. If you will humble yourself, if you will, with broken-hearted repentance look to the atonement of Jesus Christ, His blood shed on the cross is sufficient to clean us of all of our filth. If you will just simply by faith confess that you are a defiled sinner, and you have no hope of making it into that throne-room, but that God can cleanse you and fit you for heaven, and if you’ll just accept it as a gift, he will give it to you freely. That’s the Gospel, that Jesus shed his blood to clean up filthy rebellious sinners like us, and He will escort you into that high and holy place, and He will dwell with you forever. I live in a high and holy place, but also with Him who is humble and contrite in spirit. To revive the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the contrite, that’s the God that we worship.

He will dwell with the humble broken-hearted sinner. You remember the parable Jesus told of the Pharisee and the tax collector that went to pray, remember that? Luke 18, “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself.” I always felt that must have been a favorite topic. “Prayed about himself: ‘God I think you that I’m not like other men: Robbers, evildoers, adulterers, even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and I give a tenth of all that I get. But the tax collector stood off at a distance, beat his breast and would not even look up to Heaven, but said, ‘Be merciful to me oh God, the sinner.’ I tell you, this man went home justified and not the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

Do you not see it’s the same teaching. It’s the exact same teaching. God dwells with people who will humble themselves, and by repentance and faith accept His grace. God actually will live with sinners. The question is, what about you my friend? What about you? Has that happened to you? Have you seen in the law of God, in the mirror of God’s law that you’re a defiled broken sinner, no different, no better than anyone else. Have you seen that? And do you realize you have no way, no hope of getting yourself cleaned up enough for Heaven? You can’t, it’s just too pure and perfect, and you’re defiled. Have you seen that God sent his Son to be a savior, the savior, the only savior for sinners like you and me. And have you put your trust in Jesus for the cleansing of your soul and the forgiveness of your sins, and the gift of righteousness? I’m going to talk more about that one more time at the end.

II. Righteous People Rescued by Death (vs. 1-2)

Now that’s verse 15. We’ve already gone to the kernel of the nut and eaten it, we’ve already drawn the marrow from the bone and received sustenance from it. Now let’s look at the whole chapter briefly. He begins at verse one and two by speaking to righteous people. Now friends, pay attention to these verses. These are some of the most helpful verses for those that grieve at the loss of Christian loved ones. Let me say that again, these are some of the most helpful verses you will find in the Bible for those that grieve at the loss of Christian loved ones. Look what he says, “The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart. Devout men are take away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace, they find rest as they lie in death.” Oh, those are comforting verses aren’t they? Is talking about the death of the righteous, it begins right away that chapter begins the righteous perish by this we don’t mean like John 3:16, perishing eternally, just means they die, they die, maybe of cancer, maybe of a tragic car accident, maybe of some other way, maybe just simply of old age, they die, the righteous perish and some people do not fully understand why, they are troubled by it, they don’t think about it, they don’t ponder it properly. No one ponders it properly, they don’t take it and ponder it in their heart, they misunderstand what God is doing. They know that death should have been and was in some sense defeated by Christ, they don’t ponder that death is the final enemy to be destroyed and we’re going to have to co-exist in some mysterious way with death until the very end of the world and so death is going to hurt us again and again and again death is the final enemy, it’s an enemy but it’s the final enemy.

Now Jesus destroyed that enemy at the cross, praise God, Hallelujah! He destroyed it. Hebrews 2:14, 15 says, “Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is the devil and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” So this thing of death has been removed by Christ 1 Corinthians 15, says, “Where O death is your victory, Where O death is your sting?” death has been swallowed up in victory. Thanks be to God He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. The ultimate triumph over death is given as a gift to those who have faith in Jesus. He said, “I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in me will live even though he dies and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”

Now, the text says that the righteous perish, they actually die. Godly people die, upright people who walked in righteousness die, we know that. And this verse God shows His gracious kindness to them, they die to be delivered from evil, do you see that? God is being good to them. Effectively the text says, you’ve suffered enough dear son, dear daughter, it’s time for you to come home. No more suffering, no more death or mourning or crying or pain you’re done with that forever, you’ll never have a divided heart again, you’ll never struggle with sin again. The world, the flesh and the devil can touch you no longer, you’re free, you’re spared from evil, that’s why God does it and it’s good for us to celebrate that. For me said Paul, to live is Christ and to die is what, gain hallelujah. So what does that mean for us? Don’t grieve like those who have no hope.

1 Thessalonians 4, “We don’t want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, that is die or grieve like the rest of humanity that has no hope. We believe Jesus died and rose again and so we believe God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him.” So yes, we must grieve, we will grieve we must weep, It’s appropriate to cry but don’t cry like those who have no hope, it’s kind of a mystery its sorrowful yet always rejoicing. Hope filled tears, maybe you’re just weeping for yourself, I think you probably are, you’re weeping for yourself because you weren’t delivered yet. And now you have to deal with the world of flesh and the devil minus one of the greatest helps God’s ever given you that Godly person and it is going to be harder for you and so you grieve and it’s appropriate but just know this, God is with you, He’ll never leave you, He’ll never forsake you, He will continue to protect you and someday He’s going to do for you what He did for that person, He’s going to deliver you from evil. Verse 1 and 2 hold on to it, go back to it later study it, it’s going to be useful to you sometime in the future.

III. Idolatrous People Exposed and Blown Away (57:3-13a)

Now, in Verses 3-13, he goes back to the weeds, he talks about the wicked. We go from the wheat to the weeds to the wheat to the weeds back and forth in these two chapters. Look what he says here in Verse 3 and 4, “But you come here you sons of a sorceress, you offspring of adulterers and prostitutes, whom are you mocking and whom do you sneer and stick out your tongue? Are you not a brood of rebels, the offspring of liars?” Now I don’t deny that Isaiah is a challenging book to read but I think here he’s turned away from the topic of the righteous perishing and how they’re delivered to talk about the wicked who were probably at least in part, instrumental in making life miserable for the righteous. And he calls them false worshipers, he calls them sons of sorceress, Now the Jews of Isaiah’s day and beyond were constantly tempted to mingle Canaanite pagan religions with the true religion, that’s called syncretism, to mix together the religion of the surrounding culture with the biblical religion. And they mixed it together and they generally leaned more and more toward pagan Canaanite-ish type practices in their religions and it was very tragic.

God is a jealous God, He’s jealous over the affections of his bride and He becomes very passionate and angry when His bride Israel gets drawn away into wickedness and paganism. And so these Jews who are following these Canaanite pagan worship practice, are called out here. They mock the true worshippers, they stick out their tongues in mockery, they sneer, they attack, they slander, they lie and they live lives of rebellion against God’s commands and they are summoned in verse 3 and 4 to judgment by Almighty God. “Come here, you sons of a sorceress” He calls them for judgment and He exposes their idolatrous worship in Verses 5-13, these Verses describe the wickedness of the pagan worship practices of those days, they included sexual immorality, they included child sacrifice, they included occult practices and pagan rituals, dark things.

Look in verse 5-10, He says, “You burn with lust among the oaks and under every spreading tree. You sacrifice your children in the ravines and under the overhanging crags. The idols among the smooth stones of the ravines are your portion. Yes, they are your lot. Yes, to them you have poured out drink offerings and offered grain offerings. In the light of these things, should I relent? You have made your bed on a high and lofty hill. There you went up to offer your sacrifices. Behind your doors and your door posts you have put your pagan symbols.” You see this hidden paganism in this wickedness and sexual immorality and child sacrifice. That’s what He’s calling them out for. “I see everything you do. I see it all.” And God speaks as a spiritual husband who is deeply offended by the adultery, spiritual adultery, of His people. Look what He says. “Forsaking me, you uncovered your bed, you climbed into it and opened wide. You made a pact with those whose beds you love and you looked on their nakedness. You went to Molech with olive oil and increase your perfumes. You sent your ambassadors far away, you descended to the grave itself. You are wearied by all your ways, but you would not say it is hopeless. You found renewal of your strength and so you did not faint.” Isn’t it amazing? All this wickedness, these bad religious practices, this immorality. And they grew weary of it, but they didn’t repent. They said, “All right, we got to try harder. And these things are not satisfying us, so we’ll do them even more. Maybe they will satisfy.”

The wickedness and the foolishness. They refused to give them up. They renewed their strength in sin and they kept on doing it. Now verse 11 in the NIV I think is very, very helpful. I know it’s different than the ESV, but just follow the NIV translation for a minute. It is very powerful. This is God speaking to unbelievers. “Is it not because I have long been silent that you do not fear me?” It’s powerful, isn’t it? Let me say it again. “Is it not because I have long been silent that you do not fear me?” It’s because God seems to do nothing. It’s like He seems to not even exist because he doesn’t respond, especially to evil. He just seems to just do nothing. And they misunderstand the apparent silence of God. Atheists think that because God doesn’t speak and strike down the wicked right away that He doesn’t exist. Some time ago I came across the story of an atheist public speaker named Robert Ingersoll, and he used to do these challenging debates and discussions in which he would challenge God and he would utter horrible blasphemies and he culminated in this display. He said, “Now I read in the Bible how God struck blasphemers dead for their blasphemy. I’m going to give God five minutes to strike me dead for all of the blasphemies I’ve spoken today.”

And it’s very dramatic, you know, he counts off the minutes. One minute, two minutes. Five minutes is a long time for public speaking. If I did it right now, you’d be like, “Please don’t do that, pastor.” That’s a long time to wait in silence. But it was very dramatic at that point. I mean, people fainting, people screaming, all of that.  Well, at any rate, the five minutes passed and Robert Ingersoll was not struck dead. The story was later told to Joseph Parker, a British pastor, who said this. “And did the American gentleman think that he could exhaust the patience of the infinite God in just five minutes?” Now you can’t, even by great wickedness, exhaust God’s patience in five minutes, but at some point it will end. Ingersoll’s dead, he’s been dead for a century and a half. “Is it not because I have long been silent that you do not fear me?”

Elie Wiesel, a Jewish writer after the Holocaust, wrote his book called Night. I saw this in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. This is what he wrote. “Blessed be God’s name,” question mark. “Blessed be God’s name? Why, why would I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled. Because He caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves? Because he kept six crematoria working day and night, including the Sabbath and the Holy Days? Because in His great might, He had created Auschwitz and Birkenau and Buna and so many other factories of death? How could I say to Him: Blessed be Thou, Almighty, Master of the Universe, who chose us among all nations, yes, chose us to be tortured, day and night, to watch as our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, ended up in the furnaces? But now, I no longer pleaded for anything. I was no longer able to lament. On the contrary, I now felt very strong. I was the accuser and God was the accused. My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God and without man.” Well, I think Isaiah 57:11 addresses that. It’s because God was silent and seemed to do nothing that he did not fear Him. The hiddenness of God, especially when so much suffering happens in the world, is distressing to many. It’s distressing to Psalmist. How many Psalmists basically complain about why God seems to do nothing? It’s in there a lot, like Psalm 44, “Awake, O Lord, why do you sleep? Rouse yourself, do not reject us forever. Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression?”

But here God says, “That’s why you don’t fear me, because I seem to have done nothing. But someday, though now I only speak through the law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms and I speak through Scripture, someday I will speak plainly and you’ll see what I think of wickedness. There’ll be no doubt at that point what I think, and it will be clear. In the meantime, what you have is you have the Scripture.” And God will speak to you through that Scripture and you’ll hear Him speak in Scripture, or you will not hear Him at all and you’ll think that He’s silent.

Now, these idolaters worshippers are going to be blown away with their idols. Look at verse 12 and 13, “I will expose your righteousness and your works and they will not benefit you, and when you cry out for help, let your collection of idols save you. The wind will carry all of them off a mere breath will blow them away.” So, idolaters who follow idols are light weight and the wind of God’s judgment will blow them away, and there’ll be nothing left. Nothing left of all of their efforts and their works, all of them gone. Now, right in the middle of verse 13 do you notice he switches back to the weed again or back to the righteous, “But the man who makes me his refuge will inherit the land and possess my holy mountain.”

IV. God Dwells with Humbled and Healed Sinners (57:13b-19)

And so, there we have in the middle of that section, this beautiful verse 15, that we begin with. The humble and contrite are welcome to dwell with God. God addresses the man who humbles himself, and makes God his refuge his true refuge. He will not be blown away in the judgment. The wind of judgment will not blow him away. He will survive that. He will inherit the land and possess God’s holy mountain. More than that, he will effectively build up roads or highways along which the righteous will travel. Look at verse 14 and it will be said “Build up, build up, prepare the road, remove the obstacles out of the way of my people.”

Now you may think he’s talking about the restoration of the Jews back to the promised land, and it may be, but let me tell you these words soar far above that. Why? because the very next verse. Look at the combination of verse 14 and 15. And it will be said “Buildup, buildup prepare the road remove the obstacles out of the way of my people. For this is what the high and holy one says, He who lives forever and whose name is Holy: ‘I live in a high and holy place. But also with the contrite and lowly.'” The connection between the two verses is the highway that’s built up in verse 14 is the journey by which we get to that high and holy place.

And friends. I’ll tell you his name, His name is Jesus. He says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” And I get to be, and so to all of you who are believers in Christ, the righteous road constructors who lay the road of Jesus in front of lost people and say, this is the road travel in it. This is Jesus. This is the way you’re going to get to the high and holy place. There’s no other road that leads to heaven. We get to be spiritual civil engineers and build these roads for lost people.” That’s what’s going to happen.

Now, these contrite sinners, they have a lot to be contrite about. I remember Winston Churchill was talking about a fellow member of Parliament. He said he’s a humble man with much to be humble about. I thought, “Man, he’s a mean guy. I would not want him as a friend, a humble man, with much to be humble about.” Well, we are contrite people with much to be contrite about. That’s the point of verse 16 through 19. Do you see it? I will, this is God speaking about the righteous. “I will not accuse forever nor will I always be angry, for then the spirit of man would grow faint before me, the breath of man that I created.” Look at Verse 17, “I was enraged by his sinful greed. I punished him and hit my face and anger yet he kept on in his willful ways.” Verse 18, “I have seen his ways but I will heal him. I will guide him and restore comfort to him.” Verse 19: “Creating praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel, ‘Peace, peace to those far and near’ says the Lord ‘And I will heal them.'” So this is talking about the righteous who are the humble and contrite that God will spend eternity with. He was really angry with them. He had a record of their sins. They were wicked in his sight. They pushed his patience. So they were idolaters. They had a record of sins that was standing against them and it says in Colossians 2, that God took that record of sins that stood against us and was opposed to us and nailed to the cross of Jesus Christ and were free. And God’s anger is gone forever. He is propitiated. His wrath is gone. He is not angry at us. He will not always accuse and instead He will heal us of our wayward ways. I have seen God is saying “Your wayward crooked ways and I will heal you.”

You already said how in Isaiah 53. Jesus “was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him.” What’s the next part? “By His wounds we are healed.” I’ve seen his ways. Isaiah 57, “And I will heal him through Jesus, through his wounds I will heal you.” That’s the promise he’s making here. It’s not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. Jesus came to heal us of sin and He will.

And so in our text. Look at Verse 18, and 19 “I have seen his ways but I will heal him, I will guide him. I will restore comfort to him creating praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel. ‘Peace, peace, to those far near,’ says the Lord. ‘And I will heal them.” So, the result of all this? We get to spend eternity at peace with God and praising him for our salvation. He’s going to create praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel. We’re going to spend eternity mindful of our sins, but not hurt by them, instead worshipping God for our salvation. He’s going to create praise on our lips and we’re going to be at peace with him forever. For it says in Romans 51, “Having been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

And not only that. But he’s going to do it for those near and far. Do you see those words there? Oh, don’t miss significance of that. “Creating praise in the lips of the mourners in Israel. Peace, peace to those far and near. For me as a gentile adopted son of Abraham, I’m really excited about that.” You know from Ephesians 2, it speaks to Gentile believers in Christ, Ephesians 2-12-13, it says, “Remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.” That’s who you were, you were far away. “But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ,” creating praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel. Those both near and far, that’s us Gentiles and Jewish believers in Christ praise for God for the salvation He has worked. And He will heal us. You know what? He’s going to give peace to the healed. The healing goes together with the peace.

Go on in your willful wicked idolatrous sinful ways, He will not give you peace. There’s no peace in that way. But as He is healing you through sanctification, He’s strengthening your righteous living, he pours out a sense of peace in your conscience and a sense of the peace of God, the peacefulness that comes from your status of peace with God. He heals you and you know you have peace and some day you’re going to be totally healed. Like I’ve already said, when you die and you depart from evil, you’ll be free forever.

V. God Condemns the Wicked to Endless Restlessness (57:20-21)

Now, the chapter ends going back to the weeds one more time. Look at verse 20 and 21: “But the wicked are like the tossing sea which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. ‘There is no peace’ says my God for the wicked.” Friends, these words describe the world. Do you not see it? This is a churning tumultuous wicked difficult world in which we live, and these two verses at the end of Isaiah 57 describe why. These people, these lost people that we live with have no rest, no peace inside their hearts. They’re churning and restless and never satisfied. They don’t find what life is all about. And so they are restless like Satan roaming over the surface of the earth or like the demons that go through the… Go out of the man in Matthew 12 and they go through arid places seeking rest and they don’t find it.

And they’re restless and they’re looking for something. Think about all the political unrest in the world. Think about the riots and the demonstrations and the violence. Think about the restlessness of the Muslim world leading many young Muslim men in particular, to seek an outlet for their restlessness and their rage in Jihad and terrorism. Think about the constant turmoil of nation rising against nation, a series of wars after wars after wars and it never seems to end. And why? Because people are restless in their hearts. Think about the simple restlessness of the world as seen in the nightly news reports, local news and CNN, whatever. Local and worldwide, restlessness, no peace. They are like the churning sea casting up mire and muck. They’re looking, constantly looking for something. Think about the restless hearts of people who are addicted to prescription, pain medications. And they can never get enough. They seek their peace in the narcotic. Stunning levels of people who are addicted now to these opioids. Also, more and more people addicted to heroin and morphine, they’re seeking peace in the drug. It’s not any different than those that seek it in alcohol.

They’re looking for an escape, peace and they’re not finding it. Think about restless people who look for peace through psychiatry and psychology and counseling. It’s estimated over 600 million people suffer from anxiety or depression, clinical depression, 600 million. Many of them are literally restless, they can’t sleep at night. They have chronic insomnia. They’re filled with anxiety, they go to psychiatrists and counselors and psychologists and get drugs, and there’s no peace. Think about the relentless drive and ambition of even successful, wealthy people who attain all their goals and they don’t satisfy them.

Some time ago, I saw an interview and many of you perhaps have seen it, with Tom Brady, the New England Patriots quarterback after he won his third Super Bowl. There’s a 60 minutes interview with journalist Steve Croft and he said these stunning words. When I was going over the sermon this morning, it’s hard for me to read this even without crying. Brady said this. This is Tom Brady: “So a lot of times, I think I get very frustrated and introverted and there’s times where I’m not the person that I want to be. Why do I have three Super Bowl rings and still think there’s something greater out there for me? I mean, maybe a lot of people say, ‘Hey man, this is what it is, this is it.’ I reached my goal, my dream, my life. Me, I think. God, there’s got to be more than this. I mean, this can’t be what it’s all cracked up to be, can it? I mean, I’ve done it. I’m 27. And what else is there for me?” I mean, he’s saying this on tape. Croft said, “What’s the answer?” And he said, “I wish I knew.” I wish I knew.

Friends, I’m telling you there are people like that around you every day. They’re like, “I don’t… Even when things go well, for me, I know there’s nothing in it. It’s emptiness.” I mean, this man’s as successful as you could ever want to be in a worldly sort of way but he says, “I wish I knew.” Well, I’ll tell you what it is. It’s living in a high and holy place with God by faith in Christ. That’s what is satisfying, nothing else. What else matters? Few verses capture the reason for the world’s misery better than this one: “The wicked are like the tossing sea which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. There is no peace says my God for the wicked.” Now that last verse of the chapter seems to read to me like a decree. There can be no peace says my God for the wicked. Not as such.

VI. An Invitation from the High and Holy

So God gives us an invitation. Go back one more time, as we close to verse 15. This is what the high and lofty one says. He who lives forever, whose name is holy. I live in a high and holy place but also with him who is humble and contrite in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the contrite.

God has promised in this text, He’s seen all your ways, he’s promised to heal you. He knows how you live, he knows what you do, he knows everything. He said I’m going to heal you, verse 18, I will guide you, and I will restore comfort to you. And I will not always accuse, I will not always be angry. Effectively, the New Testament invitation that lines up with this, is this one, Matthew 11. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened said Jesus and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am humble in heart and gentle, and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So that’s my appeal to you as non Christians. For you Christians, I would urge you to meditate deeply on verse 1 and 2. Get it ready for when you lose a loved one in Christ. Just get ready for it, or when you face your own death. Just realize God is good to take righteous people out of this sinful world. He’s just… He’s just good. Secondly, see if there’s any restlessness in you like that of the wicked, and repent from it. God’s not going to bless that kind of wickedness, even in his own children. He will discipline you out of it, so the sooner you repent from it, you will find peace in your repentance. Thirdly, meditate much on the staggering words of verse 15. I just give them to you as a gift, they’re not mine to give, but I just like, here they are, read them. Just read verse 15 and swim in the ocean of greatness.

And then finally, at the very end, the last two verses, understand the turmoil of the world is essentially spiritual. It’s because people are out of fellowship with God that they don’t know what life is about and they are so churning. We need to give them peace in Christ. Whatever happens on Tuesday, whatever happens with the election, just understand this, true peace is found only in the kingdom of God. Close with me in prayer.

As we come to Isaiah 57, we come to a stunning verse right in the middle of the chapter… Isaiah 57:15.

Isaiah 57:15 For this is what the high and lofty One says– he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.

In this amazing verse, the God of the universe, infinitely high, infinitely holy, describes himself and his dwelling place. But he also describes who he is willing to dwell with, what kinds of people he is delighted to share his holy home with… people who are contrite, broken-hearted because of their sins.

This verse will occupy our attention for just a few minutes this morning, but its vast soaring truths will occupy our attention in heaven for all eternity… we will see how pure and holy God is and how sinful and needing salvation we were… and we will fall down in humble adoration at the GRACE OF GOD in Christ to sinners like us… as in Isaac Watts’s hymn, “How Sweet and Awful is the Place…”

How sweet and awful is the place With Christ within the doors, While everlasting love displays The choicest of her stores.

While all our hearts and all our songs Join to admire the feast,

Each of us cry, with thankful tongues, “Lord, why was I a guest?

As we unfold Isaiah 57, we will see how SWEET and AWFUL heaven really is… “awful” as Isaac Watts used it means “breathtakingly awe-inspiring”… the kind of HOLY AWE that came over Isaiah when he saw the holy exalted Lord on his throne and said “WOE IS ME”…

We sinners, when confronted with this vision of the holiness of God and his holy dwelling place, will wonder how we… WE SINNERS… were ever permitted to enter in??

“Lord, why was I a guest????”

The chapter continues the rhythm we began in Isaiah 56 of moving back and forth from the WHEAT to the WEEDS… from the elect, chosen by grace, made humble by grace, saved by grace… MIXED IN with the reprobate, the wicked, who are so powerfully described in these two chapters… we go back and forth because that is our present condition… but heaven will not be so… the New Heaven and the New Earth, with its capital city of the New Jerusalem will be as PURE and HOLY as God is

The parable of the Wheat and the Weeds in Matthew 13 that we referred to last time captures the MIXED nature of life in this world… but the end of it will be thus:

Matthew 13:41-43 The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42 They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

When we are there in that high and holy place, shining with a radiant holy glory that we did not earn, that was given to us by faith in Christ, we will bow down in humble adoration… filled with awe and God and his high and holy person and dwelling place

But the more we can do that NOW, the better!

I.   A Stunning Invitation from the Infinitely High and Holy King (vs. 15)

A.  Verse 15 is actually a GOSPEL INVITATION if you hear it properly

Isaiah 57:15 For this is what the high and lofty One says– he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.

God describes himself, his dwelling place, and the people he delights to dwell with… he does it, in effect, to invite sinners like us to repent, be cleansed of our defilements, and be holy in Christ

2 Corinthians 5:21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

B.  God Describes Himself

1.  He is the “high and lofty One…”

a.  God is infinitely greater than us… so much vastly above all his creation that the gap between him and all of us cannot be measured

b.  This gap even exists between himself and all his holy angels, who are morally pure

i)  A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”

Tozer describes the infinite GAP between God and all of his creatures, even the holiest archangels:

“Forever God stands apart, in light unapproachable. He is as high above an archangel as above a caterpillar, for the gulf that separates the archangel from the caterpillar is but finite, while the gulf between God and the archangel is infinite.”

ii)  Isaiah 6

Isaiah 6:1-4 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” 4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

c.  God often uses “height” (loftiness) to describe this gap his holiness creates

i)  We are humbled and made small in our own eyes by HIGH and LOFTY things that soar above our heads

Illus. the Karakoram Mountains… the Karakoram Highway travelled through the second highest mountain range in the world… took the Khunjerab Pass from Pakistan into China… (15,397 feet high… the highest paved international border crossing in the world, and the highest ground I have ever stood upon)… but the mountains along that highway soared thousands of feet straight up off that road… it made you feel absolutely TINY, insignificant

ii)  Biblically speaking, if the mountains, lofty in their grandeur, can make you feel small and insignificant, how much more the loftiness of God’s holy dwelling place…

iii)  It soars immeasurably above us, making us feel absolutely tiny, small, insignificant by comparison…

Isaiah 57:15 this is what the high and lofty One says

2.  God also says he “lives forever and his name is holy”

a.  This is the ETERNALITY of God… God lives unchanged forever and ever

b.  God cannot die… he is immortal Hebrews 6:18 says it is impossible for God to LIE This verse says it is impossible for God to DIE

He lives forever!! He reigns forever… his Kingdom will have no end

King Nebuchadnezzar was deeply humbled by God… changed in his mind from a glorious emperor to a lowly beast, eating grass and drenched with the dew every morning for seven years…

Daniel 4:34-35 At the end of that time, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my sanity was restored. Then I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified him who lives forever. His dominion is an eternal dominion; his kingdom endures from generation to generation. 35 All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: “What have you done?”

God’s kingdom will never end because he LIVES FOREVER!

c.  His “name is holy”: that means his reputation, earned by his person and his deeds… his name is esteemed and held in honor

d.  Ten Commandments: forbidden to take the name of the Lord in vain

e.  Lord’s Prayer: asking God that his name be HALLOWED (held as holy) on earth as it is in heaven

f.  God’s holiness is often described in the Bible

Habakkuk 1:13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong. 1 John 1:5 God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.

Exodus 24:15-17 When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it, 16 and the glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai. For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the LORD called to Moses from within the cloud. 17 To the Israelites the glory of the LORD looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain.

Hebrews 12:28-29 [Let us] worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, 29 for our “God is a consuming fire.”

3.  This is the God of the Bible, the God of the Book of Isaiah, the God who calls us out of darkness into his marvelous light

C.  God Describes His Dwelling Place

Isaiah 57:15 “I live in a high and holy place

1.  God’s dwelling place is as lofty as he is… it is UNREACHABLE by any creature’s own efforts or ambitions

a.  Satan tried to scale the heights and was CAST DOWN…

b.  Arrogant humans tried to use intelligence and technology to reach heaven and were CAST DOWN

2.  It is HIGH and HOLY

a.  Completely set apart from all creation, PURE, set apart from sin, free from any kind of evil at all

b.  the New Jerusalem is radiantly glorious, free from all evil

Revelation 21:27 Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

3.  This is the dwelling place of God

Picture a majestic throne room, with a radiantly glorious throne, with a heavenly courtroom with holy angels all around; picture a perfectly white silk carpet on the floor, and a guardian at the door with a flaming sword flashing back and forth to prevent entry by any deemed unworthy. The place is perfectly clean, free from all defilements

But you… you have spent your days feeding pigs; your clothes stink with the dung of pigs; your face and hands are smeared with mud and filth; the guardian at the door will not allow you entrance. One single step of your muddy boots on that perfectly clean silk carpet would defile it beyond all description. You realize the need for cleanliness. So you reach in your pocket and bring out a rag you use to wipe your sweaty face as you feed the pigs. You begin to wipe your hands and face with the rag, and it is instantly covered with mud and filth. But you continue to try to clean yourself up.

This is the plight of the human race… we prodigal sons, who have traded our father’s inheritance for wicked living… we have come from the pig sty to this perfect throne room… and can we CLEAN OURSELVES UP??

The wonder of the gospel is not that any are refused entry, but that any are ALLOWED AT ALL…

But this is the grace of God in Christ… there actually ARE some people that God wants to spend eternity with… former pig feeders and customers of prostitutes, who drank and celebrated with the Great Whore of Babylon and grievously defiled ourselves… there is a CLEANING BY GRACE that God offers, and a place at his banquet table

D.  God Describes Those He Allows to Live With Him

Isaiah 57:15 For this is what the high and lofty One says– he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.

1.  God will dwell with the sinner who is CONTRITE… broken-hearted, humble, LOWLY IN SPIRIT

2.  Not arrogant and lifted up in pride

Luke 18:9-14 Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men– robbers, evildoers, adulterers– or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ 13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ 14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

3.  In Isaiah 57, it is clear that God actually WILL live with sinners… the chapter goes back and forth between the weeds and the wheat… the righteous and the wicked… but it is clearly asserted that even those admitted into the high and holy throne room of God were no different than those rejected… except that they HUMBLED THEMSELVES and sought the grace of God in Christ

Now… having gone straight to the marrow of the bone, the kernel of the nut, and the sweetest part of the chapter, let’s see the rest of the chapter verse by verse in light of that center… in light of a high and holy God who also dwells with contrite and broken sinners

II.   Righteous People Rescued by Death (vs. 1-2)

A.  The Chapter begins with a powerfully important lesson on the death of the righteous

Isaiah 57:1-2 The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart; devout men are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. 2 Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death.

B.  The Death of the Righteous Easily Misunderstood (vs. 1)

1.  The righteous PERISH… by this we mean they die physically

2.  BUT when the righteous die, people MISUNDERSTAND… they accuse God of wrongdoing… they weep and grieve often like those who have no hope

3.  But Christians should PONDER the death of the righteous in their hearts carefully, based on the theology of the gospel

4.  God has promised to defeat death finally, to crush it forever… but NOT YET

5.  Christ destroyed death at the cross and empty tomb

Hebrews 2:14-15 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death– that is, the devil– 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

6.  So the sting of death is REMOVED by faith in Christ

1 Corinthians 15:54-57 “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” 55 “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

7.  This ultimate triumph over death is given as a gift to those who have faith in Christ

John 11:25-26 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26 and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.

8.  Death is the “final enemy” that will be destroyed… but only at the end of the world

1 Corinthians 15:26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

C.  The Righteous Rescued from Evil by Death (vs. 1-2)

1.  God’s gracious kindness to Christians is shown in rescuing us from the present evil age and bringing us safely into his heavenly kingdom

2.  The text says God rescues the righteous, devout people are taken away to be SPARED FROM EVIL

a.  The evil of temptations, the WORLD, the FLESH and the DEVIL

b.  The evil of this present godless age

c.  The evil of physical pain and torment through cancer, or heart attacks or other diseases that make life so wretched in this world

3.  Godly people enter into PEACE, rest in Christ

4.  Better… they are in the presence of the Lord

Philippians 1:21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

D.  Application: Do Not Grieve Like the Hopeless

1.  If you should lose a loved one in the Lord to a disease or shocking accident, do not grieve like someone who has no hope

1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. 14 We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.

2.  Grieve, yes… weep as Jesus did at Lazarus’s tomb… but don’t grieve as if the gospel is not true

3.  Your loved one is “ABSENT FROM THE BODY, PRESENT WITH THE LORD”

4.  Don’t even grieve for yourself… God will sustain you until you are also rescued from this present evil age and enter into peace and rest

Now the text swings back to describe the “weeds”… those that in part made this present world so evil for believers

III.   Idolatrous People Exposed and Blown Away (57:3-13a)

A.  Mocking Sons of a Prostitute Summoned for Judgment (vs. 3-4)

Isaiah 57:3-4 “But you– come here, you sons of a sorceress, you offspring of adulterers and prostitutes! 4 Whom are you mocking? At whom do you sneer and stick out your tongue? Are you not a brood of rebels, the offspring of liars?

1.  Isaiah is addressing the pagan worship styles even of some Israelites, who worshiped Cannaite gods and goddesses in a pagan fashion

2.  He is calling these wicked false worshipers “sons of a sorceress”

3.  This is the “whore of Babylon”, the evil world system

4.  God is a jealous God who desirous a holy bride who will love him alone

5.  But many Israelites followed the false gods of this present evil age

6.  They mock the true worshipers; they stick out their tongues in mockery; they sneer, they attack, they slander, they lie and rebel against God’s clear commands

7.  They are SUMMONED for judgement by Almighty God

B.  Idolatrous Worship Exposed (vs. 5-13a)

1.  These verses describe the sheer wickedness of the pagan worship practices of those days

2.  They included sexual immorality and child sacrifice…

3.  They included occultic practices and pagan rituals…

4.  These things DEEPLY PROVOKED Almighty God to wrath

Isaiah 57:5-10 You burn with lust among the oaks and under every spreading tree; you sacrifice your children in the ravines and under the overhanging crags. 6 The idols among the smooth stones of the ravines are your portion; they, they are your lot. Yes, to them you have poured out drink offerings and offered grain offerings. In the light of these things, should I relent? 7 You have made your bed on a high and lofty hill; there you went up to offer your sacrifices. 8 Behind your doors and your doorposts you have put your pagan symbols.

God speaks as a spiritual HUSBAND deeply offended by the spiritual adultery of his people:

Forsaking me, you uncovered your bed, you climbed into it and opened it wide; you made a pact with those whose beds you love, and you looked on their nakedness. 9 You went to Molech with olive oil and increased your perfumes. You sent your ambassadors far away; you descended to the grave itself! 10 You were wearied by all your ways, but you would not say, ‘It is hopeless.’ You found renewal of your strength, and so you did not faint.

5.  Amazing that they actually were wearied by all their sins… their practices did not bring them refreshment, but instead wore them out

6.  BUT they refused to give them up! The renewed their strength in sin and kept on

7.  One key insight even for OUR DAY…

Isaiah 57:11 Is it not because I have long been silent that you do not fear me?

8.  People misunderstand the APPARENT SILENCE of God

a.  Atheists think that because God doesn’t speak, doesn’t suddenly strike some wicked man dead instantly that he doesn’t exist at all

The story is told of the noted atheist, Robert Ingersoll, who delivered one of his speeches attacking the Christian faith. When he was done, he pulled his watch from his pocket and said, “According to the Bible, God has struck men to death for blasphemy. I will blaspheme Him and give Him five minutes to strike me dead and damn my soul.”

Many in the crowd gasped at his arrogant statement. Then there was silence as one minute went by. By two minutes, the crowd was growing anxious. At three minutes, a woman fainted. At four minutes, Ingersoll had a prideful triumphant on his face. At five minutes, he snapped his watch shut, put it in his pocket, and said, “You see, there is no God, or He would have taken me at my word.”

The story was later told to Joseph Parker, a British pastor, who said, “And did the American gentleman think that he could exhaust the patience of God in five minutes?”

Yet… this is a clear indication of the truth of this verse:

Isaiah 57:11 Is it not because I have long been silent that you do not fear me?

b.  Because of the apparent silence of God during the holocaust of WWII, many Jews became atheists, or at least stopped believing in an all- powerful, loving, wise God.

Strongest example of this I ever saw was at the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., a quote by Elie Wiesel, who wrote the following words in his prize-winning book Night:

“Blessed be God’s name? Why, but why would I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled. Because He caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves? Because He kept six crematoria working day and night, including Sabbath and the Holy Days? Because in His great might, He had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many other factories of death? How could I say to Him: Blessed be Thou, Almighty, Master of the Universe, who chose us among all nations to be tortured day and night, to watch as our fathers, our mothers, our brothers end up in the furnaces? … But now, I no longer pleaded for anything. I was no longer able to lament. On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God, without man.”

In other words, because God was SILENT and apparently DID NOTHING, that meant Elie Wiesel no longer feared him, indeed, no longer believed in him

c.  The hiddenness of God, especially when so much suffering happens in the world is so distressing to many

d.  Honestly the Psalmists wrestled bitterly with God’s silence, God’s hiddenness, God’s absence

Psalm 28:1 To you I call, O LORD my Rock; do not turn a deaf ear to me. For if you remain silent, I will be like those who have gone down to the pit.

Psalm 44:23-24 Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever. 24 Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression?

e.  Here God speaks through the prophet and addresses this issue directly… because I am silent, you don’t FEAR ME!

f.  But someday I will speak plainly, and there is no doubt you will hear me

g.  In the meantime, this is what you have… this is how God speaks:

Luke 16:29  ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

C.  Idolatrous Worshipers Blown Away with their Idols (vs. 11-13a)

1.  So what is the end of these wicked, idolatrous worshipers?

Isaiah 57:12-13 I will expose your righteousness and your works, and they will not benefit you. 13 When you cry out for help, let your collection of idols save you! The wind will carry all of them off, a mere breath will blow them away.

2.  These idolaters will be blown away like chaff from the threshing floor

3.  Relying on their idols, they will perish

YET… right in the middle of verse 13, we switch back to the godly

Isaiah 57:13 But the man who makes me his refuge will inherit the land and possess my holy mountain.”

IV.   God Dwells with Humbled and Healed Sinners (57:13b-19)

A.  The Humble and Contrite Welcome to Dwell with God (vs. 13b-15)

1.  God addresses the man who humbles himself and makes God his true refuge

2.  He will not be blown away like chaff, but will reside in God, like a mighty tower

3.  He will INHERIT THE LAND and possess God’s holy mountain…

4.  More than that, he will be instrumental in leading others to faith in God

Isaiah 57:14-15 And it will be said: “Build up, build up, prepare the road! Remove the obstacles out of the way of my people.” 15 For this is what the high and lofty One says– he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.

The road is the way by which lowly, brokenhearted sinners find refuge in God Their spirits are REVIVED by God, RENEWED for the journey toward heaven This is the road that leads to LIFE…

John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

B.  God’s Judgment on Contrite Sinners Heals Them (vs. 16-19)

1.  What’s most amazing about those God welcomes sinners… people who deserve his wrath… they are lowly and contrite in spirit because they realize how sinful they have been

2.  The ones God spends eternity with in his HIGH AND HOLY place are corrupted and defiled sinners who realized it in time and found forgiveness in Christ

3.  The text shows how ANGRY God was with them in their sin… and how powerfully he has HEALED THEM and cleansed them

Isaiah 57:16-19 I will not accuse forever, nor will I always be angry, for then the spirit of man would grow faint before me– the breath of man that I have created. 17 I was enraged by his sinful greed; I punished him, and hid my face in anger, yet he kept on in his willful ways. 18 I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him, 19 creating praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel. Peace, peace, to those far and near,” says the LORD. “And I will heal them.”

4.  God’s careful record of their sins was cast out… the written code of his law stood against them

5.  God nailed it to the cross of Christ

Colossians 2:13-14 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.

a.  They were idolaters too… God says he was ENRAGED by their sinful greed

b.  And greed is idolatry

c.  Not only that, these sinners were WILLFUL… they went on in their sins for a long time after they were first convicted and accused… they hardened their hearts

6.  God HEALED them of their wayward ways…

Isaiah 53:5-6 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

7.  Jesus spoke plainly of this spiritual healing

Luke 5:30-32 the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” 31 Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

8.  So also in our text:

Isaiah 57:18-19 I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him, 19 creating praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel. Peace, peace, to those far and near,” says the LORD. “And I will heal them.”

C.  The Result: Eternal Peace and Timeless Praise

1.  The beauty of this amazing gospel: the peace it creates for former sinners

John 20:19-20 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ

a.  This is a STATUS of peace between God and his former enemies

b.  It also results in an experience of PEACEFULNESS in our hearts… of feeling now at peace with everything in God’s world because God has loved us in Christ

2.  And notice how this peace is given to those near and those far away

Isaiah 57:19 … creating praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel. Peace, peace, to
those far and near,” says the LORD

3.  This is reasonably a prophecy of Gentile salvation in Christ

Ephesians 2:12-14 remember [GENTILES] that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace

4.  God’s final promise: AND I WILL HEAL THEM…

a.  Healed of all our wayward ways

b.  God gives his peace to those he also determines to heal

c.  He does not give peace to people who remain living in their rebellion

d.  The spiritual healing from sin goes hand in hand with the peace God gives in Christ

But… what a contrast with the wicked

V.   God Condemns the Wicked to Endless Restlessness (57:20-21)

A.  The Wicked Endlessly Restless (vs. 20)

Isaiah 57:20-21 But the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. 21 “There is no peace,” says my God, “for the wicked.”

1.  The wicked are churning, restless, never satisfied, never at rest

2.  They are like SATAN who is continually roaming throughout the world looking for trouble

3.  They are like the demons of Matthew 12 who go through arid places seeking rest and never find it

4.  The restlessness of the world of sinners is so obvious… the wicked world of people is seen like a turbulent sea

Daniel 7 pictures the world of men like a SEA out of which come these great beasts

So also Revelation 13 uses the same image… a restless turbulent sea out of which comes the beast, the antichrist

a.  Think about all the political unrest in the world… the riots and demonstrations and violence

b.  Think about the restlessness of the Muslim world, leading many young Muslims to seek an outlet for their rage in jihad and terrorism

c.  Think about the constant turmoil of nation rising against nation in warfare… wars never cease

d.  Think about the simple restlessness of the world as seen in the nightly news report on CNN… how there is NO PEACE for the wicked

e.  They are like the CHURNING SEA, CASTING UP MIRE AND MUCK… they are constantly seething, constantly angry, constantly seeking SOMETHING worthwhile… ambitious but never satisfied

5.  Think about the restless hearts of people who are addicted to prescription pain relievers and can never get enough… they get their peace from the narcotic

a.  Stunning levels of people now addicted to these opioids

b.  Also to heroin and morphine

c.  This is a serious global problem: as many as 36 million people worldwide addicted

d.  They are looking for PEACE

e.  Other people are restlessly looking for escape through alcohol… drowning their sorrows by the bottle

6.  Think about the restless people who look for peace through psychiatry and counseling… an estimated 615 million people suffer from anxiety or depression… many of them are literally restless: they suffer from chronic insomnia… they are filled with anxiety and go to psychiatrists and psychologists and can get NO PEACE

7.  Think about the relentless drive and ambition of even successful, wealthy people… people who GET their dream job, their dream life, and are deeply dissatisfied with it

Tom Brady, New England Patriots quarterback, in an interview with 60 minutes journalist Steve Kroft said these stunning words:

BRADY: A lot of times I think I get very frustrated and introverted, and there’s times where I’m not the person that I want to be.

Why do I have three Super Bowl rings, and still think there’s something greater out there for me? I mean, maybe a lot of people would say, “Hey man, this is what is.” I reached my goal, my dream, my life. Me, I think: God, it’s gotta be more than this. I mean this can’t be what it’s all cracked up to be. I mean I’ve done it. I’m 27. And what else is there for me?

KROFT: What’s the answer?

BRADY: I wish I knew. I wish I knew.

Tom Brady, as successful as you could ever wish to be as an athlete and a man— rich, famous, good looking, beloved, married to a supermodel, a champion at that point three times over… saying “There’s gotta be more than this. I wish I knew… I wish I knew.”

How many other restless people are roaming the surface of the earth trying to find something that will bring them peace

8.  Few verses capture the reason for the world’s misery than this one:

Isaiah 57:20-21 But the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. 21 “There is no peace,” says my God, “for the wicked.”

B.  That Last Verse in the Chapter reads like a decree

1.  If someone is wicked, they will never know peace

2.  They might be PACIFIED (like a man in a drunken stupor), but they will never know the full, rich, sweet peace that Christian know, who have found their sins forgiven, covered by the blood of Christ

3.  And if they die in that state, for eternity they will we turbulent, filled with anguish and bitter regrets

VI.   An Invitation from the High and Holy

A.  Let’s Return to the majestic verse 15 and read it as an invitation

Isaiah 57:15 For this is what the high and lofty One says– he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.

1.  If you are one of those RESTLESS people I was just describing, and you know that you entered this place outside of Christ this morning, I want to invite you to accept God’s invitation

2.  He has described himself: the HIGH and LOFTY ONE, the one who LIVES FOREVER, and whose name is HOLY

3.  He has described his eternal dwelling place: “I LIVE IN A HIGH AND HOLY PLACE…”

4.  You can never enter that place as a wicked person… but God has described who he is delighted to live with: the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, whom God has HEALED of sin

Isaiah 57:18 I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him,

God has promised to drop all his accusation and his anger:

Isaiah 57:16 I will not accuse forever, nor will I always be angry,

5.  The New Testament makes it plain: only by faith in Christ will all this happen!

Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

B.  For Christians

1.  Meditate deeply on the lessons of Isaiah 57:1-2…

Isaiah 57:1-2 the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. 2 Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death.

a.  The deaths of Christians are to be expected

b.  We should understand God has blessed them with great joy and peace in his presence

c.  We should not grieve like the rest of the world that has no hope

2.  See if there is a restlessness in you like the wicked

a.  Don’t restlessly surf the web or look for happiness in worldly pursuits

b.  Don’t imitate the world in seeking peace from alcohol or medications or successes or possessions or vacations or trips

c.  Find peace in Christ and in the promise of an eternal home in glory with God

3.  Meditate much on the staggering words of verse 15… the way God describes himself and his heavenly dwelling place… LOVE HOLINESS… SEEK THE BEAUTY of holiness… delight in it!

4.  Understand the turmoil of the world is caused because they are restlessly seeking fulfillment in sin and will never know peace… see the events on CNN through the eyes of verses 20-21… “the wicked are like the tossing sea which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and muck…” Feel the power of God’s decree: “There is no peace for the wicked…” and SHARE THE GOSPEL with a lost coworker or relative or stranger … pray for MISSIONS… the effort to take Christ to the lost of the world