Among US!

This is what the Lord says: Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool. What house could you possibly build for Me? And what place could be My home? My hand made all these things, and so they all came into being. This is the Lord’s declaration. ‘I will look favorably on this kind of person: one who is humble, submissive in spirit, and trembles at My word… For just as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, will endure before Me — this is the Lord’s declaration — so your offspring and your name will endure. All mankind will come to worship Me from one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, says the Lord. As they leave, they will see the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against Me; for their worm will never die, their fire will never go out, and they will be a horror to all mankind. (Isaiah‬ ‭66‬:‭1‬-‭2‬, ‭22‬-‭24‬ ‭HCSB‬‬)

My five year old grandson has a game that he has discovered and loves to play that’s called “Among Us.” The idea of the game is fairly simple, you play as one of several residents of a space station and one of the players, chosen at random, is a traitor whose sole goal is to go undetected while destroying the rest of the players.  Each player is tasked with evading the traitor and surviving while trying to identify the traitor hiding among them before he’s able to destroy you. If the traitor is identified he is ejected from the space station and if the traitor is successful he becomes the sole survivor on the space station. A simple game of survival that emphasizes self-preservation and sounds a bit like our modern society.

Survival at any cost… is that what life is really all about? It is if you buy into the modern notion of a godless existence, natural evolution and survival of the fittest. If we exist by mere chance and a cosmic chemical accident then man has no greater authority than himself and his own needs, desires or self-preservation. If those things are true, as many modern societies and their members believe, then man has every right to define his own existence, create his own identity, seek his own preservation and pursue his own interests and selfish goals. That’s the natural result of rejecting Biblical revelation and “exchanging the truth of God for a lie, worshipping and serving something created instead of the Creator, who is to be praised forever (Rom. 1:25).”

This week, we find ourselves amidst the vestiges of Isaiah’s epic prophetic vision. During our time with these holy words, we have been propelled into the heights of God’s glorious presence and we’ve fallen into the lowest depths with the crushing reality of our own destructive sin and God’s just judgment. The reality is that we’ve been hearing and believing the lies and half-truths of Satan much more than we hear and believe the truth of God’s Word. Every day, we are confronted by the choice of who we will believe and, most often, we choose poorly. Like Isaiah, “Woe is me for I am destroyed because I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people with unclean lips and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of Hosts (Is. 6:5).”

This final chapter of Isaiah gives us a glimpse into the final chapter of God’s plan for mankind. First, we are reminded of just who God is: “Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool. What house could you possibly build for Me? And what place could be My home? My hand made all these things, and so they all came into being.” While the people have been told to return to Jerusalem and to rebuild the city and the Temple, God reminds them (and us) of just who He is and the impossible task of containing Him or building an edifice to could impress Him. We are unable to impress God with our buildings or our achievements for Heaven is His throne and earth is His footstool.

We like to think God is impressed by our efforts and achievements. We want Him to look at our successes – spiritual, professional and personal – and smile His approval. We look for signs that indicate He’s pleased with us. But He actually tells us, “I will look favorably on this kind of person: one who is humble, submissive in spirit, and trembles at My word.” The things that impress God are not the things that impress us or our peers. We tend to honor, seek out and idolize those who display the exact opposite characteristics. Our heroes are all big, bold, beautiful, proud, forceful and fearless. Do we want to be people who impress our fellow man or the LORD God?

This is where we often stumble and get confused in our personal lives and in our worship. We think God values what we value and that He wants the same things we want. The next few verses make it very clear that’s not the case. At first glance, the actions in verse three seem a bit odd and out of place. It is as if God equates religious obedience with detestable religious practices: slaughtering an ox and killing a man, sacrificing a lamb and breaking a dog’s neck, offering a grain offering and offering pig’s blood, and offering incense with the praise of an idol. Yet, each man chooses his own way of worship and delights in detestable practices.

Can you go through all of the correct religious rituals and practice all of the proper religious rites in the way God commands and still be detestable before this holy God? Absolutely! That’s the very problem Isaiah addresses in this final chapter, we are covering our broken lives with religious masks. A man who refuses to be humble, submissive and who trembles at the power and authority of God’s word may offer up an ox on at the Temple’s altar and still be just as guilty and offensive before God as the man who kills his neighbor. One who offers a lamb as an offering to God but fails to submit himself before God is no better than the one who breaks the dog’s neck. Jesus called them hypocrites and whitewashed tombs – they look nice on the outside but are full of death on the inside (see Matt. 23:27-28).

In other words, your outward religious practices are NOT evidence of your spiritual piety. Your position before God is established only through humble, submissive and fearful worship. It is less about what you do for God and more about who you are before God. Like the game I mentioned at the beginning, we pretend to be a friend of God in all of our overt actions but God is aware of our hidden agendas and masked intentions. We might be able to hide our true feelings and intentions from each other, but we are never able to hide them from God.

There’s a big difference between believing in God and believing God: “I called and no one answered; I spoke and they didn’t hear; they did what was evil in My sight and chose what I didn’t delight in. You who tremble at His word, hear the word of the LORD: Your brothers who hate and exclude you because of Me has said, ‘Let the LORD be glorified so that we can see your joy!’ But they will be put to shame (vs. 4-5).” 

Jesus tells the story of a young man who came to Him seeking salvation. The young man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. He obviously believes in God and appears to want the right things in life. But when Jesus tells him what is required, to go and sell all his possessions and give the proceeds to the poor, the young man walks away sorrowful because he valued his possessions more than he valued eternal life with God. He believed in God but refused to believe God. Jesus’ strongest condemnation and harshest words were pronounced upon those who believed in God but refused to believe God. They wanted God and His blessings, but on their own terms. Wait, what’s that noise? “A sound of uproar from the city! A voice from the temple – the voice of the LORD, paying back His enemies what they deserve!”

Next, we’re given the analogy of a woman (Zion) giving birth in surprising ways. She gives birth when she’s not in labor and before she experiences any birth pain (see vs. 7-13). This is in stark contrast to the uproar that came out of the city when God’s judgment fell upon those who refused to hear Him and believe His word. The unnatural birth of the son(s) is the direct result of God’s people, Zion, believing God. “Who has ever heard or seen such things? Land born in a day or a nation delivered in an instant?

The point in this analogy is that Zion flourishes and gives birth to sons when she believes God. Oh church, we seek to grow and build our kingdoms using human methods and wisdom and we inevitably fail because we’re building our kingdoms using human methods and plans. These things never work the way we want or expect. We research latest trends, we utilize the most effective media methods and ideas and then we offer services and facilities for the most discriminating of tastes. We try to do everything to make worship attractive to our culture, but therein lies the real problem. 

The church’s job is never to make God more attractive to our culture or to our people. We are not called to make His Word more palatable to people, but to preach its truths. Our job is to faithfully present the truth of God and His word and then leave the results to God. We must let the Holy Spirit convict men of sin, convince them of Jesus’ righteousness and convert their hearts to belief and faith or to condemn their unbelief. If man wants to rejoice in life, he must find joy in God. If man wants to flourish, he must find life and sustenance in God, alone. If man wants God’s peace to flow through his life like a river, he must find his hope, identity and wholeness in Him. If he wants to experience God’s blessings, he must make Him his greatest treasure and his heart’s supreme desire. When that begins to happen in our lives, “then the LORD’s power will be revealed to His servants (v. 14b).”

But to stop there is to leave the truth of God’s word incomplete because that same verse continues: “…but He will show His wrath against His enemies (v. 14c).” Some men are actively enemies of God and His word, but many are passively enemies of God and His word. That may initially sound strange, but it is possible to be an enemy by simply rejecting the truth and being passive towards God and His will. If the greatest commandment is to love God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength then to fail to love Him in that way is to be guilty of the greatest and most heinous sin. I hope that statement shocks you, it should! We tend to think that the most heinous sin is murder, but the greatest sin in our life is our rejection of God, His sovereignty and of His sacrificial love for us.

I’ve heard people say, “Surely God wouldn’t send someone to hell for a single white lie.” My response would be, you’re absolutely right because He wouldn’t. Wait, don’t throw anything at me or call me a heretic. Anyone who is guilty of a white lie is guilty of much more than that, they’re just unaware or unwilling to admit it. There’s a misunderstanding among many that scripture teaches all sins are equal. That’s not true. All sin makes us sinners, but some sins are more egregious than others. As I mentioned above, to disobey or reject the greatest commandment would naturally result in the greatest or most heinous sin. If we are guilty of the least sin, then we must also be guilty of that greatest of sins, failing to love God above all else. The greatest of sins will result in the greatest of judgments, “For the LORD will execute judgment on all flesh with His fiery sword, and many will be slain by the LORD.” That’s one of the hard truths of God’s word that many modern “churches” love to set aside. Churches like that aren’t modern, they’re misled and they’re misleading others.

Finally, Isaiah ends his prophetic vision with a scene of unimaginable hope and unmitigated joy. He sees God sending His people to preach to the nations and then gathering those who come to faith and obedience from among all the nations unto Himself. The nations listed (Tarshish/Spain, Put/North Africa, Lud and Tubal/Turkey and Asia Minor, Javan/Greece and the distant islands) are the very places where the Apostles first took the message of the Gospel of Jesus. All of these brothers coming to faith are seen “as an offering in a clean vessel” being brought to the Temple as a gift for God. He even promises to take some of them as “priests and Levites” to serve Him.

“For just as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, will endure before Me — this is the LORD’s declaration — so your offspring and your name will endure. All mankind will come to worship Me from one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, says the LORD.” It is important to note, God’s people will endure but they will be a people united by faith and God’s word made up of believers from “all the nations.” And our eternal endurance is promised in the same way that the new heavens and the new earth are promised – a byproduct of God’s will.

That’s a promise worth clinging to. My eternal endurance is not the byproduct of my tenacity, it is the byproduct of God’s will. As Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish — ever! No one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” (John‬ ‭10‬:‭27‬-‭29‬ ‭HCSB‬‬) My eternal destiny is in God’s hands, not mine. Who holds your destiny? I recommend you trust God to hold it. He has a much better grip than you do…

Isaiah has taken us on quite a journey. We’ve seen how much we need a savior because of our rebellious nature and our inability to save ourselves – a man of unclean lips among a people of unclean lips. So, God graciously intervened and sent His Servant to do for us what we couldn’t do ourselves. He came among us, not to destroy us but to save us. Immanuel – God among us – loving us long before we loved Him. But God came among us in a way we never expected and we honestly struggle to understand. He came not as a conquering king but as a humble and obedient servant willing to sacrifice Himself to save us. 

Now He calls upon us to be honest about our ourselves before Him, honest about our failure to love Him above all else in life. Honest before Him about our tendency to treasure things much, much more than we treasure Him. Honest before Him about how we tend to want our will more than we want His will for our lives. If we want to know God’s strength, experience His blessings and rest in His peace then He must become our only hope, our treasure of great price, our bread of life and our living water. We must believe Him and not just believe in Him.  

Are you in or out? It’s time to decide…