Isaiah 57:14-21 THE HOLY ONE, HIGH AND LOW 12/9/12 Introduction: A. Illus.: 60 years ago this month, on Dec. 6, 1952, the people of London were still

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1 Isaiah 57:14-21 THE HOLY ONE, HIGH AND LOW 12/9/12 Introduction: A. Illus.: 60 years ago this month, on Dec. 6, 1952, the people of London were still burning cheap coal so they could use their quality coal to pay off war debts. But something went wrong. A fog fell on the city and it was so thick that it pressed all that coal smoke down upon the city. Stan Crib was a young man. You had this swirling, Cribb recalls, like somebody had set a load of car tires on fire... It s like you were blind. The effect of this darkness was that it got colder, so Londoners put more coal on the fire. According to a report by John Nielsen I heard on NPR radio ten years ago, by Sunday, Dec. 7, visibility fell to one foot. Roads were littered with abandoned cars. Midday concerts were cancelled due to total darkness. Archivists at the British Museum found smog lurking in the book stacks. Cattle in the city's Smithfield market were killed and thrown away before they could be slaughtered and sold their lungs were black. On the second day of the smog, Saturday, Dec. 6, 500 people died in London. When the ambulances stopped running, thousands of gasping Londoners walked through the smog to the city's hospitals. The lips of the dying were blue. People whose lungs were already weakened by smoking and pollution had no defenses. In essence, the dead had suffocated. After four days, a sudden wind drove the fog away. It is estimated that eventually over 12,000 died from what they call now the killer fog. B. That is what has become of us. The Bible says we live a toxic darkness that is sure to suffocate us. We can t see, nor find help, and the things we do only make it worse. Turn to Isaiah 57. 1

2 C. Some 700 years before Christ, Isaiah spoke to a people dying in deadly darkness, a darkness of their own making. He says in Is 56 that they were led by blind and drunk shepherds. In Is 57 they were in bed with other gods, literally. When false gods are worshipped truth is upended everywhere. Lust drove the culture. They were as deaf as posts when God tried to get their attention. Remember the blessing God wanted to give them? The LORD make his face shine upon you the LORD turn his face toward you, and give you peace. Well, now God hid his face in anger. It was a lethal culture, a toxic darkness. And the terrible irony is that it bred, not desperation and prayer, but pride. People weren t sorry for what they d become, and they didn t see themselves a failures, nor that they were dead men walking. I ve seen the title of a TV program being aired on a cable channel: Mankind: The Story of All of Us. Well, I suspect they miss this part, but according to the Bible, this killer darkness of our own making is the story of all of us. Isaiah sums it up in Is. 57:20-21 A tumultuous, mud-spewing nation. Restless to the core. No place calm. No place clean. Because, There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked. D. But God is involved and that changes everything. Listen to his offer in Is 57:13 God holds out hope for people who are killing themselves by their sin. How? V.14 God clears a highway for his people to come to him. How? v.15a I. LOOK WHERE GOD WILL LIVE! (57:15) A. Isaiah takes pains to make sure we remember just where God lives. The high and exalted One the point isn t altitude. It is distance, like the distance from a slum to a throne room. In ch.6 Isaiah spoke of his great vision, I saw the LORD, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim calling to one another: Holy, holy, holy is the 2

3 LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory. At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. That high and exalted One is speaking! He who lives forever. What kind of place is home to the everlasting? Whose name is holy. Separate, pure, heavy with glory; One who never had a thought or deed that isn t true and right altogether. And what does he say? I live in a high and holy place. When Isaiah saw it, he cried, Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty. That s where God lives, so how can there possibly be a road from us to him? B. V.15b But also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit. The omnipresent God can certainly be in two places at once, but these two places?? To be clear, these are the very people we were just speaking of people enveloped in the killer fog of their own sin, people from whom the angry God hides his face, people who are like a mudspewing restless sea. Being sorry and honest about what we ve become doesn t make us better. Confession doesn t erase or balance out sin. It is just that the contrite say they are sorry. The poor in spirit admit what paupers and beggars their sin has made of them. And there, in that low stable of each heart, God condescends to live. Not to pass by, not only to notice; but to live! John wrote, The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. Jn 1:14 This is not only about Christ s birth in the stable and manger but also in us: I live with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit. That s what Jesus does. That is how God kept this promise. And he keeps it now when his Holy Spirit indwells each heart that is contrite and lowly enough to trust in the Redeemer Christ. 3

4 How can God do this? There are places, after all, where a holy God has no business going, aren t there? Vv II. GOD TURNS FROM HIS RIGHTEOUS ANGER IN ORDER TO HEAL INCORRIGIBLE PEOPLE (57:16-19) A. Though we cannot bear God s anger for long, yet people refuse to give up their willful ways. Look at all God did in v.17: enraged punished them hid my face yet they kept on in their willful ways. What can be done for such people! They re incorrigible. What s left but judgment?! And make no mistake, we were such people. B. When God is angry he cannot just calm down. God doesn t count to 10 or take deep breaths. God s anger is not a bad temper. God s anger is just. It is as necessary as law enforcement to our society. For God not to be angry would be for God to surrender, to stop caring, to give up responsibility for the world. So since people never get better, never stop their willful ways, how can God say in v.16 that he will not accuse them forever? He must accuse such sinners, for who else will call them to account? If he isn t angry, who will be?! Is. 53:5-6 But he God s Servant, Christ Jesus he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. That s how. The just anger of God, the accusations of the Almighty against sinners, were all absorbed by our Redeemer. Justice has been done. C. V.18 Talk about a stunning reversal: I have seen their ways but I will heal them. What God does for incorrigible sinners is to heal us. Sinfulness is a terminal disease of the heart, and no one ever gets better. Everyone, without exception, always takes a turn for the worse. Being contrite isn t medicine, it is taking our medicine. 4

5 D. What does it mean for God to heal us? Look back at v.15, to revive the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the contrite. Do you remember the story of Ezekiel s vision in Ez 37, where he saw a valley filled with dry human bones? Can these bones live, God asked Ezekiel. He replied, Sovereign LORD, you alone know. Then God said to Ezekiel, Prophesy to these bones and say to them, Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath wind, spirit enter you, and you will come to life. That s a healing!! There s no home remedy to match this healing. Don t try this on your own. There is no place else to go but Jesus Christ to heal hearts so sick; no one else who can make dry bones live. E. The effect of God s healing is described in v.18-19a The first effect is, I will guide them. Here is God in shepherd garb, guiding his lost sheep on paths of righteousness, guiding them through the valley of the shadow of death, guiding them to God s holy mountain our home with him. God s salvation, his healing, reorients us from that restless sea of a life, onto that highway we read about in v.14. God has made a highway for us, and removed all the obstacles that kept us from finding our way to him. I will restore comfort to Israel s mourners. The mourners are those who are contrite and lowly in spirit. They are those, who with God s help, have seen their captivity and their hopeless condition, and who are sorry and humbled. When Israel was carried into exile by the Babylonians, some mourned that they had lost their life with God. God speaks here to them, but to all who have felt that aching inner emptiness, that orphan loneliness. God began this section of Isaiah in ch 40, Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. And all that God has pronounced in the chapters since especially the promise 5

6 of a Redeemer, of restoration, and of being a worldwide blessing all are God s way of restoring comfort to Israel s mourners and to us. The comfort of God s forgiveness and acceptance, of God s presence and peace, and of God s promise to bring us home. The first line of v.19 is literally, the fruit of their lips. When we lived apart from God, nothing we ever said was fruitful. Nothing we ever said was life-giving or refreshing. But once God restores comfort to us, and guides us in the way we should go, the fruit of our lips is good. Our confession of sin is fruitful, all our prayers are fruitful, as are our praises. As believers in Christ, our words have a grace-filled potency simple words of kindness, integrity, sympathy, testimony; words that solve problems and create art; words that teach and correct; even words that listen. There is fruit now from these lips! Conclusion So vv set out the stark options We have seen the muddy, restless wake of willful ways that ignore God. But here is the alternative. Peace, peace. That s a Hebrew way of saying Peace extraordinaire! Peace to a higher power. Or as Jesus put it, Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. Jn 14:27. And this extraordinary, divine peace is for those far and near. Wherever you are, or wherever you ve come from, God s peace is offered to you, and God s peace heals. And I will heal them. Illus.: This week we got a letter from Dave and Patsy Alfors, the missionaries we support in Cameroon. This is what it said: November 4 was our annual Day of Prayer for the ministry here in northern Cameroon. That morning a Muslim patient in the hospital had a vision of Jesus. She saw a man in radiant white clothes, and she said to her family members who were 6

7 standing around her bed, Look! Do you see him? He s right over there. But no one else saw the man in radiant white clothes or heard his voice. He said to this woman, I want you to follow me. Afterwards, this woman asked her husband, who is also a Muslim, what she should do. Her husband replied, You should do what the man in white told you to do. Just one week later the woman passed away. Some of her family are Muslim and some are Christian. So there was a big discussion as to whether to have a Muslim or a Christian funeral. The family decided she should have a Christian funeral, and our Cameroonian hospital chaplains helped them with the funeral and burial. Then Dave & Patsy quote 1 Pet 2:9, For you are a chosen people. You are a kingdom of priests This is so you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. 7