God's Standards & Promises for our Living - Sermon at FFMC 10/5/20

God's Standards & Promises for our Living (Isaiah 33:15-16).

¹⁴The sinners in Zion are afraid;
    trembling has seized the godless:
“Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire?
    Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?”
¹⁵ He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly,
    who despises the gain of oppressions,
who shakes his hands, lest they hold a bribe,
    who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed
    and shuts his eyes from looking on evil,
¹⁶ he will dwell on the heights;
    his place of defense will be the fortresses of rocks;
    his bread will be given him; his water will be sure.

¹⁷ Your eyes will behold the king in his beauty;
    they will see a land that stretches afar. (Is 33:14-17)

Today is WSCS Sunday and Mother’s Day, so I would like to give a special greeting to those ladies of the church who are logging in today to join in the service at Fairfield. The sermon topic today is the WSCS theme for this year, and the passage we are considering includes the context of the theme passage from verses 15-16. So we will consider what Scripture says about God’s standards and promises from this rather obscure passage in Isaiah.

Isaiah 33 closely parallels 2 other OT passage/s. Collectively some have called them ‘entrance liturgies’, like a sort of responsive reading where there is a series of questions, a series of answers, followed by promises.:

Is 33:14-15	Ps 15:1-5	Ps 24:3-5
Who can dwell with the consuming fire? Who can dwell with everlasting burnings?	O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill?	Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place?
Walks righteously Speaks uprightly Despises oppressive gain Does not give or accept bribes Does not condone violence Refuses to consider evil	Walks blamelessly Does what is right Does not slander Does no evil to his neighbour Does not take up reproach against his friend Despises vile people Honours those who fear the lord Keeps oaths although not to his own advantage Does not lend money at interest Does not pervert justice	Has clean hands and a pure heart Does not lift up his soul to an idol Does not swear deceitfully.
He will dwell on the heights His place of defense will be the fortresses of rocks His bread will be given him; his water will be sure	He shall never be moved	He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation

Let us consider then what the passages collectively teach us:

1.       The dread of approaching God: the fear of God

2.       The duty of approaching God: the ways of God

3.       The delight of approaching God: the blessings of God

1. The dread of approaching God: the fear of God

The passages that we are considering start with 2 questions. We are not meant to answer the questions of “Who shall?” or “Who can?” with “Anybody!”. The answer is given in the verses following. But it is enough for us to see that it is no easy thing to approach God. We are told in v.14 that sinners and godless people are afraid and tremble at the idea of coming before God. This is because His presence is like ‘consuming fire’ and ‘everlasting burnings’. This idea of God is repeated many times in the Bible (Dt 4:24, 9:3) We are told in Heb 12:29 to ‘offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire’.

This is not a popular idea. Our mental picture of God is sometimes only that of a benign old man who is ever-willing to indulge his naughty children. God will forgive us for our sins, because He is always gracious. Sisters and brothers – the great truth is that God is our loving Father. But He is a Father who gave His Son to destroy sin in our lives. He is the holy, holy, holy One (Is 6:3). Those who see Him face to face in the Bible do not have nice chats with him. They fall on their faces in awe.  God’s wrath burns against sin, and His justice ensures that all sin will be perfectly punished. Jesus tells us to fear His Father because He is able to destroy and soul and body in hell (Mt 10:28). So we are to fear God for our stubbornness and anger, for our lusts and betrayals, for our greed and fleshly desires, for our irreverence and half-heartedness.

The ‘fear of the Lord’ is commanded even for Christians (2 Cor 5:11, Col 3:22). But do you say, but “perfect love casts out fear”? (1 Jn 4:18) Yes – but John here is speaking of final judgement. As children of God, we do not need to fear eternal hell, but just as children can love and fear their fathers at the same time, so also we must never lose our high view of God’s holiness. When we come in personal devotions then, or in corporate worship – we must come with reverence and awe, not superficial casualness or presumptions about our worth. This is a dishonour and contempt of God. And many of us are guilty of this. We must never take God’s grace for granted. We must never take sin lightly. Repentance and cleansing must be a part of our lives.

2. The duty of approaching God: the ways of God

Repentance is only the first step in the standards of God for our living. Once we have orientated our lives to His holiness He calls us to live according to His ways. Simply put – God asks us to live righteous lives – lives that reflect His own holy character. What are God’s standards? Here, this passage speaks of overall conduct of life (‘walks righteously’) and speech that is free from lies, unkindness and obscenity (‘speaks uprightly’). Eph 4:29 says, ‘Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear’. Our tongue has the power of ‘death and life’ (Pr 18:21). We can heal and give strength with a word, and we can tear down and destroy with a word.

We must reject abuse of our powers to get an advantage for ourselves {‘despises the gain of oppressions’), even if those methods are legal, because the powerful can follow the letter of the law and still be morally wrong. Those of us who are bosses should not indulge our egos and insecurities by being abusive towards our staff. In our business and personal conduct we are not to give favours to circumvent right processes (‘hold a bribe’). We must never seek to harm others when they obstruct us (‘stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking on evil)’. We should not tolerate any kind of uncleanness and moral filth – not just avoiding committing wrong personally, but avoiding and approving situations where wrong is planned or done (‘shuts his eyes from looking on evil’). We should be grieved and deeply offended at sin.

This might lead some of you to ask: When we do all this, does this mean that we can approach God in our own righteousness? I thought we could approach God only through the righteousness of Christ?! The answer is that Is 33 and Psalms 15 and 24 do not speak of the once-for-all righteousness before God that saves us, but of the righteousness that must be demonstrated in the daily lives of those who have received this one-time righteousness. We can call the first ‘positional/legal righteousness’ and the second, ‘postural righteousness’. This is the same idea as when we ask why we need to fear God even though perfect love casts out fear. It is the same idea as to why we need to ask God for forgiveness of sins, when all our sins were forgiven at the Cross. The Cross of Christ ensures that our relationship with God is restored – we can approach Him not only with fear of His wrath, but as a loving Father. We were adopted into God’s family when previously we were orphaned. We can see from our own experience that our children will always be our children because of the family relationship, so if our children do wrong and displease us, they do not cease to be ours. But their enjoyment of that relationship with their father is lost.

In the same way, even though we are righteous in Christ, the enjoyment and full benefits of that righteousness must be obtained by daily obedience to God. We do not set aside the need to discipline our lives to holiness because we are saved. In fact, I have expectations of my children’s behaviour that I do not have of others’ children, and it is that way with God (Heb 12:3-11) So the desire to be holy in daily life is in fact proof of true salvation. True postural righteousness is only possible with positional righteousness.

3. The delight of approaching God: the blessings of God

Having come to Him in repentance and in living out His righteous standards, we begin to experience His blessings. Let’s see what is promised us in this passage:

a. We will ‘dwell on the heights’. The meaning of ‘heights’ is shown just a few verses up in v.5: ‘The Lord is exalted, for he dwells on high’ The place where we ‘dwell’ is our home, our safe place where we find rest, and comfort and peace and family, where we fit in best, will be with God. We will dwell where God dwells.

O God, our help in ages past,
  Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
  And our eternal home                                        (Isaac Watts)

He is our eternal home. When storms of economic change and sickness strike us, when relationships grieve us, when ambitions are crushed and plans fail. God never changes. He will be comfort and peace and family. He will be all that we need.

b. The next blessing here is that we have the defense of ‘fortresses of rocks’. Our bread and water supply will never be cut off. The picture is that of a city under siege. There are 2 ways such a city can fall: through assault from outside or through lack of supplies from inside. God is our impregnable fortress: He will never be defeated by an external enemy. And God is our inexhaustible provider. When we have a relationship with Him based on repentance and obedience, we will never run out of joy and endurance and purpose. We will always be spiritually secure in God.

c. The third and final blessing mentioned in this passage is that ‘our eyes will behold the king in his beauty; they will see a land that stretches afar’. To speak of beholding, or seeing with our eyes, is to be in the presence of something or someone. The land ‘that stretches afar’ speaks of total freedom to roam, not just being in a city under siege. In God’s land, no enemy can hide and catch us by surprise. In v.21-22 we have a parallel picture of the Lord who is King: ‘But there the Lord in majesty will be for us a place of broad rivers and streams, where no galley with oars can go, nor majestic ship can pass. ²² For the Lord is our judge; the Lord is our lawgiver; the Lord is our king; he will save us’. So we will see God’s beauty, and enjoy freedom in His beautiful land.

All these blessings stem from being in Christ – Christ as our home, our city, our land – not as a separate blessing in themselves apart from God. This is the whole point of repentance and obedience, isn’t it? – to enjoy Christ. Repenting and living righteously is not a deal you make with God so that you get blessings. Do you do things for the person you love so that you get something back? Our keeping God’s standards is the means by which the blessings of a loving relationship with God are made available to us. Jesus said “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (Jn 14:15)

Do you want to approach God? Will you turn your heart to Him today? Come in repentance, live in righteousness, and you will find in Him all the goodness your heart can hold.

 Video here