Isaiah 56-57, "Inherit the Mountain"

When we visited my sister in Colorado this September, she took us to Estes Park. It’s a beautiful resort town at the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. It has a grand vista around every turn, a quaint downtown filled with cute shops, and the world’s biggest outdoor playground for a back yard. But the thing that caught my attention was the number of mountainside houses. These homes were built right on the sides of some of the steepest Rocky Mountains all around town.

Why would someone build a house on a mountain? There are beautiful views, but there is also solitude. It’s a great way to keep out certain people. It requires a true seeker with some bravery and a willingness to come to you on your terms.

This might be why so many temples are built on mountain tops. Only the initiated are allowed to ascend. Just the situation of the house itself is a message, “outsiders are not welcome.”

The temple for Yahweh in Jerusalem was no different. It was built on the highest mountain in the region, Mount Zion, with steep ascents. Those from outside the nation of Israel were not allowed in.

In Isaiah’s day, a stone dividing wall surrounded the house of God to keep out anyone who did not belong to the nation of Israel, or those who were unclean through some infirmity. In the time of King Herod, the temple Jesus entered had friendly warnings carved in the stone wall stating, “No foreigner is to enter the barriers around the sanctuary and enclosure. Whoever is caught will have himself to blame for his ensuing death.”

This was to protect the person who did not come to God on His terms and had not been brought into covenant with God from being destroyed upon entering His presence. But we know God’s intention all along was that all nations would ascend the Mountain of the LORD to worship Him and learn from Him (Isaiah 2:2-5). But the law of Moses excluded from inheriting in the promised land, anywhere near the holy mountain of the LORD, any foreigner.

All this is important if we are to understand our passage today. The message of today’s passage is the gospel (good news) of welcome, belonging, and peace for outcasts and outsiders in God’s house. How do we treat those people? Are we walking with God and others in humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with others in love, and eager to maintain unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace with everyone God has welcomed home in Christ?

Isaiah 53 and 54 told us that God has established a covenant of peace

God’s House is a Home for Outcasts

Men have created many religions as a way to God. Isaiah 56:1-8 redefine true religion and the kind of person welcome in God’s house. The LORD (Yahweh) promises salvation, righteousness and blessing for the one who keeps justice, does righteousness, keeps the Sabbath and restrains evil. This will become more clear next week, but this is the kind of religion that God truly desires. No matter who you are or where you come from, these practices please God.

In fact, Yahweh addresses directly two classes of people that would have been considered outside the promises of God for a future fruitful life. In verse 3, he says literally,

Isaiah 56:3 (ESV)

Let not the son of the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say,

“The Lord will surely separate me from his people”; and let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.”

Sons of foreigners and eunuchs ( people who have no sons) would have been left out of any inheritance in the promised land. All the promises of a fruitful future with God and His people that we’ve been reading about in Isaiah’s prophecy would have rung hollow to these people. Are the promises of God for fruitful life for all of us, or the chosen people, Israel only?

Yahweh makes this promise,

Isaiah 56:4 (ESV)

For thus says the Lord:

“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant,

Isaiah 56:5 (ESV)

I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

This “monument” is a strange word. It literally means “hand”. But it’s a clue that leads us into the Temple, the house of Yahweh, also known as Solomon’s Temple. We find out in 1 Kings 7 that Solomon erected pillars all around the courtyard. The pillars were made to look like lilies with pomegranates growing out the tops. Someone entering the temple of Yahweh would feel like they were walking into a garden. And Solomon had two special pillars built, 27 feet tall, and at the top, two rows of 4 foot tall pomegranates. The word used for these pillars was the same word used for monument in Isaiah 56:5, also translated “hand”. They were known as Solomon’s hands. And he gave them names, which is why they are also called monuments. Yahweh is telling fatherless men, if you rest in me and hold fast my covenant, I will make you fruitful pillars in my house.

Then he promises to the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD and serve Him, again, keeping Sabbath rest in Him, holding fast His covenant,

Isaiah 56:7 (ESV)

these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer;

their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar;

for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

He concludes this section by saying,

Isaiah 56:8 (ESV)

The Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares,

“I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.”

As we saw last week, our lives are signs to others that point to the God we proclaim and demonstrate with our lives. Are we pointing outsiders and outcasts, and those the world labels “others” to the joy of God’s presence? Are we a sign that outsiders and outcasts are welcome, they have a fruitful future in God’s house? He wants them there. Do we?

The problem we have is that too many religious people have also labeled outsiders as “other”, and we have found ways to keep them out of God’s house, either intentionally or by neglect, and this is a problem Yahweh addresses in 56:9-57:13.

There is No Refuge Outside of God

The chosen people had corrupted themselves in their idolatry and created an unjust society. There was no light for the foreigners to follow to find God. And worse, there was no room for the righteous person.

Yahweh labels the leaders of Israel, who should have been watchmen and shepherds, drunk dogs. So,

Isaiah 57:1–2 (ESV)

The righteous man perishes, and no one lays it to heart; devout men are taken away, while no one understands.

For the righteous man is taken away from calamity; he enters into peace; they rest in their beds who walk in their uprightness.

God is having to rescue righteous people from evil among their own people. There is no place for them in their own society. But God promises they can find their rest in Him. In fact, there is rest nowhere else.

Yahweh tells His people who were chasing idols,

Isaiah 57:10 (ESV)

You were wearied with the length of your way, but you did not say, “It is hopeless”;

you found new life for your strength, and so you were not faint.

There is no peace for those who worship idols. It’s an endlessly exhausting and unsatisfying pursuit. And when they reaped what they had sewn, and needed deliverance, Yahweh says,

Isaiah 57:13 (ESV)

When you cry out, let your collection of idols deliver you! The wind will carry them all off, a breath will take them away.

But he who takes refuge in me shall possess the land and shall inherit my holy mountain.

We’ve probably talked about this ad nauseam, but we all have idols of our own creation from which wee seek hope, happiness, significance, and security. They aren’t substantial enough to ultimately satisfy us. But worse, while they demand our time and attention, they won’t pay us back with refuge in times of trouble.

But, and this would be a big but for Isaiah’s audience - they would have assumed only Israelites would inherit the promised land, and the temple mount belonged to no one but God alone - Yahweh promises that those who take refuge in the LORD God not only possess the land, but inherit His holy mountain.

This would have been scandalous. But for anybody who turns to the LORD God, the one true and living God, in their time of trouble, He would provide them a hope and a future, and share with them His house. But it gets even more scandalous.

Who is someone you think is beyond hope? Picture that person in your mind for this next part.

The Person God Makes His Home

57:14-21 tell us that everyone is welcome in His house, but there are some to whom He will go to be with. It’s one thing for the all-powerful King of the universe to welcome a seeker into His presence if they hold fast to His covenant. It’s another thing for Him to extend Himself to someone we might not deem worthy.

57:14 tells us that He is removing obstacles to people coming to Him. So the obstacles are the ones within us. Our pride keeps us from coming to God. So God tells us He is

Isaiah 57:15 (ESV)

For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:

“I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.

The same God who is high and lifted up from all eternity, whose very name is Holy, He dwells on high above our corrupt world, but again scandalously, He also dwells with the lowly among us. If someone is contrite over their sin, their idolatry, and even their pride, and becomes lowly in spirit, God will come to them to revive them.

Do we want to see revival in our time? Maybe we don’t need more songs, better worship services, or the best preaching. Maybe we need more contrition and humility. Am I lowly in heart over my sin and the sin of others?

God has promised He will not be angry forever. He doesn’t want to exasperate us. And this is how wonderful He is. He should be exasperated with some of us. But verse 17 tells us that even the worst sinner who keeps backsliding into more and more sin is not beyond God’s reach.

Isaiah 57:17 (ESV)

Because of the iniquity of his unjust gain I was angry, I struck him; I hid my face and was angry, but he went on backsliding in the way of his own heart.

Isaiah 57:18 (ESV)

I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will lead him and restore comfort to him and his mourners,

At what point does someone backslide into sin and create so much injustice in their world that we give up on them? But the Ever-living God sees Him, will heal him, lead him, and restore comfort to him and those that mourn for him

Isaiah 57:19 (ESV)

creating the fruit of the lips.

(Praise) No matter how far you may have gone from God, you are not beyond His reach of healing and restoration. So His gospel is

Isaiah 57:19 (ESV)

Peace, peace, to the far and to the near,” says the Lord, “and I will heal him.

If you remain in your wickedness, refusing to find refuge in God,

Isaiah 57:20–21 (ESV)

But the wicked are like the tossing sea; for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up mire and dirt.

There is no peace,” says my God, “for the wicked.”

What’s the application for us? Paul uses this passage from Isaiah when he writes to the church of Ephesus, in what is now southern Turkey. This church was putting up dividing walls between the outsiders and the insiders. He reminds them that God has established His covenant of peace in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

To those who felt like outsiders because they weren’t from Israel, they were the foreigners Yahweh had addressed in Isaiah 56, Paul says,

Ephesians 2:13 (ESV)

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

Ephesians 2:14 (ESV)

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility

Ephesians 2:15 (ESV)

by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace,

Ephesians 2:16 (ESV)

and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

That dividing wall that kept outsiders and outcasts separated from the presence of God, and the fullness of joy, was destroyed in Jesus Christ when he destroyed the power of sin on the cross. And in Christ, God demonstrated that even though He is holy and dwells on high, He would also make His home with the contrite and lowly. He sought us out,

Ephesians 2:17 ESV

And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.

So Paul says, we as a community of Christ-followers are growing into a holy temple in the Lord, and in Christ we are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

If we are the dwelling place of the God who welcomes outcasts and outsiders, in what ways are we welcoming them as a church? Have we set ourselves so high up on a mountain the outsiders can tell we don’t want them here?

Do we condemn the idolaters around us, or do we offer them refuge in Christ? In what ways can we remove obstacles for backsliders and those who create injustice to find peace with God if they are contrite and lowly in spirit? In what ways do we represent Jesus Christ who has established that peace in love on the cross?

Paul offers us some ways we can grow in that.

Ephesians 4:1–3 (ESV)

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called,

with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Questions for Discussion

What are you thankful for this week?

Who are the outcasts and outsiders God has put in your life? In what ways does the church intentionally or unintentionally keep them out? In what ways are we inviting them in and welcoming them?

In what ways can we grow to be a house of prayer for all peoples?

In what ways is God gathering others to Him and how can we participate?

What does it tell us about God that He would grant anyone who takes refuge in Him to inherit His holy mountain?

What else do we learn about God in this passage?

What does contrition and a lowly spirit look like? What would revival for those people look like?

How will you respond to this passage this week?

Who is the name of one person with whom you can share the message of peace with God in Christ this week?