"The Broken Road of Holiness" Isaiah 57:14-15

Introduction:

A. In Isaiah 57 the Lord is confronting the idolatry of the people. They had put the emphasis on their own sense of well-being instead of being concerned with their standing before God.

They were finding their security in their possessions and the idols that they were trusting in but the Lord through Isaiah warns them that the day is coming when the wind will drive away their idols that they find their security in.

But the Lord declares that He will be a refuge for His people and He will be the One who secures their inheritance for them. And He will even work on behalf of His people to prepare the way for their restoration. Look back at this preparation in verse 14:

I. The Preparation (14).

A. First of all the preparation is decreed by God and it will take place.

B. Second of all the preparation is constructive to removing the obstacles that are between the Lord and His covenant people.

You may recognize some of this language as being Messianic in nature regarding the ministry of john the Baptist and the ministry of preparation that he did for the coming of the kingdom of God through the Messiah.

It is the idea of every low place being raised up and every high place being brought down to make way for the King of Glory and the restoration that He will bring between God and His people.

But the people were spiritually content with their idolatry and the status quo of their worship of other Gods. Spiritually they were in crisis but their sense of security and well-being distorted their perception of there being a problem.

King of like it is when you are growing up and in your teenage years you think your room is clean but your Mom tells you that it’s not and it needs a lot of attention. But to you in that stage of your life it all looks fine because the clutter in your room doesn’t affect you in a negative way. Except in the relational sense because the teenager and the Mother may see it differently.

And sometimes the teenager has seen the room of the parents being in bad shape too. And then has to process the idea of a clean room with the inconsistencies of a human parent.

But when God as the authority is calling us out on our sin as His covenant people there is an absolute standard that is never compromised. You see this is the problem of the human condition before God. Look back at your text at verse 15:

II. The Problem (15).

A. The Character of the Lord is distinctly different from that of fallen man.

The Lord is High and lifted up and this denotes the idea of His majesty and His supremacy as the one and only universal sovereign. He is the One who rules in an absolute manner over all things (15a).

The Lord also inhabits eternity and this denotes that He has always been and never has He not been in existence. He exist in past present and future and is not subject to time constraints in the way that we are (15b).

The Name of the Lord is Holy. This denotes that His name is reflective of His distinction from His creation and it is reflective of all of His perfections in His character, nature and being as God (15c).

The Lord dwells in a high and holy place and this denotes a realm all His own and unique to Him and His existence. It is the idea of His being transcendent as He is over and above all things (15d).

You see Christian God is in a category all His own as the one and the only absolute essence of being with the absolute character of His perfections ever present.

Why is this so critical? It is because you can’t have absolute truth without the absolute being of God. Most Christians don’t see this as a crisis because without even realizing it they insert themselves into the place of God and they put the phrase “I believe” in the place of “God says”.

If you don’t honor Him as the supreme and sovereign absolute being you will by default insert the self as the absolute. This is why God gives people and societies over to their own evil and subjective desires. It happens to churches too when they follow the culture and tolerate the subjective thinking it will make them more relevant to the culture.

But what happens in the end is that they have lost the only thing that is relevant. Like Samson in the Book of Judges they have surrendered their hair and they can’t figure out how cultural transformation is not happening.

But what is it that can confront the sinful tendency of the human heart as to create the kind of humility and the abandonment of self rule in such a way that can be restorative and bring about transformation in the heart of man?

How can a sinner who is so separated from God be reconciled with the One who dwells in such a high and holy place with such high and holy perfections in His character nature and being? The end of verse 15 tells us: 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.

He dwells in a high and holy place and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit. It is the opposite of asserting the self into God’s place. Men attribute imaginary power to false gods that they create in their minds. The even carefully sculpt them in their minds and make them more tolerant and user friendly and then imagine the have an actual conceptualized mental image of the God of the Bible.

Fallen humans do this because there is no need for humility, repentance of sin and sanctification in the Christian life. The religion of the day is moralistic, therapeutic deism. A god who guides us in basic morality and helps us fix our felt needs but He doesn’t reveal Himself beyond that relationally.

This is not the God of the Bible. He dwells with us as His covenant people and our relationship with Him goes beyond our pursuit of basic morality and He is not just at work in our perception of what our problems are but He identifies our need in relationship to Him.

Because He is not just trying to fix us but He is in the business of making us His own as His treasured possession for all of eternity. How do I know?

Because He dwells with us, “to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.” He is the all sufficient God who will never leave you and never forsake you and He is in the business of transforming you to make you ready to be His forever.

Conclusion:

I went down recently to Jackson, MS to pick up my girls at Bellhaven University. And when I got to the area of town where Bellhaven is I immediately noticed that the roads had been fixed around the campus.

The road were horrible with huge potholes and sunken places that made you wonder if your car would survive just driving around the neighborhood of Bellhaven. I was so thankful! But the roads didn’t fix themselves because broken roads are powerless to fix themselves. It take someone from the outside to transform broken roads.

Broken and contrite hearts can’t fix themselves but a broken and contrite heart the Lord will not despise. He transforms it to be His in holiness. Broken roads are His specialty and He make the rough places smooth through the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Unbeliever

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