Micah McCormick: Turn to Isaiah chapter 66.
Micah McCormick: The very last chapter of the book of Isaiah.
Micah McCormick: You can find that on page 661 if you're using the Pew Bible this morning.
Micah McCormick: We're going to be going through this final chapter today.
Micah McCormick: It's actually not going to be the last message in our Isaiah series.
Micah McCormick: Next week, we're going to be looking back over the book with one final summary message.
Micah McCormick: But this is our focus for today, Isaiah chapter 66.
Micah McCormick: I'll read beginning at verse 1 down through verse 24.
Micah McCormick: This is God's word.
Micah McCormick: This is what the Lord says.
Micah McCormick: And where would my resting place be?
Micah McCormick: My hand made all these things, and so they all came into being.
Micah McCormick: This is the Lord's declaration.
Micah McCormick: I will look favorably on this kind of person.
Micah McCormick: One who is humble, submissive in spirit, and trembles at my word.
Micah McCormick: One person slaughters an ox, another kills a person.
Micah McCormick: One person sacrifices a lamb, another breaks a dog's neck.
Micah McCormick: One person offers a grain offering, another offers pig's blood.
Micah McCormick: One person offers incense, another praises an idol.
Micah McCormick: All these have chosen their ways and delight in their abhorrent practices.
Micah McCormick: So I will choose their punishment.
Micah McCormick: And I will bring on them what they dread, because I called and no one answered.
Micah McCormick: I spoke and they did not listen.
Micah McCormick: They did what was evil in my sight and chose what I did not delight in.
Micah McCormick: You who tremble at his word, hear the word of the Lord.
Micah McCormick: Your brothers who hate and exclude you for my name's sake have said, Let the Lord be glorified so that we can see your joy, but they will be put to shame.
Micah McCormick: A sound of uproar from the city, a voice from the temple, the voice of the Lord paying back his enemies what they deserve.
Micah McCormick: Before Zion was in labor, she gave birth.
Micah McCormick: Before she was in pain, she delivered a boy.
Micah McCormick: Who has heard of such a thing?
Micah McCormick: Who has seen such things?
Micah McCormick: Can a land be born in one day or a nation be delivered in an instant?
Micah McCormick: Yet as soon as Zion was in labor, she gave birth to sons.
Micah McCormick: Will I bring a baby to the point of birth and not deliver it?
Micah McCormick: says the Lord?
Micah McCormick: Or will I who deliver close the womb?
Micah McCormick: says your God.
Micah McCormick: Be glad for Jerusalem and rejoice over her, all who love her.
Micah McCormick: Rejoice greatly with her, all who mourn over her, so that you may nurse and be satisfied from her comforting breast and drink deeply, and delight yourself from her glorious breasts.
Micah McCormick: For this is what the Lord says I will make peace flow to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flood.
Micah McCormick: You will nurse and be carried on her hip and bounced on her lap.
Micah McCormick: As a mother comforts her son, so I will comfort you, and you will be comforted in Jerusalem.
Micah McCormick: You will see, you will rejoice, and you will flourish like grass.
Micah McCormick: Then the Lord's power will be revealed to his servants, but he will show his wrath against his enemies.
Micah McCormick: Look, the Lord will come with fire.
Micah McCormick: His chariots are like the whirlwind to execute his anger with fury and his rebuke with flames of fire.
Micah McCormick: For the Lord will execute judgment on all humanity with his fiery sword, and many will be slain by the Lord.
Micah McCormick: Those who dedicate and purify themselves to enter the groves following their leader, eating meat from pigs, vermin, and rats, will perish together.
Micah McCormick: This is the Lord's declaration.
Micah McCormick: Knowing their works and their thoughts, I have come to gather all nations and languages.
Micah McCormick: They will come and see my glory.
Micah McCormick: I will establish a sign among them, and I will send survivors from them to the nations, to Tarshish, Put, Lud, who are archers, Tubal, Javed, and the coasts and islands far away, who have not heard about me or seen my glory, and they will proclaim my glory among the nations.
Micah McCormick: They will bring all your brothers from all the nations as a gift to the Lord on horses and chariots and litters on mules and camels to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord.
Micah McCormick: Just as the Israelites bring an offering and a clean vessel to the house of the Lord, I will also take some of them as priests and Levites, says the Lord.
Micah McCormick: For, just as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, will remain before me, this is the Lord's declaration.
Micah McCormick: So your offspring and your name will remain.
Micah McCormick: All humanity will come to worship me from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, says the Lord.
Micah McCormick: As they leave, they will see the dead bodies of those who have rebelled against me.
Micah McCormick: For their worm will never die, their fire will never go out, and they will be a horror to all humanity.
Micah McCormick: This is God's word.
Micah McCormick: Briefly, let's pray again.
Micah McCormick: Lord, there's so much here.
Micah McCormick: And we can say, who is sufficient to take all these things in?
Micah McCormick: Who is sufficient to deliver your words?
Micah McCormick: But we want to hear from you.
Micah McCormick: So bring the clarity of your Holy Spirit to our hearts, even now.
Micah McCormick: We pray in Jesus' name.
Micah McCormick: Amen.
Micah McCormick: In the late 1800s, a woman named Anne Cousin wrote a poem called The Sands of Time Are Sinking.
Micah McCormick: It's a song that's still sung today.
Micah McCormick: And verse 4 in our hymnals begins this way with mercy and with judgment, my web of time he wove.
Micah McCormick: That that verse is a personal testimony, but it pictures something of the way the Lord seems to work throughout his word, even throughout history, with mercy and with judgment.
Micah McCormick: And you see those two themes of mercy and judgment woven in and out of our chapter here in Isaiah 66.
Micah McCormick: Verse number 12.
Micah McCormick: I will make peace flow to her like a river.
Micah McCormick: Mercy.
Micah McCormick: Verse 20, they will bring all your brothers from all the nations as a gift to the Lord.
Micah McCormick: Mercy.
Micah McCormick: Verse 22.
Micah McCormick: There's mercy.
Micah McCormick: And there's also judgment.
Micah McCormick: Verse 4.
Micah McCormick: I will choose their punishment.
Micah McCormick: Verse 6, the voice of the Lord paying back his enemies what they deserve.
Micah McCormick: Verse 15 and 16 Look, the Lord will come with fire, his chariots are like the whirlwind to execute his anger with fury and his rebuke with flames of fire.
Micah McCormick: For the Lord will execute judgment on all humanity with his fiery sword, and many will be slain by the Lord.
Micah McCormick: Judgment.
Micah McCormick: We often are tempted to put it together like this.
Micah McCormick: Well, mercy for me, judgment for everyone else.
Micah McCormick: Mercy for the people that I like, judgment for everyone that I don't like.
Micah McCormick: But here in our text, Isaiah is inspired by God.
Micah McCormick: So God is the one who is placing mercy and judgment side by side, weaving them in and out throughout our passage.
Micah McCormick: Why does he do that?
Micah McCormick: God places mercy and judgment side by side to showcase his glory.
Micah McCormick: As we consider this passage today, we're going to look at three threads of mercy and judgment.
Micah McCormick: And I'll give those to you at the outset and then we'll work through these.
Micah McCormick: Number one, mercy comes to those who receive God's word, but judgment comes to those who reject God's word.
Micah McCormick: Number two, second thread, mercy brings new creation, but judgment brings desolation.
Micah McCormick: And then number three, we'll spend the least time on this, but it's here in the text.
Micah McCormick: Mercy endures and judgment endures.
Micah McCormick: First thread.
Micah McCormick: This is the Lord's declaration.
Micah McCormick: I will look favorably on this kind of person, one who is humble, submissive in spirit, and trembles at my word.
Micah McCormick: God's going to look favorably, he's going to show mercy on people who tremble at his word, those who receive his word.
Micah McCormick: And if we're going to rightly tremble at his word, we need to understand who is speaking.
Micah McCormick: At the beginning of verse 2, God says, My hand made all these things.
Micah McCormick: What things?
Micah McCormick: Go back to verse 1.
Micah McCormick: Heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool.
Micah McCormick: So in the beginning, God made heaven and earth.
Micah McCormick: He uses this image here.
Micah McCormick: Do you see how receiving God's word relates to God as the creator of heaven and earth?
Micah McCormick: God's word is so powerful, he spoke galaxies into existence.
Micah McCormick: God is so powerful, just through his mere word, species came into being.
Micah McCormick: Flowers were seeded in distant unknown meadows.
Micah McCormick: That's how powerful God's word is.
Micah McCormick: Who are we to think we can stand before God and take his word and say, I'll leave it or take it as I want to?
Micah McCormick: That's not the way to respond to the God who made heaven and earth.
Micah McCormick: Job had to learn this lesson.
Micah McCormick: He had some questions about his life circumstances.
Micah McCormick: And when God comes to Job, God says, Have you considered creation?
Micah McCormick: Look at it carefully.
Micah McCormick: And Job says, You're right.
Micah McCormick: I need to be quiet before your word.
Micah McCormick: It's too wonderful for me.
Micah McCormick: So the God who speaks is a God of majesty, and he's a God who desires worship.
Micah McCormick: In verse 1, God asks two questions.
Micah McCormick: Where could you possibly build a house for me?
Micah McCormick: And where would my resting place be?
Micah McCormick: Those are two questions that Solomon also asks when he first dedicates the temple.
Micah McCormick: Even heaven, the highest heaven, cannot contain you much less this temple I've built.
Micah McCormick: So God had given these elaborate instructions for the tabernacle, then for the temple, and God repeats here before Isaiah, yes, I had those instructions, but ultimately, where is the house of my resting place?
Micah McCormick: God gave those instructions in part because he wanted people to see their need to listen to him and do what he said.
Micah McCormick: Israel couldn't just worship in their own way at their own time.
Micah McCormick: They had to take their worship cues from the living God, and he was kind to give them instructions.
Micah McCormick: Mercy comes to those who receive God's word.
Micah McCormick: But judgment comes to those who reject God's word.
Micah McCormick: Look at verse 4.
Micah McCormick: God called.
Micah McCormick: He quotes the first two verses from Isaiah.
Micah McCormick: Why does he do that?
Micah McCormick: Well, he's telling the listeners that they're part of a pattern of people who have rejected God's servants who brought God's word.
Micah McCormick: They persecuted the prophets, they killed the Lord Jesus, now they're persecuting him.
Micah McCormick: They've tried to worship in their own way, they've rejected God, and now the very God of heaven and earth that they're thinking they have the temple on their side, they don't have God on their side.
Micah McCormick: They're guilty, and judgment is coming on them.
Micah McCormick: That's how he uses the passage here.
Micah McCormick: A key arena for judgment in our passage is the context of worship.
Micah McCormick: That's a first and basic place where people receive God's word or reject his word.
Micah McCormick: So look again at verse number three.
Micah McCormick: As you read that verse, you might be a little confused.
Micah McCormick: It's not really primarily about cruelty to animals.
Micah McCormick: It's about how the people come before God and worship.
Micah McCormick: Yes, they're coming, but they're coming either hypocritically, doing evil things throughout the week, or they're coming with the kinds of offerings God never asked for or intended.
Micah McCormick: They're delighting in idols more than the living God.
Micah McCormick: Let's think about it this way.
Micah McCormick: Last weekend was Valentine's Day weekend.
Micah McCormick: Let's say that on Valentine's Day night, I get a call.
Micah McCormick: And in this call, I hear that Mrs.
Micah McCormick: Jones is in the hospital.
Micah McCormick: So I go over to the hospital, I find Mr.
Micah McCormick: Jones in the waiting room.
Micah McCormick: I say, What happened?
Micah McCormick: Well, I guess she had an allergic reaction.
Micah McCormick: I said, Wow, I'm sorry to hear that.
Micah McCormick: God, they're taking care of what tell me more.
Micah McCormick: And Mr.
Micah McCormick: Jones says, Well, I wanted to cook Valentine's Day dinner for my wife.
Micah McCormick: That's great.
Micah McCormick: That's nice.
Micah McCormick: He said, I wanted to make shrimp scampi, but I I guess she's allergic, you know.
Micah McCormick: I said, Oh no, and you you didn't know?
Micah McCormick: He said, Oh, I knew.
Micah McCormick: I said, now, now, now wait a minute here.
Micah McCormick: You this is this is your covenant partner.
Micah McCormick: This is the most precious person in the world, all of you.
Micah McCormick: That you you forgot that she's allergic to shellfish?
Micah McCormick: And he said, Well, no, I didn't forget.
Micah McCormick: I just I really wanted I really wanted shrimp, and I thought it would be okay.
Micah McCormick: What has Mr.
Micah McCormick: Jones revealed about himself?
Micah McCormick: He's revealed that his wife actually isn't the most important person in his life.
Micah McCormick: He's revealed that the most important person in his life is looking at it in the mirror.
Micah McCormick: That's who the most important person is.
Micah McCormick: How much greater when we come to God or come before God and think, I'll just do it my way.
Micah McCormick: Never mind what God's actual character and nature demands and expects of me.
Micah McCormick: When we worship not valuing God's words, what we're showing is that we don't value God Himself.
Micah McCormick: And that brings his judgment.
Micah McCormick: So, how do we approach the Bible?
Micah McCormick: We're called to tremble at his word.
Micah McCormick: This word here, tremble in verse 2, it's used in many other places.
Micah McCormick: I'll give you a few examples.
Micah McCormick: Psalm 97, verse 4, his lightning lights up the world, the earth sees and trembles.
Micah McCormick: Psalm 96, verse 9, worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.
Micah McCormick: Let the whole earth tremble before him.
Micah McCormick: Hosea 11, 10.
Micah McCormick: They will follow the Lord, he will roar like a lion.
Micah McCormick: When he roars, his children will come trembling from the west.
Micah McCormick: When we rightly see God high and lifted up, like Isaiah in chapter 6, we'll be humble and submissive before him.
Micah McCormick: We will tremble at his word.
Micah McCormick: And God puts both of these things next to each other in our passage.
Micah McCormick: Mercy for those who receive God's word, judgment for those who reject God's word.
Micah McCormick: Now, why am I using the word mercy here?
Micah McCormick: You know, the people that listen and respond get the Lord's gaze of favor.
Micah McCormick: Those who reject get judgment.
Micah McCormick: That's just what they deserve.
Micah McCormick: Where's the mercy coming?
Micah McCormick: Well, when we really recognize God and His Word in ourselves, part of the humility of the contrite heart is seeing I don't deserve anything.
Micah McCormick: I I haven't trembled at God's word to the extent that I should.
Micah McCormick: I'm I'm at heart still an unprofitable servant.
Micah McCormick: Everything I have is God's mercy.
Micah McCormick: Nothing is actually deserved.
Micah McCormick: Now, now before I move on to the next thread, that's thread number one.
Micah McCormick: Before I move on, I want to encourage us.
Micah McCormick: This is such a delight for me to come here.
Micah McCormick: It's not a perfect church, but when I come week after week, I see people who are trembling at God's word, who are eager to receive it.
Micah McCormick: Praise God for that.
Micah McCormick: I see people thinking about worship.
Micah McCormick: I don't see people who are living in hypocrisy throughout the week and then coming to raise their hands to God as though everything is alright.
Micah McCormick: I see a consistency and a sincerity throughout the week.
Micah McCormick: You're eager to look at God's word even with one another.
Micah McCormick: I see people eager to hear it, to pray, to sing songs, to love one another and hug one another.
Micah McCormick: Keep doing that.
Micah McCormick: Don't presume on God's mercy, but continue in His mercy as we love God's word together.
Micah McCormick: Second thread mercy brings new creation, but judgment brings desolation.
Micah McCormick: Verse number one again, heaven is my throne, earth is my footstool.
Micah McCormick: Then look down to verse 22, just as the new heavens and the new earth which I make will remain before me.
Micah McCormick: So at the very beginning of the passage and at the end of the passage is heaven and earth.
Micah McCormick: You see it both places.
Micah McCormick: God's gonna make all things new.
Micah McCormick: This is continuing a theme we looked at last week from chapter 65, where God says, I will make a new heavens and a new earth.
Micah McCormick: You see that same idea here in our passage.
Micah McCormick: God's going to restore what was lost.
Micah McCormick: He's gonna look over this fallen world and once again remake this fallen world.
Micah McCormick: That is mercy.
Micah McCormick: If you look at verse number 12, God's wrath in Scripture is often compared to a flood.
Micah McCormick: But in verse number 12, it's the wealth of the nations entering this new Jerusalem like a flood.
Micah McCormick: That's that's mercy.
Micah McCormick: And we need to understand that this new creation, it's a place of beauty, it's a place of worship, it's a place of beautiful worship.
Micah McCormick: This language of a house and a resting place points us back to the tabernacle and temple, the central place of Israel's worship.
Micah McCormick: God resting, you've got to think of the very first days of creation.
Micah McCormick: When God on the seventh day rested from all of his labor.
Micah McCormick: He took time, as it were, to step back and gaze over his work and rejoice in his work.
Micah McCormick: Isaiah's doing something here.
Micah McCormick: We've got to think carefully about this.
Micah McCormick: He's comparing the temple to the original creation.
Micah McCormick: He's saying, yes, in one sense, God is symbolically enthroned in the temple over that Ark of the Covenant.
Micah McCormick: But really, God from the very beginning was enthroned over the whole universe.
Micah McCormick: God wanted all of creation to be a kind of worshiping temple.
Micah McCormick: There's a lot of parallels we won't trace out here, but listen to Psalm 132, verses 7 to 9.
Micah McCormick: Let's go to his dwelling place.
Micah McCormick: Let's worship at his footstool.
Micah McCormick: Resting, footstool, temple imagery, matching creation imagery.
Micah McCormick: So in God's mercy, the new creation is going to be a place not just of beauty, but of perfect worship.
Micah McCormick: Another part of God's mercy in this new creation is a new creation that includes the mercy of one unified family of God.
Micah McCormick: God's instructions at the very beginning be fruitful and multiply.
Micah McCormick: And then the promise to Abraham, I'm going to make you a great nation, but in you all nations will be blessed.
Micah McCormick: It's not just one family or one little group.
Micah McCormick: It's people from every tribe and tongue coming together in praise of the Lord.
Micah McCormick: And you see it here in verse number 8.
Micah McCormick: As soon as Zion was in labor, she gave birth to her sons.
Micah McCormick: There's going to be the kind of glorious multiplication that God desired all the way from the beginning.
Micah McCormick: He's going to make it happen in his tender mercy.
Micah McCormick: In verse 13, he compares himself to a comforting mother.
Micah McCormick: In Galatians chapter 4, Paul contrasts the earthly Jerusalem, which is in bondage to works.
Micah McCormick: He contrasts that with the heavenly Jerusalem that embraces the gospel message.
Micah McCormick: Listen to what he says.
Micah McCormick: Of a barren woman having offspring, and even that offspring going out beyond Israel to include surrounding nations and peoples.
Micah McCormick: Here in our passage in Isaiah 66, that unified family of God that's part of his new creation design and goal that spills out to encompass many peoples.
Micah McCormick: Verse 18.
Micah McCormick: But God has to be saying something even more than that here.
Micah McCormick: He doesn't just say some nations, he says all nations.
Micah McCormick: He doesn't just just say certain places.
Micah McCormick: How is it that there's not even just Christians here?
Micah McCormick: There's churches here.
Micah McCormick: We are 5,000 miles away from Jerusalem.
Micah McCormick: I mean, we human nature, we tend to think of ourselves as the center of the world, and all the other places are the distant places.
Micah McCormick: From Isaiah's perspective, we're the distant places.
Micah McCormick: The gospel has come here, and God is worshipped and celebrated here.
Micah McCormick: Even here in this very room, we see people from different tribes and tongues and nations and people.
Micah McCormick: This is all God's mercy.
Micah McCormick: It's his doing and it's glorious.
Micah McCormick: In verse number 19, Isaiah speaks of this sign.
Micah McCormick: He doesn't give a lot of detail, but a number of other commentators think of this sign as pointing ultimately to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Micah McCormick: And Christ himself did say, You want a sign?
Micah McCormick: Here's your sign.
Micah McCormick: The Son of Man will be buried in the earth for three days and three nights after his crucifixion, coming out again.
Micah McCormick: Verse 19 speaks of survivors.
Micah McCormick: One person says, I will send, which you see there in that verse, send the survivors.
Micah McCormick: I will send is the Old Testament's expression of the New Testament missionary mandate.
Micah McCormick: Certainly, God has called the remnant of his people to go out with his good news and his message everywhere we can.
Micah McCormick: But whether or not you could view some of those things in verse 19 as more immediate to Isaiah's own day, or something happening right now in our own day, or something still yet future, we can still see in the beginning of verse 20 that God's reiterating his purpose to bring brothers from all the nations.
Micah McCormick: He's got a global purpose, just like he's had from the very beginning.
Micah McCormick: Helps to reiterate this.
Micah McCormick: Each one was born there.
Micah McCormick: Born in Zion.
Micah McCormick: No, they weren't.
Micah McCormick: Well, it's God's purpose and intention to bring people from all kinds of places and backgrounds to his own glorious family.
Micah McCormick: Ephesians 3, verse 6.
Micah McCormick: The Gentiles are co-heirs, members of the same body, partners in the promise of Christ Jesus through the gospel.
Micah McCormick: So there's this glorious, bright thread that mercy brings new creation.
Micah McCormick: But there's another necessary, dark part of this thread that God's judgment brings desolation.
Micah McCormick: Verse 14.
Micah McCormick: Look at the end of verse 14.
Micah McCormick: He will show his wrath against his enemies.
Micah McCormick: And then the next two verses give us more explanation of that.
Micah McCormick: Verse 15.
Micah McCormick: The Lord will come with fire.
Micah McCormick: His chariots are like the whirlwind to execute his anger with fury and his rebuke with flames of fire, for the Lord will execute judgment on all humanity with his fiery sword, and many will be slain by the Lord.
Micah McCormick: What do whirlwinds do?
Micah McCormick: They destroy things.
Micah McCormick: What does fire do?
Micah McCormick: It burns things up.
Micah McCormick: What do swords do?
Micah McCormick: They cut people into pieces.
Micah McCormick: This is the undoing of God's creation.
Micah McCormick: This is desolation and chaos.
Micah McCormick: And we've seen this kind of desolation described already in Isaiah.
Micah McCormick: Isaiah 34, listen to verse 4.
Micah McCormick: All the stars in the sky will dissolve, the sky will roll up like a scroll, and its stars will all wither as leaves on the vine.
Micah McCormick: When my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens, it will then come down on Edom and on the people I have set apart for destruction.
Micah McCormick: Here in Isaiah 66, the imagery that Isaiah gives us matches the imagery of God's original judgment in the Garden of Eden.
Micah McCormick: Remember, God expels Adam and Eve, and he places the cherubim to guard the way.
Micah McCormick: And it it says that the cherubim are given a flaming, whirling sword.
Micah McCormick: Genesis 324.
Micah McCormick: What do we find here in Isaiah 66, verses 15 and 16?
Micah McCormick: Whirlwind, flames, and a sword.
Micah McCormick: Part of what that shows us is the deepest form of God's judgment, the deepest experience of God's judgment, is alienation from God Himself, just like Adam and Eve had back in the garden when the angel blocked the way.
Micah McCormick: Yes, God's judgment includes physical pain.
Micah McCormick: Yes, it includes isolation.
Micah McCormick: But the most heartbreaking part of God's judgment for those who will experience it is they're cut off from knowing and enjoying the greatest of all beings.
Micah McCormick: So again, we need to keep in this chapter these threads of mercy and judgment side by side.
Micah McCormick: We can't improve on what He's given us here.
Micah McCormick: Thread number one, mercy comes to those who receive God's word, judgment comes to those who reject God's word.
Micah McCormick: And then thread number two, we just looked at mercy brings new creation, but judgment brings desolation.
Micah McCormick: And then one final thread this morning: mercy endures, and judgment endures.
Micah McCormick: We've been comparing and contrasting mercy and judgment here in this particular way, they run together.
Micah McCormick: They both are enduring.
Micah McCormick: Verse 22.
Micah McCormick: Just as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make will remain before me.
Micah McCormick: This is the Lord's declaration.
Micah McCormick: So your offspring and your name will remain.
Micah McCormick: All humanity will come to worship me from one new moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, says the Lord.
Micah McCormick: So if you're thinking today, God is merciful and He's shown mercy, and will it last?
Micah McCormick: Isaiah's answer is a resounding yes.
Micah McCormick: Yes, it will last.
Micah McCormick: And God's mercy takes us to a place that's beyond even what Adam and Eve had in the garden, because in God's mercy, there will one day come a time when we're never able to sin ever again.
Micah McCormick: There's no threat of a fall or God's judgment.
Micah McCormick: For those who know the Lord, for those who have embraced Jesus Christ, his mercy endures forever.
Micah McCormick: The enduring nature of heaven and earth, God promised to Noah, I'm not going to destroy the earth again with a flood.
Micah McCormick: He hasn't done that.
Micah McCormick: He has said he'll bring fire on the earth, but he's going to once more shake all things in order that what can't be shaken would remain.
Micah McCormick: The new heaven and new earth will endure, and God's people who enjoy this new creation will endure forever.
Micah McCormick: Think about the glory of unending worship.
Micah McCormick: I take it that we will never get a sore throat throughout all the worship of eternity.
Micah McCormick: We'll never have to stop singing and take a drink of water.
Micah McCormick: Maybe we will, I don't know, but you get the point.
Micah McCormick: Worship is going to be perfected in that new creation.
Micah McCormick: Now, I know some of you believe verse 23 refers to a temporary time period of a thousand years in the future.
Micah McCormick: So let everyone be fully persuaded in their own mind.
Micah McCormick: If that does happen, I think we can agree that that interlude would just be a precursor for an eternity of future worship.
Micah McCormick: What's a few hundred years compared to forever?
Micah McCormick: And that's what God is pushing us towards and setting up today is there's going to be mercy that endures forever and forever and forever.
Micah McCormick: And I think we can also agree that in some sense this this enduring mercy has begun now.
Micah McCormick: You yourselves, as living stones, a spiritual house are being built.
Micah McCormick: It's God's mercy that built us together.
Micah McCormick: But the way Peter describes it, we're being built to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Micah McCormick: And we do that each and every week.
Micah McCormick: Thank God for his mercy.
Micah McCormick: And his judgment endures.
Micah McCormick: Verse 24.
Micah McCormick: Their worm will never die.
Micah McCormick: Their fire will never go out.
Micah McCormick: It's the very same language our Lord uses in Mark 9, verse 47 and 48.
Micah McCormick: If your eye causes you to fall away, gouge it out.
Micah McCormick: It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.
Micah McCormick: Jesus borrowing these very words from Isaiah.
Micah McCormick: Kurt Cameron is just wrong on this one.
Micah McCormick: It's what our Lord says.
Micah McCormick: Now, if you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry about it.
Micah McCormick: If you're just reading your Bible and loving your neighbor and worshiping God, you can live a faithful life without knowing about every Christian podcast controversy.
Micah McCormick: So don't probably better that way, honestly.
Micah McCormick: You notice no one ever seems to question God's everlasting mercy.
Micah McCormick: It's always the everlasting judgment they question, not the mercy.
Micah McCormick: Why is that?
Micah McCormick: It's because we have sometimes a high view of ourselves and a low view of God.
Micah McCormick: Enduring judgment matches the problem of worship.
Micah McCormick: It matches the problem of the God whose word we've rejected.
Micah McCormick: We're not judged as finite beings merely because we sinned against some other finite beings.
Micah McCormick: We're judged because we've rejected the word of an infinite God.
Micah McCormick: That's not a small crime.
Micah McCormick: That's an infinite crime that is worthy of enduring punishment.
Micah McCormick: Isaiah ends his book that way with a sobering word of warning, and we do well to consider that.
Micah McCormick: All throughout this chapter, God's weaving together mercy and judgment.
Micah McCormick: Why does he do that?
Micah McCormick: You would think he might just talk about mercy for a while and then leave that aside and then talk about judgment or perhaps reverse it and end on the mercy note.
Micah McCormick: That's not what he chooses here.
Micah McCormick: It's back and forth throughout this passage.
Micah McCormick: Mercy, judgment, mercy, judgment.
Micah McCormick: Why does he do that?
Micah McCormick: To showcase his glory, certainly.
Micah McCormick: I don't know that I can give a full answer, but Paul gives us part of the answer in Romans.
Micah McCormick: Listen to what Paul says in Romans 9.
Micah McCormick: What if God, wanting to display his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience objects of wrath prepared for destruction?
Micah McCormick: What if he did this to make known the riches of his glory on objects of mercy that he prepared beforehand for glory, on us, the ones he called, not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles.
Micah McCormick: In our own lives, we can be all the more grateful for this water of God's mercy when we know that the soot of hell is right on us, too.
Micah McCormick: And it's it's near us, it's all there.
Micah McCormick: We can be more astonished at the wisdom and mercy of God throughout history when we see that all throughout history, God's judgment is right there as well.
Micah McCormick: And we see this pairing of mercy and judgment most exquisitely at the cross.
Micah McCormick: At the cross, Christ wasn't merely taking on some small finite sin that I committed by not obeying my parents one time when I was young.
Micah McCormick: I disobeyed more than that.
Micah McCormick: So at the cross, you have the fullest display of God's holy and righteous anger against sin.
Micah McCormick: You have judgment right to the fullness on the cross.
Micah McCormick: But then at the cross is also the place where you have this inexplicable mercy.
Micah McCormick: Because the justice and judgment that was required, God provided himself.
Micah McCormick: The very Son of God took on that weight of punishment so that all those who come in faith to him could be saved and rescued.
Micah McCormick: What an amazing display of mercy.
Micah McCormick: So we can look no further than the cross to see that, yes, we have to keep mercy and judgment perfectly together.
Micah McCormick: We can never do enough good things to earn God's mercy, but we can trust the Son who shed his precious blood for us.
Micah McCormick: I mentioned at the outset the sands of time are sinking with mercy and with judgment, my web of time he wove.
Micah McCormick: There's another verse to that song, and I'll quote it, and we're going to sing it in a moment.
Micah McCormick: This is verse number five in our hymnals.
Micah McCormick: Oh, I am my beloved's, and my beloved's mine.
Micah McCormick: He brings a poor vile sinner into his house of wine.
Micah McCormick: I stand upon his merit.
Micah McCormick: I know no other stand, not even where glory dwelleth in Emmanuel's land.
Micah McCormick: Let's pray.
Micah McCormick: God, we anticipate the glory of Emmanuel's land.
Micah McCormick: We don't think soberly enough about you in both your judgment and in your astonishing mercy.
Micah McCormick: But we want to know more of the weight of it in our souls.
Micah McCormick: We don't want to be blind to it.
Micah McCormick: We want it to grip our hearts and our lives, even through tears and laughter and everyday chores, that the eternal God would be the one who is underneath us, that the cross would be casting a light over all that we do, that the hope of the tomb and the resurrection would bring joy to our lives because we're objects of mercy.
Micah McCormick: Thank you, O God.
Micah McCormick: And we sing not only of future love, we sing of a present love.
Micah McCormick: We sing of the one who in mercy draws us with everlasting cords of kindness.
Micah McCormick: So even as we sing now to you, would you grant our hearts the ability to rejoice with trembling?
Micah McCormick: In Jesus' name.
Micah McCormick: Amen.