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Hear the word of the Lord,
    you who tremble at his word;
‘Your own people who hate you,
    and exclude you because of my name, have said,
“Let the Lord be glorified,
    that we may see your joy!”
    Yet they will be put to shame.
⁶ Hear that uproar from the city,
    hear that noise from the temple!
It is the sound of the Lord
    repaying his enemies all they deserve.

The opening words of this section link with the second part of verse 2. But honouring God’s Word may get you into trouble (yes, even in the church) with other ‘professing believers’ who don’t see it as you do. They feel free to take liberties with God’s Book. It has to be said that religious persecution can be mean and nasty and cynical, and even violent.

‘What finally divides the true from the false in the church is faithfulness or unfaithfulness to the word of God. Clinging to the promises of God will always seem fanatical and foolish to those who have abandoned them…Religion that loses its anchorage in the word of God either becomes pathetically ineffective, or turns into a monster. Persecution is always ugly, religious persecution especially so, and ecclesiasticism is its native soil.’ Barry Webb: ‘Isaiah’, p.247.

”I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.” (Jesus: Jn.17:14).

They have chosen their own ways,
    and they delight in their abominations;
⁴ so I also will choose harsh treatment for them
    and will bring on them what they dread.
For when I called, no one answered,
    when I spoke, no one listened.
They did evil in my sight
    and chose what displeases me.’

We have noted this point before, but it is worthy of repetition: we sometimes talk about the problem of unanswered prayer (or apparently unanswered). But God Himself repeatedly faces the problem of an un-answering people.

Why should we expect God to listen to our voices when we don’t listen to His? Mercifully, He does give us His attention, even though we are imperfect beings. But there are times when wilfully holding on to sin (or sins), and refusing to repent, will cause a blockage in our prayer life.

The Isaiah passage shows us that if we go our own way, even though we cover it in a veneer of ‘worship’, it will be ultimately disastrous – unless we turn back to God.

The God who wants our hearts also wants our ears!

PRAYER: ”Oh! give me Samuel’s ear, the open ear, O Lord, alive and quick to hear each whisper of thy word; like him to answer at thy call, and to obey thee first of all.” James Drummond Burns (from the hymn: ‘Hushed was the evening hymn’).

“Your acts of worship
    are acts of sin:
Your sacrificial slaughter of the ox
    is no different from murdering the neighbor;
Your offerings for worship,
    no different from dumping pig’s blood on the altar;
Your presentation of memorial gifts,
    no different from honouring a no-god idol.
You choose self-serving worship,
    you delight in self-centred worship—disgusting!
Well, I choose to expose your nonsense
    and let you realize your worst fears,
Because when I invited you, you ignored me;
    when I spoke to you, you brushed me off.
You did the very things I exposed as evil,
    you chose what I hate.” (The Message).

If you have a building, however glorious (whether it’s the temple or a church), but the people in it do not humble themselves before God and His Word, what you end up with is ”self-serving worship” and ”self-centred worship”. It is a ”form of godliness” but lacking the ”power” (2 Tim.3:5). J.B. Phillips translates this verse: ”They will maintain a facade of “religion”, but their conduct will deny its validity. ” There is something here to steer clear of. Tom Hale says that God ‘detests purely ritualistic acts of worship. He adds that in God’s eyes, such acts are equivalent to brutality and idolatry; they are abominations.’ ‘Applied Old Testament Commentary’, pp.1072,1073.

Barry Webb comments that Isaiah ‘…was not against the temple, but against ecclesiasticism, that ugly distortion of true religion which inevitably reasserts itself where there is no recognition of the greatness of God or heartfelt contrition before him (1-2). ‘Isaiah’, p.247.

Prayer: Dear Lord, how we want to worship you with our whole hearts. Cleanse our services; purify the hearts of the worshippers. Deliver us from ritualism. Cause us to bring to you not only the offering of our lips, but also our lives. When you speak, enable us to hear and obey. Help us to bring to you Spirit-led worship, anchored in your truth. For your glory.

 This is what the Lord says:

‘Heaven is my throne,
    and the earth is my footstool.
Where is the house you will build for me?
    Where will my resting-place be?
² Has not my hand made all these things,
    and so they came into being?’
declares the Lord.

‘These are the ones I look on with favour:
    those who are humble and contrite in spirit,
    and who tremble at my word.

In a sermon on Isaiah 66, the eminent Bible teacher, David Pawson, said words to this effect, ‘It’s not your building that will guarantee you the presence of God, but the kind of people you get in the building. It will have to do with their hearts and attitudes. You can spend huge amounts of time and money on a shiny new building, and it will not guarantee you God’s blessing. This was so under the Old Covenant, with regard to the temple. It remains the case today.

What is God looking for?

Jesus spelled it out in His conversation with the Samaritan woman, and it chimes with Isaiah 66:2:

 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. ²⁴ God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” (John 4:23,24).

What God is looking for turns out to be who God is looking for:

“But there is something I’m looking for:
    a person simple and plain,
    reverently responsive to what I say…” (The Message).

PRAYER: Oh Lord, may I be that person.

This is what the Lord says:

‘Heaven is my throne,
    and the earth is my footstool.
Where is the house you will build for me?
    Where will my resting-place be?
² Has not my hand made all these things,
    and so they came into being?’
declares the Lord.

God is so immeasurably great, so infinitely big, that He cannot be contained in a building. He who made all things could never be confined to a structure of our making. You couldn’t make a building large enough for God.

Stephen declares, in his sermon recorded in Acts 7:

”“However, the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands. As the prophet says:

 “‘Heaven is my throne,
    and the earth is my footstool.
What kind of house will you build for me?
says the Lord.
    Or where will my resting place be?
Has not my hand made all these things?’ (48-50).

At the dedication of the temple King Solomon said, in his prayer:

“But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!”

The rebuilding of the temple was a project which would occupy the returning exiles, on and off, for twenty years. Isaiah was not against this. Far from it. He ‘saw the future rebuilding of the temple as a sign of the approaching end, a sacrament of the coming kingdom. But at the same time he was painfully aware of the capacity of human beings to misuse it; to focus on the temple instead of the God of the temple, to corrupt it with perfunctory and impure worship. Isaiah understood very well that physical restoration was not enough. Unless there was spiritual renewal the future would simply repeat the sins of the past. He was not against the temple, but against ecclesiasticism, that ugly distortion of true religion which inevitably reasserts itself where there is no recognition of the greatness of God or heartfelt contrition before him (1-2). Where this is lacking, worship, in whatever building, becomes no better than pagan superstition, angering God and calling forth his righteous judgment (3-4).’ Barry Webb: ‘Isaiah’,pp.246/247.

I will answer them before they even call to me.
    While they are still talking about their needs,
    I will go ahead and answer their prayers! (NLT).

This probably refers to every need being met in the new creation. Nevertheless we do even now have remarkable foretastes of this truth in our own lives, where God meets a need even before we get to articulating it before Him. It is important to pray, but sometimes there can be wonderful answers to prayers not yet prayed.

‘God will anticipate their prayers with the blessings of his goodness. The father of the prodigal met him in his return. God’s readiness to hear prayer appears much more in the grace of the gospel than it did under the law.’ Matthew Henry.

“Look! I am creating new heavens and a new earth,
    and no one will even think about the old ones anymore. (NLT).

A couple of years ago I read a novel by Marilynne Robinson in which an old pastor, who knows his time is short, is writing to the young son born to him in old age. There are things he wants to say to his boy. At one point he says, ‘I think I will find it hard to leave this old world’ (or words to that effect). We may think, ‘That doesn’t sound very Christian.’ But if we are honest, at least some of us will resonate with them. The world, at its best, is so beautiful On some days, in some places, it might be hard to imagine anything more lovely. But the Bible assures us that there is infinitely more, and better, to come. Best of all, we will see the Lord Himself (Rev.22:4).

I think it was C.S. Lewis who encouraged us to think of it like this. A candle is lighting a room, but then daylight comes and overwhelms the limited light of the candle, so it is no longer needed. The greater has come flooding in superseded the lesser.

²⁰ “No longer will babies die when only a few days old.
    No longer will adults die before they have lived a full life.
No longer will people be considered old at one hundred!
    Only the cursed will die that young!
²¹ In those days people will live in the houses they build
    and eat the fruit of their own vineyards.
²² Unlike the past, invaders will not take their houses
    and confiscate their vineyards.
For my people will live as long as trees,
    and my chosen ones will have time to enjoy their hard-won gains.
²³ They will not work in vain,
    and their children will not be doomed to misfortune.
For they are people blessed by the Lord,
    and their children, too, will be blessed.
²⁴ I will answer them before they even call to me.
    While they are still talking about their needs,
    I will go ahead and answer their prayers!
²⁵ The wolf and the lamb will feed together.
    The lion will eat hay like a cow.
    But the snakes will eat dust.
In those days no one will be hurt or destroyed on my holy mountain.
    I, the Lord, have spoken!” (New Living Translation).

‘The contours of that new world open up here in ever-widening circles: from the mountains, plains and valleys of a renewed Palestine (9-10) to the new heavens and a new earth (17) with a new Jerusalem at its centre (18) – a cosmic paradise, one vast sanctuary from which everything harmful has been banished for ever (25)…It is a whole new order of things in which all political structures are transcended. It will be so new that the past will be forgotten entirely (17). The promised land will no longer be Canaan or Israel but the whole earth…The chapter ends with an unmistakable allusion to the final undoing of the work of the serpent who brought sin and death into the world in the first place (25). The new world will be history perfected and paradise regained, and it will be full of the modest and simple delights that God always intended us to have: joy (18), fullness of life (20), security (21-23a), rewarding work (22b), fellowship with God (23b-24), and peace (25).’ Barry Webb: ‘Isaiah’, pp.244,245.

It’s important to point out that the description of the ”new heavens” and ”new earth” in Isaiah are not exactly the same as that given in Revelation 21. For example, here in Isaiah, death will be delayed but not abolished. In John’s vision there will be ”no more death” (Rev.21:4).

Derek Kidner makes the observation that the new is depicted wholly in terms of the old, only without the old sorrows. He says the point of a hundred years old (20) is that in this new setting a mere century is so short, so vast is the scale. ‘But all this is expressed freely, locally and pictorially, to kindle hope rather than feed curiosity.’ ‘New Bible Commentary’, p.669.

Isaiah’s language points to miraculously long life and multiplied blessing, but it awaits the final book of the Bible to complete the picture. We might say that Isaiah draws the lines, but Revelation colours them in.

‘See, I will create
    new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered,
    nor will they come to mind.
¹⁸ But be glad and rejoice for ever
    in what I will create,
for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight
    and its people a joy.
¹⁹ I will rejoice over Jerusalem
    and take delight in my people;
the sound of weeping and of crying
    will be heard in it no more.

Three times God says, ”I will create”. In the words of a book title, ‘There’s a new world coming.’ God is its ”architect and builder” (Hebs.11:10).

Before the first ”I will create” God says ”See”. Even now, although we only glimpse it dimly, He wants us to have a faith sustaining/strengthening vision of things to come.

”Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Hebs.11:1).

2 Peter 3:13 provides a short summary of Isaiah 65:17-25:

”But in keeping with his promises we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.”

Which promises? Well Isaiah 65 surely contains one of them?

As Christians, we have no reason to lack hope. Christ has shown the trustworthiness of God and His Word.’ Chuck Colson.