I want to read to us some verses here from Isaiah chapter 33 tonight. I want to begin reading tonight in chapter 33 and verse 10, where the Bible says, Now will I rise, saith the Lord. Now will I be exalted. Now will I lift up myself. Ye shall conceive chaff, ye shall bring forth stubble. Your breath as fire shall devour you, and the people shall be as the burning of lime. As thorns cut up, shall they be burned in the fire. Hear you that are far off what I have done, and ye that are near, acknowledge my might. The sinners in Zion are afraid. Fearfulness have surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? He that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly, he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, Excuse me. And shutteth his eyes from seeing evil. He shall dwell on high. His place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks. Bread shall be given him. His water shall be sure. Thine eyes shall see the king and his beauty. They shall behold the land that is far off. Very far off. Thine heart shall meditate terror. Where is the scribe? Where is the receiver? Where is he that counted the towers? Thou shalt not see a fierce people. A people of deeper speech than thou canst perceive. Of a stammering tongue that thou canst not understand. The context of these verses that I have just read to you from is the prophecy concerning the good king Hezekiah's reign. Hezekiah is one of the great spiritual leaders in the history of the people of God. And here is a prophecy concerning his reign. And it's something that develops in the next few chapters chapters 36 and 37 in this book, and it concerns Assyria and their king, Sennacherib, and how his armies will come to Jerusalem and how they will defy the people of God. In fact, later we find that God takes it as a defiance of he himself. And in the midst of this invasion, the people will pray, and that's all in this prophecy. They'll call out to God, and God will answer them and do a thing that had never been seen before, a tremendous miracle, the slaying of 185,000 people, soldiers, in one night. Sometimes, We're busy looking for how God's going to do something instead of just trusting him to do it. Hezekiah and them were up against it. They were being invaded here in the 37th chapter. They're being threatened and they call upon God. And God does it in a way that they would have never expected it. Sends his angel and destroys Sennacherib's army. You see all of this developing. I will not take the time to look at it all. But the threat comes to them in the 36th chapter. And the people are told not to let Hezekiah convince you that God will deliver you. Don't let him convince you to trust God. But the people hold their peace. And Hezekiah in chapter 37 covers himself with sackcloth, verse 1 tells us, and goes to the house of God. And then he sends for the prophet Isaiah, that's in chapter 2, and lays before him all that's going on. And calls upon him to lift up his prayer to God in verse 4. And Isaiah tells him in verse 6, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid of what you've heard, of the words that have come here, how the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me, saith the Lord. He says, I'm going to call for them. I'm going to Send a warning that something's happening back in their land. They're going to leave. Well, sure enough, that's what happens. But they leave a message and they say, don't let Hezekiah deceive you because we're leaving. We're coming back. And don't let him tell you that Jerusalem's not going to fall. It is going to fall. And then he makes the mistake that others have made. He compares God to the gods of the nations. Verse 12. In Chapter 37, have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed? And he names all of these. And then in verse 14, Hezekiah again goes up to the house of the Lord. And he spreads all of these words that they have threatened them with before the Lord. Verse 15 says he prays unto the Lord. And in that prayer, He acknowledges all that the Assyrians have done to all of the people and all they've done to all of the gods that they've come up against. But then he says in verse 19, but for they were no gods. They defeated, yes, the others because their God was not God. It was not a God. And then he cries out now, therefore, Lord, our God, save us. That's verse 20. Now Isaiah comes again. in verse 21 to Hezekiah and encourages him that they have reproached and blasphemed the Holy One of Israel in verse 23. And God is going to deal with them. That their rage is against God himself. And he's going to destroy them. Look how he puts it in verse 33. Therefore, thus saith the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shields, nor cast a bank against it. By the way that he came, by that same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord. And I will defend this city to save it from my own namesake and for my servant David's sake." I love that. I love how he puts it. The way he came, that's the way he's going. He's not coming into this city. I'm going to make sure of that, God says. Then, verse 36, the angel of the Lord went forth and smote in the camp of the Assyrians 104 score and 5,000. 185,000. And when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpse. And Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh. And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adramelech and Sharizar his sons, smote him with the sword, and they escaped into the land of Arminia. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead. That's the account of what actually happened. Chapter 33, is the prophecy of that. Now, what you see in verse 14 is a response to that. The sinners in Zion are afraid. Fearfulness has surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? And this is prophetic of what we see later in this book. And what you see is these hypocrites in Zion, these sinners in Zion, when they see the wrath of God poured out, when they see the fire of God, as it were, devour 185,000 people and leave them as corpses dead, Then they began to fear and tremble, and they began to ask the question, who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? And who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? I think there is some indication in that, in that house that Akram's army was killed. The angel went out and killed them, but he went out and killed them, destroyed them with fire. It's really interesting to study fire and God's consuming of people throughout the Bible. In fact, our God is called a consuming fire. It was as a fire, a burning torch that the covenant with Abraham was made in the 15th chapter of the book of Genesis. It was a burning bush that Moses beheld when he heard the voice speaking and God began to speak to him. It was with fire that he consumed 250 of those rebels in the wilderness. It was with fire that Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed. We see that same image of fire when they come to Mount Sinai and the holiness of God and the commandments and all of that setting. You see this concept of fire and burning. You follow all through the Bible. It's that way, that our God is a consuming, burning fire. And what this is prophetically, that they have seen, here are these people now, the hypocrites and the sinners, they've now had an indication. They've become conscious of God's might and God's holiness. And their response is natural. They say, who among us shall dwell with the everlasting burnings. And that's the question tonight. To think about God and His devouring, as a devouring fire, as His might and His holiness and His judgment and become conscious of that. And you begin to ask the question, who will dwell with the everlasting burnings? People talk so glibly about God. You and I ought to be careful how we talk about God, because many times it indicates that we don't know anything about God. That's all it does. All it does is reveals that our whole Christian life is a surface thing. It's glib. When a man really knows God, he'll begin to think different about God. He'll begin to talk different about God. He'll begin to be careful about the things of God. Get a hold of who God is. It'll change your idea about this book. This is God's Word. Change your idea about this house. We didn't come to just any place tonight. We came to God's house. Change your idea about prayer. Well, you're not talking to just anybody. You're not talking to the man upstairs. You're talking to God. You see, And I think it is because we have not had a consciousness of God that is spoken of in this chapter that we are glib at times. And we have the language down, but we lack the fear, the reverence that we see in this verse. This is just a natural response. Verse 10 says, God is going to rise, and now he has. And his action has caused people to tremble. We're going to talk about this and in the camp this week. It's going to be an emphasis in our camp on the very nature of God. And we're doing it. We feel it's important. I believe it's important that we think about the God. We throw this word awesome around. We haven't even began to comprehend what that word awesome is. Go back to the book of Job and you hear Job talking. And he's talking about when he would like to see God and he would like to ask God questions and talk to God. But then all of a sudden, God appears. And all of a sudden, Job is speechless. And his friends are speechless. And all Job can say is, I have heard about God, but now I've seen God. That's the difference. Who shall dwell with everlasting burnings? It's this idea that now I get a concept of the holiness of God, of the might. You see how he said it there in chapter 33. He said in verse 13, Hear ye that are far off what I have done, and ye that are near, acknowledge my might. And then it's the sinners are Afraid here they've seen now who God is. There's nothing better that could happen for us. In our own personal life is to come here and to understand who God is. There's nothing more important to the church of Jesus Christ that has become so humanistic in its approach, so man centered instead of God centered. There's nothing more important in our day that somehow we could come back to the The greatness that is our God. The awesomeness that is our God. The fear of our God. Who shall dwell with everlasting burnings. I first heard that statement from A.W. Tozer in his preaching and in his books. And I was reading the book of Isaiah just this week. My reading is taking me through the book of Isaiah right now. And it began to burn in my heart. I thought, wonder what this is about. And I began to study it. and find out it really was prophetic and it dealt with Hezekiah, the good king, and it dealt with this assault that was going to come, and it dealt with that people were going to pray like we see there in the 37th chapter. And then God was going to move. And as a result of it, there would be this reverence and fear that would begin to take place. America is very religious, but it knows very little about God. If it did, it wouldn't make the movies it makes about God. Wouldn't make these silly movies about Noah's Ark and all those things I see advertised. Wouldn't do that. People would be, listen, people would be a little slower to write books, too. You write things in books, those things are going to live on after you die. Be very careful about writing books. We'd be very careful about those kind of things, wouldn't we? If we really knew and thought about who God is. Well, Notice what it says here. Who shall dwell with the everlasting burnings? He answers the question for us. And this question is answered throughout the book. He that walketh righteously. Verse 15. He that speaketh rightly. He that despiseth the gain of oppressions. That shaketh his hands from holding of bribes. That stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood. And shutteth his eyes from evil. All of the things after the first statement are and enlargement of what he means by walking up righteously. And so who shall dwell with the everlasting burnings? Who shall abide with God? Who shall dwell with God? He that walketh uprightly. He that walketh righteously. That's the same message throughout the whole book. Same message I preached here last Sunday morning when we talked about righteousness. It's the same message. He that walketh righteously, he that speaketh righteously, he that is not greedy, that despises the gain that comes from injustice or oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes. He's an honest person. He stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood. He doesn't like to hear about what evil people do. He doesn't like to hear about what Sennacherib does. He doesn't like to hear about those conquests. He doesn't want to have anything to do with the shedding of blood. He that shutteth his eyes from evil, he shall dwell on high. Now is he that walks righteously. This, I say, is through the Bible. Let me take you to Psalm 15. Psalm 15. Who shall abide in the tabernacle? in thy tabernacle, who shall dwell in thy holy hill. He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart, he that backbite him not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor, in whose eyes a vile person is condemned, But he honoreth them that fear the Lord, he that sweareth to his own hurt, and changes not. That is, a man gives his word, and he finds out later it's going to cost him. He wished he hadn't given his word, but he's a man of integrity. He does what he tells people he'll do. He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved. As I look at those verses, as I read them every month, on the third day of the month, they hold my attention, I tell you. I'm arrested every month at this chapter. And every month it searches my heart on that third day of the month as I come to this chapter. Because I, I want to abide in His tabernacle. I want to dwell in the holy hill. And I think you do. We in this room, we want to walk with God. We want to know God. We certainly one day want to be in the presence of God. But he again focuses upon those who walk righteously. And then he describes what is it to walk righteously. He begins to enumerate certain things. This is not an exhaustive list. But it is a list. The Bible's fond of lists. Have you ever noticed that? Have you ever noticed the Bible doesn't just say the works of the flesh will take you to hell? The Bible says these are the works of the flesh, and it lays it out for you. The Bible not only says God will produce fruit in your life, but it gives you a list. It tells you what He'll do. The Bible's fond of lists. They're never exhaustive, but they're always indicative of a nature of a certainty, the nature of the works of the flesh, the nature of the fruit of the Spirit. Well, what does it mean to walk up righteously, preacher? Oh, it affects the way you talk, the way you speak, the way you treat others. It goes to honesty and integrity and decency. Man says, you know, business is one thing and Christianity is another. No, Christianity is not another. You're another. The person who says that's another. But a Christian man, he doesn't put it in a context. He's a righteous man. He's an honest man. He's a man of integrity wherever he is. That marks the man. He doesn't make cases like that. Look at the 24th chapter. I'm telling you, this is a theme throughout the book. It's a wonderful presentation of the theme. Verse 1, the earth is the Lord's. and the fullness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded upon the seas and established upon the floods. Who shall ascend to the hill of the Lord? Who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully, he shall receive the blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. It's the same thing. It's consistent throughout the Bible. Who shall ascend? Who shall stand in the holy place? Who will ascend into the hill of the Lord? Oh, the man who has clean hands. And we know he's not talking about that you wash your hands with soap. He's not talking about that. He's talking about the idea of a righteous life again. His hands are clean. His heart is pure. He has not lifted up his soul in pride. He's not given His word deceitfully. The blessing of the Lord is upon integrity. Now, follow that on through to the New Testament. Go to James 4. It's the same message. I'm always amazed that these folks that split the Bible up all these different ways with all their systems, as if there's a different God in the Old Testament than a God in the New Testament, as if Under grace, God all of a sudden changed personalities. God never changes. What God has been, He is. And what He is, He will be. That changes nothing. What grace does, watch, what grace does is provide a way for the forgiveness of our sin that we can approach a holy God. What grace does is makes a way of forgiveness to our life, where the Holy God then can come and live in us and reproduce His holiness in us. That's what grace does. Grace takes us from where we were to the nearness of God. It makes a path for that. It makes a way for that. But the God that we approach is always the same. He's ever the same. Holy. Look at James 4, this wonderful passage in the New Testament. where the Bible says in verse 7, Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Sounds like something we just read, doesn't it? Sounds like Psalm 24. It is. You look at it, it's the same message. Well, we want to draw nigh to God. I think probably there's agreement in this room among you that are saved. You want to walk with God. I think we all that know the Lord, we're disappointed probably to where we've come to this point in our life. We expect more. We want more. I think the dreams of youth are there. When you're young, you have this excitement. You have this vision. of doing something for God, being used with God, walking with God, talking with God, all those things. And then so often as we get older, we lose that fire for those things. We lose that excitement for those things. But I trust tonight there's many of you in this room. You want to draw night to God. Assume that, that you want to walk with God. Well, He tells us what's essential to that. How can a person draw nigh to God? How can a person be near to God? Well, he certainly has to resist the devil. He has to stand against the devil. He certainly has to submit himself to God. That goes to the very heart of the thing. That a man has humbled himself. But notice he says, cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Do you see that? He's talking about righteousness again. Cleanse your hands. and purify your hearts. In a sense, the cleansing of the hands. We think of what's outward. But then we think with the purifying of the heart what's inward. But then he emphasizes this idea of a double mind. Here's the problem. Here's always the problem. Here's been my problem. I confess to you. I like what the psalmist said. Lord, unite my heart to fear you. And I've often prayed that prayer. Lord, unite my heart Lord, help me to have one heart. Help me to have one focus. Help me to have one eye, a single eye. But the problem is double-minded. You're torn one way and you're torn another. I've seen many, many people make spurts and jumps at drawing nigh to God. But the problem came down to this last thing. They couldn't keep their vision so focused on Him. It was the double-minded. Here they have meetings with God. We have services. Maybe there's emotion. Maybe there's power. Maybe it's revival. And they mean well. I've seen some of them come to the altar again and again and again. The problem is they were never single-focused. And when they walk out the doors, there's the world. And when they go to the job, there's the world. And they're double-minded. You'll never find God in a double-minded state. You'll never get near to God, to your single focus. Read Philippians chapter 3, where Paul says, this one thing I do, forgetting those things that are behind me, reaching forth to those things before me. I'm pressing toward that mark. This one thing. This one thing. Oh, I know that you have to work a job. I know that in our life we have to make provision. But I don't care what we do. Our whole life as a Christian should have this focus to know God. That should be our one ambition in life, is to be what He wants us to be, and to be near to Him. I can say this to you because I know many of you know this. Isn't it wonderful to be near God? Isn't it wonderful to be alone with God? Isn't it wonderful to just have nothing but your Bible and God? And God come near. Isn't it wonderful when His Spirit fills your spirit? When you have what Paul spoke about, joy in the Holy Ghost. You say, you believe in that? I long for it. I love it. I want it. I want the joy in the Holy Ghost. I want to be alone. I don't want anybody have to incite it. Now listen, I love it. Being a service, I love it. Being a worship service, But the thing about the wonderful Christian life, you and I can draw nigh to Him, along with Him. Remember the song there? Days I like to be all alone with Christ my Lord. Isn't that wonderful? Well, here He tells us what? Cleanse your hands, purify your heart, your double mind to be afflicted, mourn and weep. I think there's going to have to be some of that if we're going to draw nigh to God. We're going to have to mourn about our sin. We're going to have to weep about our condition. We're going to have to let our laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. You say, I don't see that in drawing nigh to God. No, that's what He says. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up. Isn't that what He says? It takes some mourning. It takes some weeping. It takes some putting laughter away. It takes some heaviness. But my friend, out of that, there comes great joy. Great joy. So he tells us, who shall dwell with the everlasting burnings? There's so many verses. Jesus spoke the principle in John 14 and 15. He told us in verse 23, Jesus answered and said unto him, if a man love me, he will keep my words. Listen to this. And my Father will love him. And we will come unto him and make our abode with him." You see that? If a man loved me, what will he do? He'll keep my words. And what will happen then? My Father will love him. And we will come unto him. And we'll make our home, our abiding place, with him. I thought, pondered, Chapter 14, 15, 16. I think of my three favorite chapters in the Gospel of John, and maybe even in the Gospels. Many times I've just taken them, those three chapters, and read them over again and again, trying to fully grasp what Jesus is saying. And it seems to me it comes right down to this. If you love Me, you'll keep My words. If you keep My words, My Father will love you and will come to you and make... Me and my Father will make our home with you. Look at chapter 15, verse 10. If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in His love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. It's always the same. As the songwriter said it, trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey. You come back to Isaiah 33, who will dwell with the everlasting burnings? He that walketh righteously. David's talking about holiness for testimony's sake, and I so agree with that. And I appreciate that. And I think every one of us ought to be concerned about our testimony. Our name is associated with our families, and our name is associated with our church, and our name is associated with our Lord. But my friend, here is a great motive for holiness also, a great motive for righteousness. Who shall dwell with the everlasting burnings? Who shall abide with Him? Once you have a picture of the holiness of God, once you have a picture of the might of God. Once you have a picture of the greatness that is your God, then you would understand, we would all understand, that if we're going to walk with Him, we're going to have to walk apart. If we're going to walk with God, we're going to have to walk apart from this world. If we're going to walk with God, we're going to have to be out of step with this world. We can't be double-minded. We can't be here and there. It's one thing. It's the most important thing. Then he tells us prophetically in this passage. Verse 17, that I shall see the king in his beauty. Most of the translations, I think, probably today would capitalize the word king there, and they would understand that not only is speaking of Hezekiah, they would that his glory would go on after Sennacherib had said all he would do. And once Sennacherib was defeated, They'd see the King Hezekiah in His glory, in His beauty. But as I say, most of the translations understand also that this is prophetic. That those who walk righteously, they will see the King in His beauty. And then he says, they shall behold the land that's very far off. They shall behold the land. And of course, Sennacherib had them all caged in. He had surrounded the city. He'd cut off the resources and he was going to destroy Jerusalem. And this is a prophecy. Don't worry. When all this is done, not only will you see the king in his beauty, but you won't be shut up in this city. You'll see the far off land. But I think the writers understand rightly that Isaiah always seems to have two things in view, or often does. He often looks at one thing and then he's looking at another. He didn't understand it always. But the land that's far off would be the land that we call the land that's fairer than day. That by faith we can see afar. And he's describing the blessing that will come to those who walk righteously. Those who walk righteously will dwell with everlasting burnings. Those who walk righteously will see the King in His beauty, and they'll see the land that's so far off. I was just thinking, just as I said that. I don't know if you ever do it. Do you ever sit around and muse, muse, think a while, wonder just what Jesus looks like? You ever catch yourself just wondering what He's going to look like? I was having thoughts like that last night. It was a blessing to my heart just for to think about it. What he's going to look like, and I don't know. I don't know. But I want to see the king in his beauty. And I want to see that land that's so far off. I want to dwell with the everlasting burnings. I think this text is true in the present. You're going to dwell with the everlasting burnings. You're going to dwell with God. You're going to have to step outside. You might take what Hebrews says. Let's go outside the gate to Him. Jesus is outside the gate. Let's go out there to Him. Read that in Hebrews 13 later. Let's go out to Him. You want to walk with God, young people? You're not going to walk in step. with this world. Their values are not God's values. Their desires are not God's. They talk with a glibness about God. Oh, God is awesome and all of that. If you're going to walk with God, you're going to walk apart. I'd say to you, if you walk with God, you're going to walk alone. You're going to walk some lonely days. You're going to be misunderstood. You're going to be judged and be accused of judging. It'll go both ways. But anybody that thinks they're walking with God. That aren't walking, that is not walking apart. is just fooling themselves. You won't walk with God with a double mind. You won't walk with God without a decided purpose, did you so? God is not like man. God is sacred, I mean, holy. Sacred is the right word. His very name is sacred. Do you know something tonight? It is our privilege to walk with God rather than his privilege to have us walk with him. It is our privilege to know him, not his privilege to know us. I was trying to think last night or last night, laying on the couch and a fly was bothering me. And I couldn't sleep. Yesterday afternoon, I went to take a nap. I finally decided if I was going to have a nap, I might as well get rid of that fly. I'll be honest, there's more than one fly. I've lost children. I got me a fly swatter. And I got my fly and I got my nap. I laid there, I thought about that fly. I thought, you know, I wonder what's the difference between that fly to me and me to God. That's why I sat in there thinking. It was nothing for me to swat that fly. There's nothing for me for that fly to be done. And yet I know something. Somehow. I'm different to God than that flies to me. God has given me a mind and a heart to love him with. He wants my love and I don't understand that. God's not pushed. He's willing to have a remnant. He's willing to have the few that will come apart, that will go outside the gate, who will dwell with the everlasting burnings. I don't know what it is to you, but it's troubling to be about my own life. I'm trying to learn something about what James meant about mourning and weeping. You say something, you say, I shouldn't have said that. You think something, you say, I shouldn't have thought that. You look at something, you say, I shouldn't have looked at that. It puts you caught off tight on yourself. The Bible calls it tight. Who should dwell with the everlasting burnings? He that walks upright. We don't earn our salvation. It's been merited by Christ on the cross. But God in our salvation did not make a way for unholy men to have fellowship with a holy God. God in our salvation made a way that we might have forgiveness, that He might have relationship with us, that His Holy Spirit may produce in us a holiness. It's true in the present, and it's true in the eternal. The Bible is so clear, nobody's going to heaven that lives in wickedness. He said, well, I've been saved. What makes you so sure you've been saved? What makes a man so sure he's been saved when he can use foul language? What makes a man so sure he's been saved when he can commit adultery on his wife? What makes a person so sure they're saved when they can treat their parents without honor and without care. What makes a man say he's saved? Treats his wife less than an animal. We're glib. We're glib. What's by grace, brother? Oh, the same grace that brings salvation teaches us to not ungodliness and worldly lusts. Who shall dwell with the everlasting burnings is what I'm saying. I know that we're not perfect. I'm not saying we are, but I'm saying tonight, if you want to walk with God, you're going to have to walk apart. You're going to have to go outside the gate. You're going to have to take your stand with Him. You draw nigh to Him, He'll draw nigh to you. You take a step toward Him, He'll take one toward you, two steps closer. There's no greater privilege in this world than to know God. I want to know Him. You want to know Him. What prevents us? Who should dwell with the everlasting burnings? He that walks righteously. It got burned in our heart. But it does matter. It does matter. We're talking about God.