Wisdom for Children Part 3
Submitted by Debbie’s Dad
Thus says the LORD, “Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool. Where then is a house you could build for Me? And where is a place that I may rest? “For My hand made all these things, Thus all these things came into being,” declares the LORD.
“But to this one I will look, To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.
(Isaiah 66:1–2NASB 1995)
In the past 2 weeks, we have looked at the verses in Matthew’s Gospel where Jesus emphasized that to accept His message and enter the Kingdom of God, a person must become as a child – humble and trusting. This emphasis was described by Isaiah in chapter 66 where the LORD described Himself as sitting on a throne, with His footstool being the earth He created (v.1) He asserts that as Creator, He does not need a house as a place to rest.
(You might ask, “Why then did the Israelites build a tabernacle in the wilderness, or a temple in Jerusalem?” The temple was even referred to as the “house of the Lord”–I Chronicles 6:31; II Kings 22:5; Psalm 122:1,9; Nehemiah 10:35; Isaiah 38:20 and many more passages. Of course, these were places where men and women could approach God because they needed a sense of God’s presence, a place of holiness, a reminder of God’s company with them. In this passage, God is pointing out it is not His need.)
But the LORD then asserts, as in Isaiah 57:15, that His place is with the humble:
“For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever, whose name is Holy,
“I dwell on a high and holy place, And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit,
In order to revive the spirit of the lowly And to revive the heart of the contrite.”
This is the place of the Lord–with the humble, lowly and contrite (remorseful over sin, repentant). The wisdom of childlike humility is reiterated in the New Testament in the passages we saw in Matthew in the past 2 weeks and in Luke’s Gospel where Jesus was sharing a parable about people competing for the most honored seats at a wedding banquet. He tells the listeners: “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 14:11)
And James reiterated this principle in his epistle:
Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you. (James 4:10)
Here is wisdom – to become wise is to become humble, and in that humility the Creator will come to dwell and give rest.