Sunday Morning, August 23, 2020 AM

It is good to see everyone this morning. Welcome to Sunnyside Baptist Church. We are grateful that the Lord has brought you here this morning and I look forward to our worshiping him together and pray that we would do so in spirit and in truth to the glory of Christ.

So again, we're glad that you're here and we wanna welcome you this morning. In your bulletin, there are some announcements just to make you aware of. Our offering plate is in the back on the table back there.

So we won't be passing that, but if you have an offering to bring to the Lord this morning, just be sure to put that in the plate on the back table and grateful that we can do that and bless the Lord by doing so this morning.

This evening, we'll have our evening service at 5 .30, but we will not have truth group after the evening service tonight, so I want you to be mindful of that. This morning, we have the opportunity to share in the Lord's Supper and you should find there in your pew, in front of you by the hymnals, communion that has been pre-prepared and ready for you.

If you need gluten-free, that is available out in the foyer. There's a table in the foyer where you can pick up gluten-free communion if you need that. But I do need to give instruction again just to remind us that when the time comes for communion, that there are two layers to peel off here.

So there's one really thin layer on the top that you peel off to get to the bread, and then the foil layer to peel off to get to the grape juice. So be mindful of that when the time comes to take those one at a time and that's how you get to both parts there of our communion this morning.

Before Dwight leads us in prayer and preparation for worship, just want to remind you of what our fighter verse is this week. Colossians chapter four, verse six. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer each person.

So may God give us grace to be gracious in our speech and in our actions that we might be a blessing to others and point them to Christ. So we encourage you in these moments here as we begin our worship service to take some time just to be still before the Lord, to spend time just praying, asking God to draw near.

If you have sin to confess, this is a good time to do that, to ask the Lord to help us to focus our hearts and our minds upon him and upon his goodness and mercy in the person of Christ, our Savior. So if you would bow your heads and just take some time to pray and ask the Lord to draw near and then Dwight will lead us in prayer.

Father, Father, how good you are, how holy, thrice holy, holy, holy, holy. High and lifted up and yet you reach down to us. You draw near to those of humble heart to forgive, to forgive. How good you are to send your son, your only son, to give his life that we might be forgiven, that we might have life, life abundant, life eternal.

How good you are to us to reach down and save sinners, sinners that are now forgiven. May we be grateful. May we offer up to you the thanksgiving, the sacrifices of thanksgiving and praise and glory and honor.

May we put aside all that which is earthly within us this morning. Put aside the distractions of this world and focus on you. Set our minds, our hearts on you, your goodness, your holiness, your son, the Lord Jesus, our savior.

Help us to worship in spirit and in truth. To sing your praises, help us to pray, help us to sing and help us to love one another as you love us. In Jesus name, amen.

I invite you to stand with me in worship as we have a call to worship here that is responsive in nature. You'll notice leader and congregation and then some of the parts of Psalm 46 verses four through seven will be all of us reading.

And so I invite you to participate in this with me. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God. God is in the midst of her. God will help her when morning dawns. The nations rage, the kingdoms totter.

The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress.

The words to the first song are in your bulletin on the second page, the adjoining page. Holy is he. And then we'll go to 262, holy, holy, holy.

Please take those in hand and turn to the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy. So it's the fifth book in the Bible, Deuteronomy chapter 15. And we'll be reading the whole chapter this morning for our scripture reading.

Deuteronomy chapter 15, starting in verse one. At the end of every seven years, you shall grant a release. And this is the manner of the release. Every creditor shall release what he has lent to his neighbor.

He shall not exact it of his neighbor, his brother, because the Lord's release has been proclaimed. Of a foreigner, you may exact it, but whatever of yours is with your brother, your hand shall release.

But there will be no poor among you, for the Lord will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess. If only you will strictly obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all this commandment that I command you today.

For the Lord your God will bless you as he promised you, and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow, and you shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you. If among you, one of your brothers should become poor in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be.

Take care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart, and you say, the seventh year, the year of release is near, and your eye look grudgingly on your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cried to the Lord against you, and you be guilty of sin.

You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him. Because for this, the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake, for there will never cease to be poor in the land.

Therefore, I command you, you shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor in your land. If your brother, a Hebrew man or Hebrew woman, is sold to you, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh year, you shall let him go free from you.

And when you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty-handed. You shall furnish him liberally out of all your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your wine press. As the Lord your God has blessed you, you shall give to him.

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you. Therefore, I command you this day, but if he says to you, I will not go out from you, because he loves you and your household, since he is well off with you, then you shall take an awl and put it through his ear into the door, and he shall be your slave forever.

And to your female slave, you shall do the same. It shall not seem hard to you when you let him go free from you, for at half the cost of a hired servant, he has served you six years. So the Lord your God will bless you in all that you do.

All the firstborn males that are born of your herd and flock, you shall dedicate to the Lord your God. You shall do no work with the firstborn of your herd, nor shear the firstborn of your flock. You shall eat it, you and your household, before the Lord your God, year by year, at the place that the Lord will choose.

But if it has any blemish, if it is lame or blind, or has any serious blemish whatever, you shall not sacrifice it to the Lord your God. You shall eat it within your towns. The unclean and the clean alike may eat it as though it were a gazelle or a deer.

Only you shall not eat its blood. You shall pour it out on the ground like water. May God bless the reading of his word this morning. Would you pray with me? Lord God Almighty, as we read your word this morning, we see in this passage your great grace, your mercy, your loving kindness, in releasing people from indebtedness.

And Lord, we are reminded in your grace in releasing people from debt of how you have freed us by faith in Christ from the debt that we could not ever pay, the debt of our sin. Lord, this morning we give you thanks for Jesus, the one who frees us from sin, from guilt, from your wrath.

Lord, we rejoice this morning in your faithfulness, in your loving kindness, in the person and work of Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross. Lord, your word tells us that all who look to Jesus will not be ashamed.

So we thank you for erasing the debt of our sin, removing it from us as far as the East is from the West, because Christ paid our debt in his body on the tree. We give you thanks, we give you praise, we give you glory and honor.

In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated.

Good morning. I'd like to start off by thanking the Lord for his faithfulness and that he chooses in his grace to work in our hearts and our lives and our children's lives. As most of you know, this is Emily.

And several years ago, she, the Lord Jesus, as her Lord and her Savior. And today she's here to follow him in baptism. It's my joy to baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

All you dads and daughters, you can cry now. This morning, we're gonna sing Is He Worthy, an Andrew Peterson composed song. I would like to also at this time, thank my daughter, Jana Brown, for how she takes the songs selected each week and she links them to YouTube.

And for those of you who are able to watch that, I hope that this one this week was humbling to you. Andrew Peterson was at the Sing Conference. And if you notice when he finished the song, he very quickly and humbly walked off stage.

He didn't do it for his credit. He did it to praise the Lord. So as you sing this, I want you to come to it with a humbleness and a gratitude. Because he is worthy, is he not? Broken, feel the shadows deepen

Won't stop the light from getting through Wish that we could see it all made new Is all creation groaning, humming Of the Lord to be the light within our midst

The Holiness of God in Isaiah's Vision

To Isaiah 6, reading verses one through seven. Here in a moment. Isaiah 6, verses one through seven. It is in this passage where we hear of Isaiah's vision. The Lord high and lifted up on his throne, in his temple, at the Seraphic choir, singing, holy, holy, holy.

This mountaintop experience comes after an avalanche of bad news. The kingdom has been split for several generations. Idolatry has plagued the North and the South. God has declared doom for his people.

For his people have defiled his place and rebelled against his rule. In chapter one of Isaiah, God has diagnosed his people as thoroughly putrid. The whole body is riddled with gain green. There's no hope.

He has taken to calling them Sodom and Gomorrah. So you know it's getting bad. In chapter five, he has described them as his vineyard, which he excellently provided for. Did everything anyone would ever need to do to ensure that a vineyard would grow, do well and provide abundant fruit.

And yet they have only produced worthless fruit. And so he has slated the vineyard for destruction. Judah had lived long under the rule of a king named Uzziah. His father Ahaziah ruled well at first, but eventually turned to idolatry and then was assassinated.

Uzziah began to reign at 16 years old and he reigned for 52 years. And although he did well at the beginning, when he grew strong and powerful, it all went to his head. And he tried to enter the temple.

He simply entered the temple to burn incense rather than allow the priests to do their job. And so God struck him with leprosy and he had to be isolated to the end of his days. And so Uzziah was cut off from his people in the worship of God.

He was forsaken among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave and are remembered no more. His son Jotham judged the people in his father's absence until the day that he died. And it is in this year, 758 years before Christ, that Isaiah has this vision here in Isaiah 6 verses 1 -7.

And he does not see Jotham on the throne, succeeding his father's failed rule. And he does not see Jerusalem's temple purified from Uzziah's desecration. He sees someone else on the throne and he is enthroned in a fiery temple.

Isaiah does not see merely the earthly copies, but he sees the heavenly glories. And it's time. It's time to think about a new beginning. After all, 758 was the 14th year of Jubilee since the entry into the land of Canaan under Joshua.

And so it's time to think about a new beginning and it's time to think about cleansing and forgiveness. Jubilee, after all, begins on the eve of the day of atonement. And all of this is in the background.

All of this is the frame. So now if you will stand with me, I will read the portrait, the picture within the frame. The words of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through his prophet Isaiah. Isaiah 6, 1 -7, these are the words of our Lord.

In the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted with the train of his robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above him, each having six wings. With two he covered his face and with two he covered his feet and with two he flew.

And one called out to another and said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out while the temple was filling with smoke.

And then I say, woe is me for I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then one of the Seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs.

He touched my mouth with it and said, behold, this has touched your lips and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven. This is the word of the Lord, you may be seated. Father, we come before you this morning.

I just want to pray again and ask for you to bless our time in your word. And help us to understand your holiness to some degree, oh Father, we are at your mercy. Help us to fear you as we ought, to rejoice in you as we ought.

Give us an understanding of your holiness this morning from this text. Help us to see Christ, that our hope may be secure in him. We pray these things for his sake, amen. I want us to think about how Isaiah's vision, how his vision of God's holiness harmonizes with the gospel pictures that we see here this morning, that of baptism and that of the Lord's Supper.

Baptism shows us the picture of Christ's death and burial and resurrection. By faith we are united to the saving person and works of Christ. If we're united to Christ the person, we are united with his saving acts for us in our place and for our sake.

As he died and was buried and was raised, so it is with those who are in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone. But why the need at all? Why the need to die? Why does anybody have to die with Christ and then be buried?

And why the need for resurrection? Because of God's holiness. Because of God's holiness. How can we abide with our holy creator in our filthy sin? We have to be undone to be remade in God's holy image.

Salvation you see means communion with God who is light and in him there is no darkness at all. Thus we need the broken body and the shed blood of Jesus Christ. We have to humble ourselves in eating this meal this morning, confessing our sins and our need for the cross of Jesus Christ.

We are in need of his life in us. He is our holy food. He is our holy drink lest we die forever. And so the point of the ordinances and the point of this passage is just this. The holiness of God undoes sinful man.

The holiness of God undoes sinful man. Begin in verses one through four. Consider the sights that Isaiah saw that led to his confession in verse five. Then the response from the seraphim. As we hear this threefold antiphonal praise from the seraphic choir, holy, holy, holy.

We would do well this morning to join in with them in fearful worship. Holy is what God reveals about himself. Holy is what God requires from his creatures. Holy is how God redeems for himself a people.

Here in the first four verses, we are considering how the holiness of God is manifested. Verse five, we'll see how the holiness of God is mandated. Verses six through seven, how the holiness of God is mediated.

And it mattered for Isaiah, and it mattered for Judah, and it matters for us, and it matters for our neighbors because the holiness of God undoes sinful man. The holiness of God undoes sinful man. And there is both warning there and refuge there.

I'm gonna read again the first four verses. I want our mind's eyes to carefully see what Isaiah saw in this terrifying vision. In the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with a train of his robe filling the temple.

Seraphim stood above him, each having six wings. With two, he covered his face. With two, he covered his feet. With two, he flew. And one called out to another and said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

The whole earth is full of his glory. And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out while the temple was filling with smoke. First of all, consider the sovereign throne.

The king is dead. Long live the king. But the first K and the second K are of different quality. The first K is lower case. The second K is upper case. The king is dead. Long live Adonai. Long live the Lord upon the throne.

Yahweh Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts, he is king. Azariah, Uzziah, Jotham, they come and they go. But God remains on the throne. All these kings, and in fact, all kings everywhere are accountable to the king of kings and to the Lord of lords.

His throne is lofty. It is exalted higher than any other. Our God is in the heavens and he does whatever he pleases. Psalm 115, three. Whatever the Lord pleases he does in heaven and in earth and the seas and all the deeps.

Psalm 135, six. He is the supreme ruler. He is the supreme judge upon the throne. And notice the fullness of the earth is his glory. It's a good translation of what the seraphim are saying. The whole earth is full of his glory.

They're meaning the entirety of the earth is his glory. Human rulers may look upon a dominion and they say all of this is the weightiness of my rule, my sovereign realm, and it is to their glory. But all of their realms are limited both by space and time.

But notice the whole earth is to the glory of God. How great is his reign? Human rulers come and go. The splendor of their influence and the quality of their ministers vary greatly. The Lord's throne is universally, perpetually, intensely, and perfectly sovereign.

He judges, governs, provides, sustains, destroys, lifts up, casts down, and all men are but the white foam on his dark breakers washing across time. Fear God. Look at where Adonai's throne is located.

From where does Yahweh's sabbaoth reign? The temple, of course, the temple. And it is helpful for us to recall that there is a throne on top of the Ark of the Covenant. It is called the mercy seat. This was understood to be God's throne upon earth.

And it was, of course, located in the holy of holies in the temple. God's throne was more lofty, more exalted than that of David's. When Solomon built the temple and his own palace, he crafted them with the very same art style.

However, every little thing in the temple was covered in gold. And his own splendid palace was of a lesser glory. Additionally, the temple was higher in elevation than that of Solomon's palace. What throne upon earth was more important than David's throne, and yet it was lower than God's throne there in the temple in the holy of holies.

So we see a sovereign throne and it's in a sacred temple. Isaiah saw the Lord sitting on a throne and the train of his robe filled the temple. Flying seraphim filled the air above the Lord with their wings and their praises.

And this could not be the temple that Isaiah visited so often in his lifetime. Had not Solomon in all of his wisdom after he had built the temple and dedicated it to the Lord, had he not said, but will God indeed dwell upon the earth?

Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house, which I have built for you. So in what temple does Isaiah find himself in this vision? Certainly not the gold cakes wonder that Solomon built on Arunana's old threshing floor.

What holy of holies had Isaiah entered? Certainly not the sacred site on Mount Moriah where Abraham had laid Isaac on the altar. Isaiah was not trespassing like Isaiah did into the temple courts that were defended by a mortal priesthood of Levites.

He had not entered into the copies, but into the very heavenly things themselves. He saw not a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself in a vision that he found himself terrified is an understatement, terrified in the presence of God.

Notice that this temple is full. It is full. It is full of the Lord's robes of light. It is full of the Lord's glory. It is full of the Lord's holiness. It is full of the Lord's praises, full of the Lord's smoke.

Remember that the copies, that the tabernacle that Moses had overseen, the temple that Solomon had constructed, the tabernacle and the temple had both been filled with the smoke of God's holiness. The Shekinah glory cloud had ushered the likes of Moses and the son of David out when they were consecrated.

Those copies, however, were not perpetually filled with God's fearsome smoke. This temple is continuously filled with the burning, smoking, glory, redounding holiness of God. It was like Mount Sinai with the glory of God atop with all of its smoking and quaking had been transplanted directly here.

Oh, worship the King, oh, glorious above and gratefully sing His power and His love. Our shield and defender, the ancient of days, pavilioned in splendor and girded with praise. Oh, tell of His might, oh, sing of His grace, whose robe is the light in His canopy space, whose chariots of wrath the deep thunder clouds form and dark is His path on the wings of the storm.

The psalmist says it better. Psalm 104, one through four, bless the Lord, oh, my soul. Oh, Lord, my God, you are very great. You are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering yourself with light like a cloak, stretching out heaven like a tent curtain.

He lays the beams of His upper chambers in the waters. He makes His clouds His chariot. He walks upon the wings of the wind. He makes the winds His messengers, flaming fire His ministers. Enter the seraphim.

Seraphim means burning ones, burning ones. Everything in the presence of God in this heavenly temple is on fire. Everything is engulfed in flames. Why? Our God is a consuming fire. Hell is but a sinner's tortured raging in the unmediated presence of the everlasting holiness of God.

Now, these seraphim, these burning ones are sinless celestial beings, and they are incessantly worshiping in the presence of holy God, and yet they are still set aflame by the brightness of God's glory and the intensity of His holiness.

No angel in the sky can fully bear that sight, but downward bends his wandering eye at mysteries so bright. They have six wings. With two, they cover their face, that they may not look upon Him who dwells in unapproachable light.

And with two, they cover their feet, so as they will not expose themselves to the brilliance of their Maker. And with two, they fly, that they may not alight upon the robe of His glory, which fills the temple.

And why? Because He is holy, holy, holy. And as they are filled with His glory, God's praises thunder forth from them, and seraphim, plural, calls to seraphim, plural, one choir to another in a responsive, blending, harmonious praise to the Lord of hosts, and all the pillars and rafters and posts and foundations tremble and burn, and they smoke.

Isaiah's graphic response to all that he saw affirms that the holiness of God undoes sinful man. Because as the holiness of God is manifested to sinful man, the same burning, smoking, fiery, terrifying holiness is revealed as the requirement.

The holiness manifested by the Creator is the holiness mandated of the creature. And hence the response in verse five, that I said, woe is me. I am ruined. I am a man of unclean lips. I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.

Isaiah is undone before the holiness of the Lord. He knows His defilement. He fears His damnation. I see Isaiah confessing both his personal and his covenantal defilement. He's overcome by the glorious fire and the holy smoke of heaven's temple.

He begins to speak in his being overwhelmed. He just begins to speak, but he's immediately painfully aware of how dirty his words sound in that holy place. It's like yelling in a library, telling jokes at a funeral, blasphemy in church.

And as his eyes take in all that God has manifested, Isaiah feels the holy weight of all that God has mandated of him as a person, as a prophet, as a preacher of God's word. The holy weight of all that God has mandated of Isaiah's people as they live in covenant relationship with God and each other.

So it's in the presence of holy God, it's in the presence of holy God that Isaiah now knows more than ever what a great sinner he is and what a sinful people he lives among. So what hope does he have?

Especially after God in Isaiah chapter one calls Israel and Judah Sodom and Gomorrah. We know what happened to them. He tells them further, he's sick of their sacrifices. He says, I hate your feasts. And then he concludes in verse 15.

He says, so when you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you. Yes, even though you multiply prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood. Isaiah rightly therefore feels his damnation and he declares woe upon himself.

He might be God's prophet. He might have a priestly background. He might be the most well-respected holy man in all the land, but he doesn't have a prayer of surviving this encounter with God. He's seen the king.

He's seen the Lord of hosts. And that means his destruction for sure. What other conclusion? What other conclusion can a sinful creature make when he's in the presence of his holy, holy, holy creator?

He is but a sheaf of kerosene soaked straw in the middle of a burning furnace. He says, woe is me. He says, I am undone. Ruined in new American state. Undone in the King James. I am undone. Meaning what?

He is without response. He is fearfully and wonderfully frozen in the tracks of a speeding freight train. He's got nothing to say in his own defense. Nothing to offer for his own redemption. Nothing to promise to gain clemency.

Not in the presence of God who is holy, holy, holy. The holiness of God undoes sinful man where there's no excuses, where every mouth is stopped. And that brings us to the holiness of God mediated in verses six through seven.

Here is our hope that the holiness of God that is manifested to us in God's word is the holiness of God that is mandated of us by God's word. But this holiness of God which undoes sinners in condemnation is the very same holiness of God which undoes our sin in our salvation.

The holiness of God manifested and mandated is exactly what we need mediated to us to make us holy in God's estimation. We need cleansing and forgiveness. We need the expiation and the propitiation of our sins.

The removal of our sins away as far as the east is from the west and the absolute satisfaction of God's justice concerning our sins. We need the double imputation of our guilt being placed on the accounts of somebody else and the righteousness of God being placed upon our account.

That's what we need. We need the very holiness of God mediated to us by a savior. So look there in the simmering, smoking, trembling sanctuary of heaven. Salvation comes from the altar. Then one of the seraphim flew to me with the burning coal in his hand which he had taken from the altar with tongs.

He touched my mouth with it and said, behold, this has touched your lips and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven. So a burning coal is taken from the altar and it is given to the sinner.

One of the burning ones, one of the celestial beings who was constantly set on fire by the brilliant holiness of God responds to the fearful quaking of Isaiah and he flies to him with a burning coal. King James has a live coal.

Think about this coal. It is burning, that is live, it is white hot. It is sparking, it is glowing like burning brass in a flame of fire and the closer it is brought to Isaiah, the more it looks like the sun shining in its strength.

Seraph held it in his hand, but even he, a burning one, could not pick it up off the altar except with tongs. So what does that tell you about the altar? What does it tell you about the holiness of the altar then?

When everything in God's heavenly temple is smoking in a flame, when one of the seraphim cannot directly reach into the pile of the coals on the altar without using consecrated tongs, what does it tell you?

Except that this live coal is exceptionally holy, plucked from what is most holy. And why does the coal emit such a vehement flame? Well, it comes from an altar of both love and jealousy. The love of God and his jealousy for his own name has set this altar on fire in his perfect holiness.

And this coal is brought to the sinner and notice that this sinner has a dirty mouth, a polluted nature. The coal, the live coal, the burning holy coal of God is brought to the sinner who has defiled the name of God, who has failed to righteously respond to God's covenant love.

And this white hot, sparking, flaming, miniature star is brought to the sinner, not to destroy, but to save. And so God will love the sinner and be jealous for his own glory in the salvation of the sinner.

T 'was grace that taught my heart to fear. And grace, my fears relieved. The burning coal is given to the sinner, verse seven. Now everything that Isaiah saw in that heavenly holy of holies, everything that Isaiah saw in that throne room of Adonai, Yahweh, Sabaoth, all the burning, all the smoking, all the flaming holiness of God is now collapsed into this burning coal, approaching in the hand of the seraph.