The Wonderful, Awful Motivation For Ministry - [Isaiah 6:1-13]

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Well, it is great to be back here at Bethlehem Bible Church. I love preaching not just at this church, but to this church
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Been gone for the last three weeks three weeks ago I was in Florida preaching at an installation service for the Southern Baptist Church for a new pastor and a new elder
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And then the last two weeks I've been preaching at a Reformed Baptist Church in California, and maybe it's
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Vancouver next I'm not exactly sure but it's great to be back with you to be able to preach to a church that loves
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Bible preaching When I go to these other churches, I'm not sure how they'll respond and I'm pretty much a one -trick -pony kind of guy
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I can teach the Bible and that's all I can do if you want a book review or some kind of political insight or Something like that.
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I don't have much to offer. And so when I preach the word I never know how people will respond but by the grace of God He has given you a hunger and a desire to be fed more than just Frosting you want the meat and so today we're gonna look at a passage.
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That is the filet mignon of the Bible Who are your favorite missionaries?
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You have some favorite missionaries. I love to read about missionaries Betty and John Stam in China and they're over in China and their rebellion is coming and they know they'll die soon
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And so they go upstairs to their little newborn and they tuck in the equivalent of five dollars into the diaper
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Pray over the baby and then go downstairs to be slaughtered and meet Christ Jesus face -to -face.
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I love stories about Mary Slessor the Scottish single lady who goes to the jungles of Africa and The African people would take babies out in this particular part of the continent and if they were twins
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They would be demon -possessed they thought and so they would take the twins lay them out in the middle of the jungle for the
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Panthers to come and devour them and when Mary Slessor got down there to Africa The Africans called her white maw and she was a mother and she was white and she rescued 51 sets of twins and raised them as her own.
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I Love the story about John Payton who would go to the New Hebrides Island and they were cannibals there and he shows up not speaking cannibalese and just showing up on on the shore
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Praying that God would use his word to break through to these people who would just as soon kill you as eat you and John Payton buried his wife and his newborn son on the beach and slept on their graves
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For days so that the bait bodies would rot before the cannibals would eat them polycarp being martyred faithful to God the
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Elliot's Jim Elliot and the other men going down there actually having a gun in the Akka Islands and having a gun so much so that they
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Said themselves we won't shoot the natives because if we shoot them to protect our own lives They will die and go to hell yet.
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If we are martyred, we'll be in the presence of God Don't those motivate you don't those make you think to some degree
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God. I want to be like them I would like to have the same kind of desire and Earnestness and and desire to show the fame and glory and honor of Christ.
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I would like to be like that not so we would be more loved by God, but because God has loved us already and the scriptures give us insight on how frail fragile people like John Huss like Mary Slessor can become bold lions for the gospel all by looking at this simple attribute an
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Attribute that she even Stephen Charnock called the crown of all God's attributes the life of all his decrees the brightness of all his actions an
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Attribute that mr. Howe called in 1670 the transcendent attribute the attribute of attributes and That Jonathan Edwards called more than a mere attribute of God It is the sum of all his attributes the outshining of all that God is
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Let's turn to Isaiah chapter 6 and when I say holiness you probably say Isaiah 6 let's look at Isaiah chapter 6 and see the holiness of God a view of the
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Holy Sovereign God that motivates people frail people redeemed people
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When you open up your Bible to the New Testament, I hope it falls open to Romans 5 Mine does because I put a crease in it and that shows that I'm a good theologian when you open up your
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Old Testament I hope it opens from now on to Isaiah 6. This is a shocking passage.
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It's dangerous It's like handling nitroglycerin because when I preach it there may be people here at the church who aren't here in two years
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You made say, you know this this this chapter Isaiah 6 has so turned my life upside down I've got to go for the kingdom not just to Mozambique but go somewhere with my life
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This is the kind of passage that will no longer make you one of those neighbors. That's just kind of kind and not dangerous and everybody gets along with but you become a neighbor who is dangerously preaching the gospel to anyone who will listen
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Isaiah is a wonderful book the third longest book in the Bible after Psalms and Jeremiah, this is a book
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Isaiah that Jesus Christ and the Apostles quoted at least 21 times more than they quoted from any other
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Prophet and even more than they've quoted from all the other prophets combined a central book in the life of a
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New Testament Church Amos and Hosea were in the northern kingdom ministering to Israel Micah and Isaiah are ministering to the southern kingdom
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Judah and Basically Isaiah's message was this before we get into the text
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Yahweh. God is salvation Yahweh is salvation. Matter of fact, that's such a good term.
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We should name somebody that Matter of fact Isaiah's name means exactly that Isaiah God Yahweh is
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Salvation he had two sons and his two sons were kind of sub chapters of his ministry and his proclamation
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Now I'm gonna mess up the pronunciation, but that's half the fun Shiraz a hub was one of his sons a a remnant shall return and Mahershala hodgepodge was the other son
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I don't know what his nickname was, but we could come up with a few Hastening to the spoil and you'll see in Isaiah both judgment
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Spoil and grace remnant matter of fact, some people call it the Bible in miniature, right?
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How many books in the Bible 66 how many chapters in Isaiah? 66 of course grace through all that all through Isaiah But kind of if you look at the first 39 chapters of Isaiah specifically talking about judgment and then the last 27 chapters really highlighting and focusing grace a
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Great great book and if you'd like homework already for this week My homework for you is to read half of Isaiah this week and then we'll be in Isaiah 6 next week and you can read
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The other half next week Here is this book that has its purpose to display the greatness of God to show the glory and to show
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God's wonderful Attributes and his majesty. That's the whole book of Isaiah And if we zoom in here to chapter 6, we are going to see
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Isaiah's vision and call to the ministry And it will shock you.
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I'm gonna take my time. I'm gonna go slowly through this I preached this a couple weeks ago in one week But I just got to kind of slow down because as my pastor would teach me slower is always better than what?
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Faster, it's just time to back this truck up and just think the greatness of this text
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And in fact, I could use the illustration of eating When we were kids, my father would say many things to us if I drank too much milk, he would say don't drink your supper
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But if I ate too fast he would say Don't wolf your meal down This is not worth wolfing
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This is just worth reveling in as you see one breaker after another in Isaiah 6
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Shatter Isaiah, and I hope today you're shattered when you preach. You're supposed to have a purpose statement.
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Here's my purpose statement I hope you are shattered. I Hope you're never the same if you can sit through this chapter today not because I'm a great preacher
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But because it's a great passage if you can just sit today and walk out going Can't wait for that golf match and NASCAR to get on TV then friends.
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Let me use a little hyperbole. You're not saved The New Testament writers would look at Isaiah and just think the glory of God And that is my prayer for you today that you as you look at Isaiah 6 you say even now in your heart
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God I don't want to be the same as I was when I walked in today. I want to be different I want to be more on fire for you
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I want your grace to the Spirit of God to make me more like Christ everything that's great about Christ I want to be like Christ and that's exactly what the intention of this sermon and Isaiah's vision
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Should accomplish the transformation of a frail weak person
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Into ministry full -time part -time. I don't care if you go become a missionary overseas But this is to equip you right where you are now
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The outline will be this Five requirements are five views are five visions so that you can have
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Isaiah like ministry I could put it this way here are five Things that you must see
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So that you can have a ministry like William Carey that you can have a ministry like Amy Carmichael That you can have a ministry like John the
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Baptist five views from God that should both humble you and Motivate you and it's much better than reading
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Spurgeon's lecture to my students people say I might be called into ministry You know what? I always tell him
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Well, you need to get lectures to my students by Charles Spurgeon and he has in chapter 2 the call to ministry
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You should read that. I still think that's good. But I'm gonna start saying you need to read Isaiah 6
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Why don't you memorize Isaiah 6 and then we'll talk about your call to ministry Five transforming views of God that should inspire you to serve with all your heart soul mind and strength view number one
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You must see the holy transcendence of God if you'd like to be motivated for ministry
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You'll see in the life of Isaiah and all these other great missionaries that they saw God as holy
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This wasn't just some kind of catchword or buzzword, you know The attribute of God for H is holy and then off to the next thing
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The holy transcendence of God on high let's go on Isaiah chapter 6 verse 1 and dive into the text in the year of King Uzziah's death and As all great preachers would say we've got to stop right there.
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I mean, we've got to put the context together We just can't keep zooming in Here is this King Uzziah and sometime during that he dies during the year.
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And so at some time of that in that year Isaiah has this vision Now Israel has been doing very well.
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Why because they have had a man on the throne for how many years? Uzziah has been on the throne for 52 years
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And if you think there's stability when the Roosevelt's were reigning as presidents in America here
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You have a king and things seem to be going well, and everything's prospering and and the at least economically
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Politically with the borders with enemies, I mean they are singing as a national anthem
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Happy days are here again. They are very glad for this golden era
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Israel and Judah aren't fighting and here very peculiarly
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Isaiah dates this vision Nobody else does it like this He does it once more in chapter 14, but he dates his vision in the year of King Uzziah's death
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This man who was an institution who was a military leader who was efficient Maybe the greatest king since Solomon from a human perspective
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Yet what happened to Isaiah? Can you flip over to 2nd Chronicles chapter 26 and we'll take a little peek into what happened and how he dies 2nd
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Chronicles 26 16 If you have tabs on your Bibles, it's easy to find when
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I realized that John MacArthur used tabs in his Bible It was so freeing so I have tabs up here in my
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Bible. It's fine to use It's fine to use table of contents. The point is we want to see what
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Scripture would say And although the the country was prospering externally strong on the inside it was a spiritual disaster and As King goes so do people go and here's how
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Uzziah died 2nd Chronicles 26 16 But after Uzziah became powerful
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His pride led to his downfall He was unfaithful to Yahweh his Lord his
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God and enter the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense You're not supposed to do that.
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If you're a king that's reserved for someone else and it's not you Azariah the priest with 80 other courageous priests of the
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Lord followed him in and they confronted him It had to be men who are courageous because this is the king.
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This is the prosperous King. This is the strong King This is the king who's ruled for 52 years It's difficult to confront a king and so they come in and they confronted him and said it's not right for you
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Uzziah to burn incense to the Lord that is for the priests the descendants of Aaron Who have been consecrated to burn incense leave the sanctuary for you have been unfaithful boy.
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What courage Nathan like You will not be honored by the
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Lord God Uzziah who had a censer in his hand ready to burn incense became angry
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While he was raging at the priest in their presence before the incense altar in the Lord's Temple Leprosy broke out on his forehead on a place where everyone could see
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When Azariah the chief priest and all the other priests looked at him, they saw that he had leprosy on his forehead So they hurried him out
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Don't have a leper in the in this place this holy place indeed He himself was eager to leave you bet.
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He was full bore because the Lord had afflicted him King Uzziah had leprosy until the day he died.
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He lived in a separate house leprous and Excluded from the temple of the
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Lord Jotham his son had charge of the palace and governed the people of the land and don't you know
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Isaiah knows about this because chapter 26 verse 22 talks about all the rest of Uzziah's act recorded by a little
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Prophet named Yahweh is my salvation All right back to Isaiah chapter 6
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What is going to happen to this country Isaiah is going to get a charge from God in a point where a charge needs to be given the
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Kings dead The air is over Babylon is approaching Terrible spiritual condition.
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They need a view from the real King They need a king who is holy and upright and anything but unclean
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They need a king who is going to reign forever. Not just a few 52 years They need a vision of a king who would transform not just the external politics and economics and military strategies
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But would transform them on the inside One Kings dead and here's the next
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King Do you see Isaiah 6 1 in the year of King Uzziah's death? I saw the
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Lord sitting on a throne Here's the real King you trust in humans and Kings and in horses
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It's going to fail you but here's the one in whom we should trust and a great display
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Isaiah sees This King and this word see isn't the vision seen this is not
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John in Patmos going I got a vision Seeing God. This is the word what I saw something.
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I see you. I see you. That's this this word with some kind of Being physically awake and and according to all his senses.
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He sees something people think well, it could be a dream I don't know exactly how this happened
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But it seems like he's awake and he he now sees into the spiritual truth of the scene
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He sees the Lord. That's what the text says. Not Yahweh, but here it says he sees the
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Lord He sees the king. He sees the sovereign one sitting there Samuel Storm said this one
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King was dead, but Isaiah was about to make contact with King who never dies One King had lost his power another never will one
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King had seen his authority passed to the next generation another will rule from generation to generation an earthly nation mourns the passing of its monarch a
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Heavenly nation praises the perpetuity of its monarchs reign Uzziah's power was limited and fleeting God's power is limitless and forever
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Needless to say the contrast in verse 1 are striking And you see this throne here he's sitting on he's sitting up on a throne
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Some kind of human form almost in Ezekiel one like human form where in Some kind of theophany some kind of vision of God.
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There's a there's a form there There's a a God who's sitting on this throne and who sits on a throne but Kings Verse Kings 22
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Micaiah said I saw the Lord sitting on his throne and all the host of heaven Standing by on his right and on his left
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As Ezekiel said of God on the throne son of man, this is the place of my throne
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God speaks through Ezekiel and this throne is high and lifted up where only
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God would be And what does he see you see it in the text? he sees
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God sitting on a throne loft and exalted the great King with the train of his robe
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Filling the temple the word their train is like a skirt or a garment or the end of your of your of your garment that hangs down low like a
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Robe the end of the robe and you can imagine if you're an oriental monarch and you're a king back in those days
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You would have these wonderful robes adorning yourself with with stature and majesty sometimes you'll see brides and they'll walk down the aisle and the train of their
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Bridal garment is long and flowing and it just creates a sense of spectacular
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Wonder and here God Unlike these human monarchs that say the larger my robe is the more distinguished
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I am Says I have a great Glory to show and it's not going to come out just by my robe
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The weight of all this to Isaiah has to be crushing. I can see Isaiah right now He started off like this and now he's keeps shrinking lower and lower and lower it's not in the text
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But that's how I imagine it. He is just shrinking the incredible shrinking man in front of the holiness of God It doesn't say he saw the top of the throne.
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Does it it doesn't say he's looked kind of up Why does he only see stuff that's on the ground?
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Because I think he is on the ground and when you're on the ground the next time you lay down and kind of have your
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Head down like this see how much you can see with your peripheral vision and how much can you see? You can see the train of the robe is what you can see because all of a sudden you see the throne you see the
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Lord and then down you go. I mean, it's just a reflex action It is like, you know, you get hit on the knee with that little knee hitter thing on there and off you go
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It's just reflex at the doctor's office And when I'm in the doctor's office,
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I kind of just make my leg go out a little bit just to make sure he thinks I still have reflexes Isaiah didn't need to be prodded down.
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He went he sees God God's holy He knows he's sinful and down he goes and he can just see out a little bit and he sees the train of this robe
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This is just like Exodus 24 when Moses sees God Then Moses went up with Aaron Nadab and Abihu and the 70 elders of Israel and They saw the
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God of Israel and when you see the God of Israel Moses Nadab and Abihu, what do you see and They saw the
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God of Israel and under his feet there appeared to be a pavement of sapphire as clear as the sky itself
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When you see God you're on your face and your peripheral vision goes, huh? I see what's underneath him and for Moses.
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It was pavement. That was strangely opaque in this
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Temple was filled with the glory of God and filled with what?
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his robe And that word temple is not the regular word for temple this is the word where we get palace
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The king is in his palace. We don't see the Shekinah glory here We don't see kind of that picture that's shown elsewhere the glory of God We see
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God through the vision of Isaiah in some kind of palace where Kings would be
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All saying, you know This area might even have been the same area
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Isaiah is thinking where Uzziah came and was slain with leprosy What does
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Isaiah say? High -five God right on you and me. We're gonna save the world together
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Right on down the aisle. Let's what does he say? There is not a peep out of Isaiah because when you're on the ground doing this you don't talk
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He's not talking he's silent an encounter with the holiness of God yields silence muting
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Because all the focus the writer is trying to show is the exaltation of this God on the throne, but the longer he looks
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Maybe he catches something out of the corner of his eye maybe he's he's Coming to his senses enough that he looks up a little bit higher than he sees something else and there are other things flying around Kind of in a dizzying manner.
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Do you see it in verse 2? He sees something else Seraphim stood above God above him
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Each having six wings with two. He covered his face with two. He covered his feet and with two he flew the day
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I was looking at the Raspberry bushes and out of the corner of my eye I saw this darting back and forth this kind of little bird that was just zipping back and forth and it was what?
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It's a hummingbird almost with like hummingbird fashion You've got these seraphim angels only mentioned here in the
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Bible Zipping in and out kind of twirling and swirling and flying around and Isaiah is seeing all this
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Darting back and forth constant motion and the word seraphim we get the word a fiery serpent from that root word
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Same used in Numbers 21 The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and some people think the seraphim look like these snakes with wings
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But I don't think that's the point I think the fire is is not talking even about if they bite you it'll burn really badly
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Kind of feels like fire the burn some commentators think that But I think it's talking about the burn of zeal the burn of brightness the burn of glory.
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These are the burning glory creatures Spiraling around God not some snake
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Like angels if you were an eastern monarch if you were an oriental monarch, you would want to have a whole entourage
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You would want to show you were great by the size of your throne how your throne was lofty
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What you dressed in how long was your robe and how many attendants you have and you can almost get the picture of?
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People in the old days fanning the king and feeding him grapes and having all his different court there and Here Isaiah knows when the oriental king looks like he's seen one
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He knows Isaiah, but here this king the king of the universe has attendance, but they're fiery seraphim flying around Lots of times fire directly associated with God's holiness
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Now Nadab and Abihu the sons of Aaron took their respective firepans and after putting fire in them
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Placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the Lord Which he had not commanded them the fire came out from the presence of the
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Lord and consumed them and they died before the Lord And Moses said to Aaron It is what the
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Lord spoke saying by those who come near me. I will be treated as holy
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And look at these seraphim It's interesting. They're kind of above or around and about God We don't know how many in the sizes and in the exact detail
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They are different from the cherubim over the mercy seat and they have wings. Look at six wings two
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Wings are used for this seraphim to cover his face Why do you cover your face by the way, if you're holy?
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Are these seraphim sinful will God when he's in the presence of Humanity those humans respond with Isaiah like fear and cringing
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But these aren't sinners. These aren't sinful angels. This isn't Satan and his hordes yet These angels with angelic blushing cover their faces because of the transcendent glory of God They're not covering their ears because they need to be attentive to what
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God wants them to do and they also cover their feet
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Do you know if you met an Eastern King back in those days? You would never wear shorts. You would always have your legs covered
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Respect decency etiquette One man said it is a great mark of respect in the east to cover the feet and to bow the head in the presence
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Of a king and with two they flew flying around And here it's almost this
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Prostration and yet there's not just prostration in the front of a holy God. There's also praise verse 3
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Yes, you realize he's God. Yes, you cover your face. Yes, you realize that he's he's different in these other but you also sing praises to this great
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God and one called out to another the seraphim's and said it doesn't say sing and Said holy.
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Holy. Holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory Imagine how loud this must be and most scholars think that it's antiphonal like Miriam She would sing and then people would sing back
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Remember we had the Masters Chorale some would be up here singing and there was another group back there and they were singing in kind And responsively and so here these angels these seraphim are up there singing in antiphonal
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Response to one another holy. Holy. Holy and then maybe another group all say the earth is full of his glory
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What a scene by the way as you're in this passage, how's your checkbook balance right now?
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How's your yard? How are all those things in your to -do list that you haven't got done yet?
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How about all those errands that you have tomorrow Monday morning to do? How about that big work meeting that you've got next week with your boss for the review?
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Have you thought about any of those things since you've been in this passage? I haven't So one of the great things about studying the
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Word of God because I'm pretty much had enough of myself and when I get involved I mess it all up anyway, and God will have to meet me there tomorrow for those things
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And right now you just are in the word and you think this is amazing. Here are these angels. Holy.
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Holy. Holy If I could say it in Hebrew, it might sound better and it's easy because the word holy in Hebrew is
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Kadesh Kadesh Kadesh Kadesh Yahweh you could say it in Greek Make sure
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I get it right Haggias Haggias Haggias curious Man What's going on here?
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This is repetition for a reason because The seraphim are trying to show us that to the superlative degree to the maximum There should be emphasis that God is holy
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If you want to emphasize something in the
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Bible, you can do it a variety of ways one Say things three different ways. God is holy set apart and sanctified
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To you use this little phrase. There are six things the Lord hates Yes, even seven to magnify the seventh for emphasis are the third way you do it is to repeat the word three
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Times the repetition for the Jew was emphatic
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Superlative this is holiness to the nth degree Kadosh Kadosh Kadosh Yahweh RC Sproul says the
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Bible says that God is holy. Holy. Holy Not that he is merely holy or even holy.
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Holy. He is holy Holy holy the Bible never says that God is love love love mercy.
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Mercy mercy wrath wrath wrath Justice justice justice. It does say that he is holy. Holy. Holy. The whole earth is full of his glory
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Lots of this kind of repetition. Oh my son Absalom my son my son
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Oh Earth Earth Earth hear the word of the Lord the temple of the
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Lord the temple of the Lord the temple of the Lord Jeremiah 7 and Here we have something. I'll give you the big word for the day because it sounds neat and it'll probably remind you of it
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This is the thrice holiness of God called the tri -segon tri -three
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Sagan is kind of a butcher of hagi on which means holy when you read something in a commentary or a book that says that Tricycle on this is the thrice holy nature of God and if I could put words into the
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Mouths of these seraphim. This is my story. This is my song praising God's holiness all the eons long
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Or I could put it another way Isaiah is to receive this vision
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By God on the throne with the robe with his intendance all shouting holy.
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Here's the message for Isaiah hallowed be thy name doesn't it sound like Revelation 4 out of the throne comes flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder and there were seven lamps of fire burning around the throne and they're the seven spirits of God and Before the throne there was something like a sea of glass like crystal and in the center and around the throne for living creatures full of eyes in front and behind and the four living creatures each had six wings are
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Full of eyes around without and day and night they do not cease to say Holy holy
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Holy is the Lord God the Almighty who was and who is and who who is to come?
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Holiness must be seen by Isaiah for his inner revival for his call to ministry
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And you must see it as well If I bump you in the middle of the night and come over to your house and knock on the door and I say describe to Me God.
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I hope you say holy holy holy and God is so holy.
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The third person the Trinity is even named the Holy Spirit You want to be motivated for ministry?
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You need to know the nature and character of God as holy Yes, he is all these other attributes and he's manifesting all those attributes simultaneously but occasionally in Scripture You see one attribute brought to the front for a reason and it's brought to the front for the reason this time because this is what?
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The nation needs this is what the prophet needs and this is what his people of God need 3 ,000 years later
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Now a little trick question. What does holiness mean? Now if this was Sunday night, you could say it out loud, but since it's
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Sunday morning, we better not Although that's the style these days of preaching
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Oh Preaching is horrible because who wants to have one guy get up there and say a bunch of things about God We want to kind of have a dialogue
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And we don't want some kind of monologue from a private kind of you know Prideful person up there telling us all these things matter of fact
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He's just a person anyway And so how can he get up there every week and say all these things we want to dialogue and we want to share and we
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Want to give Holy Ghost back rubs and all these other things You see preaching in the
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Bible and it's forth telling from the prophet thus says the Lord But my question still remains the same.
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What is holiness? And if you say God is set apart from sin You're not completely, right
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Holiness does mean set apart. It does mean to mark off It does mean there's a group of dishes here and I pull two out for these special purposes
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And these for special purposes are different. They're a cut above. They're different and separate.
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They're holy Yes, it does mean that but we always think of holiness as some kind of ethical or moral
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Attribute of God. He is not sinful. That would be correct That would be right
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Jesus is sin less There is no sin to be found in him He forgives sins.
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He does not commit them. Jesus is holy But there's another element of holiness and the element of holiness that Isaiah is trying to project here has nothing to do with God Is set apart from sinners, although that is true.
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Isaiah is trying to let his people know know this through the scripture that God is different God is other
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God is not just set apart from sin. He's set apart. He's completely different.
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He's alien For Samuel it says there is no one holy like the
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Lord Exodus 15 who is like thee? Oh Lord among the gods
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RC Sproul said he is an infinite cut above everything else Holiness RC says and mark.
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This is not primarily a Reference to moral or ethical purity.
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It is a reference to transcendence RC said we are so accustomed to acquainting holiness with purity our ethical perfection that we look for the idea when the word holy appears
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When things are made holy when they are consecrated they are set apart on the purity There to be used in a pure way
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There to reflect purity as well as simply a partners Purity is not excluded from the idea of holy it is contained within it
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But the point we must remember is the idea of the holy is never exhausted by the idea of purity it
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Includes purity but is much more than that. It is purity and Transcendence RC said it is a transcendent purity
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In other words transcendent God is over God is above God is different and when
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Isaiah sees God he realizes Yes, that's true. God is not just over He is close to us and we'll talk about that more next week
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But all this is driving Isaiah to commitment to serve adoration praise
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God is holy now. Let's just stop here just for a second I want to say one thing about God's holiness now that I think will be very practical true or false
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Be careful before you answer because I'm really trying to go after you but I'm gonna use
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Isaiah to get to you true or false
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Isaiah was bored with the holiness of God True or false when
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Isaiah was worshiping when Isaiah was seeing the transcendent nature of God as God was showing
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Isaiah himself Isaiah responded with boredom. I mean, it's laughable, isn't it?
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It's insane where we think he's bored One man said a recent survey of ex -church members revealed that the main reason they stopped going to church was they found it
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Boring. It is difficult for many people.
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This writer says to find worship a thrilling and moving experience We note here when God appeared in the temple the doors and the thresholds were moved the inert matter of the doorposts the inanimate
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Thresholds the wood and the metal that could neither hear nor speak had the good sense to be moved by the presence of God Friend if you're bored in church and there's
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Bible preaching the indictment isn't on the team The staff the elders the indictment is on your view of God.
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You've forgotten to come to the worship of the Lord to give Not to say well,
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I didn't like that. I'm sure Isaiah didn't like this I'm sure he didn't have a warm fuzzy and went home and said honey
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You know what? I need a foot massage and I gotta tell you about my day to day I don't think he said that at all
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And I'm so thankful that my exhortation to you is not found beloved in the form of scolding because you are not bored with the
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Word and I can preach Like I will today for those two hours and you will not be bored You aren't bored and you can you can praise
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God even this moment that he would give you a fire in your stomach That you would say I love
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Bible teaching. I love preaching God. I want to know all about you matter of fact That's one of the ways.
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I know I'm a Christian Because I love Bible teaching when you become a Christian Jonathan Edwards said you no longer love what you used to love
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But you now hate what you used to love and love what you used to hate you figure that out Yeah, you don't have a desire for those things
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I can just imagine my friends in college and I sitting around going what should we do tonight for fun? Now that finals are over.
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Let's go here Bible preaching Isaiah wasn't bored.
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We shouldn't be bored Matter of fact, we have a you know kids these days.
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They they get bored There's no time to be bored a generation ago. Why? you had to milk the cows and Take care of the bean field and all these other things boredom
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If your kids say to you you're bored then friends Do what
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Kim does my wife when they say? And you guys just hear her say this over and over and over kids go
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And you know what Kim always says here's her retort you're boring The boring ones get bored and so let's get some work going
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Let's get that PlayStation nation going on there and just drive ourselves into the brink of no
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Sorry, that's something else. The problem isn't
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PlayStation. The problem isn't guns. The problem isn't alcohol The problem isn't you know Republicans and Democrats.
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The problem is the human heart and the human heart needs to be Captured by something outside of himself or herself and once that heart is captured by God and his
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Transcendence that captured heart will go anywhere do anything Suffer through it all for the glory of God.
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I heard this morning that people left the church because it was too cold in here today Friends, maybe you have a cold or something like that But it's whatever we do
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It's either gonna be too hot for some or too cold for the other When I was in India and I thought I walked in there was 110 degrees and I thought it's too hot here for me
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I think I won't give God glory today Friends that reveals the heart of the people. It does not reveal the nature of God It's gonna be cold here in the summer.
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Bring a jacket. I Don't know what to tell people we're gonna we got an air conditioner for a reason and we're gonna use it
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But I don't really think about it. I'm hotter than everybody now Why is I'm up here walking around like some kind of fundamentalist preaching father owner doing stuff?
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When you get caught up into the text, it's not here's what I think feel do or say it's
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God. I'm yours And the angels refrain is holy.
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Holy. Holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory Here's why the earth exists as a
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Cape Canaveral Launching pad for God's glory to be displayed It is a stage.
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It is a platform so everyone can look and go the heavens declare the glory of God so the earth displays
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God's holiness and The word glory there if you look at the text is a word you may be familiar with and in Hebrew it denotes weight remember the word cavode heaviness
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I Was in Northern California last week and hate Ashbury and all those in the 60s They would have slang terms for something that was very important something weighty something really
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Dazzling and they would say what in the slang That's heavy and here the heaviness is on the glory of God and may
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I say with Provocative nature worship by you Well, let me say it this way
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Worship is about God and it's not about us. We are frankly incidental
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Privileged yes, but incidental the earth is blazing forth with this great glory and Isaiah knew
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God alone was holy Isaiah if you look at the text, it doesn't say he tried to describe what
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God looked like Yes, he looks like George Burns and long kind of hair and gray and all that stuff.
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There is none of that here it's just all the glory of God and when you see the glory of God the Thresholds know what to do verse 4 and the fountains of the thresholds
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Trembled at the voice of him who called out while the temple was filling with smoke.
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I Can't prove it but I think Isaiah is as far away as he can get from God and he's out there by the
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Threshold because he wants to get away because your first reaction to this. Holy God is not I want to hug him the thresholds the temples
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Knew the etiquette book was to shake Question what's the proper etiquette when you're in the presence of a king like God who's so holy answer?
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Shaking is the customary reaction Habakkuk 3 the mountains saw you
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God and Quaked now
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Mount Sinai was all in smoke because the Lord descended upon it and fire and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace and the whole mountain quaked violently
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Acts 4 and when they had prayed the place where they had gathered together was shaken and they were all filled with the
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Holy Spirit and Began to speak the Word of God with boldness Shaking God's holiness smoke
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God's holiness The impact is shattering trembling
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I can guarantee you that if you go to your favorite missionary chronicle book and You study the life of Adoniram Judson You study the life of modern missionaries to Iran You study any great missionary and you will see that each and every one of these missionaries saw
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God as other Lifted up holy and worthy to be proclaimed Every single one of them the first transforming view of God that should inspire you in a terrible
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Wonderful awful way is that you must see God and God alone. Not just as ethically pure but as Transcendent Lee holy and different.
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We'll have to look at the next four Next week. Do you know when it comes to missionaries?
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They were just sinful weak people like you like me I Read last two weeks ago.
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I read the mission the biography of Machen and Murray two professors at Princeton and then
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Westminster Seminary a generation ago Godly great men and when
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I read biographies, I read them for two reasons one I like to see what God can do through frail fragile people and number two
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I like to realize how much they did for God and how little I seem to do for God And I want to be motivated but as I look into these biographies and I have a huge section of biographies because I I always want to know that God can work through people like me
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I Have those biographies and I have them over in my
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Christian biography section You can see my library
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There's a Genesis commentaries Exodus commentaries Leviticus commentaries and right on down the line and I have over in Christian biography section
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Christian biographies if I knew better and I do
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I need to take every one of those Hundreds and move them over into theology proper the attributes of God God's holiness because it's not about Judson It's not about Carrie.
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It's not about Stan. It's not about Elijah It's the God of the universe who stoops to show himself holy so he can use the people of God in every generation
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Bow with me, please Lord, I would acknowledge this morning that Even though words can be biblical even though words can be delivered that is your spirit that makes them
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Active and live in the hearts of the people. I would pray with Paul that you would make these words run into the heart of these people
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Lord these dear folks who want to show the world the banner that declares
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Jesus Christ and him crucified is The solution for forgiveness of sins pray that you would give the people a rich time and the
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Word this week and Isaiah, especially and that each person who would be impacted by the holiness of God And that we would be willing to be missionaries here in West Boylston That would be willing to be sent out and that you would take this place here
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Bethlehem Bible Church and make it a training center For those people that you have called by your holy name to proclaim the truth
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God saves sinners Lord, would you do something in our church that we would stand back in the years to come and think?
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That was a key moment that was a dividing line in our church where the Word of God was proclaimed and the
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Spirit of God attended to it and the Word of God went forth by your spirit Lord And we were a different group of people and that we would say that you do