WWUTT 1854 Isaiah Sees God (Isaiah 6:1-13)

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Isaiah had the privilege of looking into heaven and seeing God in His glory.

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We won't have that privilege until we see Him face to face, but it's a promise that we have been given in Jesus Christ when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand The Text, teaching through a New Testament book on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, an

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Old Testament book on Thursday, and a Q &A on Friday. With our Old Testament study today, here's

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Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of Isaiah, we are up to chapter 6.

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If you have a Bible, open up with me. Or if you're driving in your car, just remain as you are and I'll read it to you.

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This is out of the Legacy Standard Bible. I'll read all 13 verses of Isaiah chapter 6.

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Hear the word of the Lord. In the year of King Uzziah's death,

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I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, with the train of His robe filling the temple.

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Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings. With two He covered His face, and with two

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He covered His feet, and with two He flew. And one called out to another and said,

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Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory.

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And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of Him who called out, while the house of God was filling with smoke.

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Then I said, Woe is me, for I am ruined, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.

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For my eyes have seen the King, Yahweh 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.

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And he touched my mouth with it and said, Behold, this has touched your lips, and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is atoned for.

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Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?

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Then I said, Here am I, send me. He said, Go and tell this people,

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Keep on hearing, but do not understand. Keep on seeing, but do not know.

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Render the hearts of this people insensitive, their ears dull and their eyes dim, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and return and be healed.

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Then I said, Lord, how long? And he said, Until cities are devastated and without inhabitant, houses are without people, and the land is devastated to desolation.

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And Yahweh has removed men far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.

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Yet, there will be a tenth portion in it, and it will again be subject to burning, like a terebinth, or like an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled.

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The holy seed is its stump." What a phenomenal chapter, absolutely incredible.

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To be reading these things that Isaiah witnessed when he looked into heaven and saw the heavenly temple where God dwells.

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We've been talking about a heavenly tabernacle as we've been going through the book of Hebrews. And even some of that imagery, some of the things that's been spoken about in our study in Hebrews on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, that comes in here.

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Even in some of these things that are described in these few verses of Isaiah chapter six.

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If you're familiar with R .C. Sproul's ministry, you know that he loved this chapter and preached from it frequently.

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It was considered to be the chapter that Sproul was an expert in. He wrote a whole chapter on it in his book,

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Holiness of God. John MacArthur has talked about how when he had to preach for R .C.

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Sproul one time, or Sproul had given him an assignment to preach was what it was, at one of the Ligonier conferences he was assigned,

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Isaiah six. And MacArthur said that was pretty intimidating to have to preach Isaiah six in front of R .C.

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Sproul, who was considered an expert in this particular chapter. Or you might consider it his passion, rather.

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He was very passionate about this chapter. So we're kind of at a turning point here in the book of Isaiah.

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We've had mostly prelude, mostly prophecy is what we've read for the first five chapters.

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Here we get to narrative with Isaiah describing something that he saw.

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Now, to recap a little bit of something about Isaiah, he was a man of nobility.

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A lot of the prophets were often, you know, simple farmers or tradesmen of some kind, very poor and destitute.

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Even Isaiah was a guy who was of the upper echelon of important people in Israel.

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As I had mentioned in the introduction, he was possibly a priest. He was able to access the presence of kings and not just the king of Israel, but even pagan kings.

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We'll see him address later on in this particular book. Uzziah was king of Judah for, what was it, 52 or 53 years, something like that.

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Over five decades that he was the king of Judah. And Isaiah, just about equally, served as a prophet in Israel for about five decades.

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Uzziah had a very successful reign. He was a godly king. He began to reign when he was 16 years old, and again, reigned for over 50 years.

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He issued many godly reforms. He was successful in several building projects.

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He was triumphant over his enemies. Judah very much thrived during the reign of Uzziah. Now, unfortunately, he was not obedient to God all the way to his death.

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He was still considered a godly king, walked in the ways of his father, David, is the way that it's put in the scriptures.

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But in the latter part of his life, he got arrogant and tried to do things on his own, tried to, you know, position himself in the temple to do things which he was not allowed to do.

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And because of that, he was stricken with leprosy. So he died and may have been a premature death, considering how

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God had blessed him through the rest of this reign. But because he got arrogant at the end, he had passed away.

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And there was a time of national mourning. Even here, Isaiah is uncertain as to what the future holds, because King Uzziah has died.

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This is a very negative beginning here at the start of chapter six for Isaiah to say in the year of King Uzziah's death, he's talking about a year of great uncertainty and mourning in the land of Israel.

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And he goes on to say, I saw the Lord seated on a throne. All of that is said in the same phrase in the year of King Uzziah's death.

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I saw the Lord sitting on a throne. So the king of kings is still reigning.

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We are not without a ruler. Isaiah is given the privilege of seeing with his own eyes who really reigns over Judah.

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Uzziah may have been a successful earthly king, but only because of the grace and mercy of God.

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Now, this word Lord in Isaiah 6 1, this is lowercase O -R -D, capital

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L, lowercase O -R -D. So this is not the Tetragrammaton. It's not the

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English word for Yahweh. It is a reference to God being king. So in the year of King Uzziah's death,

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I saw the Lord, he who is king over all, sitting on a throne high and lifted up.

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So he is above any of these things that trouble us here on Earth. His reign does not come to an end, nor will he be unseated from this throne that he is on with the train of his robe filling the temple.

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Now, it's uncertain to us how much of this Isaiah saw was literally what he saw or figuratively what he saw.

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I think with his own physical eyes, he was certainly seeing something. This is not him passing into a spiritual veil and having some sort of an out -of -body experience.

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He is seeing the Lord seated on a throne, perhaps even above the temple. Remember that God dwelled in the temple.

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That was where he dwelled with his people. The Spirit of God had descended into the holy of holies when

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Solomon had built the temple, and he asked God to bless this place that he had built.

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The fire of God comes down from heaven and fills the temple so much that nobody could enter into the outer courts of the temple itself, or they would have died because of the holy presence of God.

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So that's where God dwelled with his people. Isaiah is having the privilege of witnessing that veil pulled away, just like when

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Jesus was transfigured before his disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration. It was like the veil of his flesh was removed, and they were able to see him in his majesty, still protected from dying, seeing him in his glory that way.

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No man could stand it. The Lord preserved them, Peter, James, and John, who saw the transfiguration of Christ before them.

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Something like that is going on here in Isaiah's presence. As the presence of God comes down into the temple, it's as if Isaiah looks up and he can see the very presence of God above the temple so that the train of his robe fills the temple beneath him.

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That may have been the picture or something to that effect that Isaiah witnessed.

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Now, he says in verse 2, Seraphim, those high and holy angels that dwelled right there at the throne of God, stood above him, it says.

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And not above him in rank, certainly, but this is just to depict that there were angels surrounding him, each having six wings.

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With two, he covered his face, with two, he covered his feet, and with two, he flew.

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And there's something symbolic about all of that, the fact that the angels covered their face. Moses himself was not allowed to look into the face of God.

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He would not be able to stand it. He couldn't survive. So in Exodus 33, he asked

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God if he might be able to see his face. Now, Moses had witnessed a lot of incredible things. He saw the plagues in Egypt.

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There was the manna in the quail in the wilderness. There was the presence of God descending upon Mount Sinai and issuing the

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Ten Commandments. But for Moses, it wasn't enough. He wanted to see the face of God.

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And there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, we should desire the same. We should not be content with what we have in this relationship we have with God in this sense that we desire to actually be in his presence and see his face.

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Yes, we should be content in Christ. Don't hear me saying that we shouldn't be content with that. But we're not content with the state of our relationship as it is now with us here on earth and him in heaven.

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We want to be in heaven with God. We want to dwell where he is. But we cannot look upon his face in the state in which we are in.

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We would not be able to survive it. God said to Moses, no one can see my face and live. So we hid Moses in the cleft of the rock as he passed by him.

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And Moses could see him from behind, but wasn't allowed to look into his face. And just the fact that Moses was in the presence of God in that way, his own face glowed because he was in God's presence and he had to put a veil over his face because the rest of the

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Israelites couldn't look into it. Just to further elaborate for us what it's like to be in the glory of God.

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And we want that. We should want that to be living and dwelling in God's presence. There it is thrown exactly where these angels are.

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Now, as it said in first John, three to beloved, now we are children of God and it has not been manifested as yet what we will be.

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We know that when he is manifested, when we see him, in other words, we will be like him because we will see him as he is.

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We have to be transformed to see God in that way, though. Paul talks about that in first Corinthians 15.

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What we are now is not what we will be. We must we must die and become something imperishable in order to see

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God in his perfection. We must also be made perfect. And so that's not yet our state.

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And that's also part of the reason why Isaiah responds the way that he does when he says, woe is me.

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I am ruined for I am a man of unclean lips. We'll get to that in verse five. But here we see of these angels, even the holy angels dwelling around God's throne, they've got wings that cover their face because they cannot even look into God's glory.

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They have wings that cover their feet. And this is representative of when

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God told Moses, take your sandals off for the ground upon which you stand is holy ground.

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Even this place, though they be suspended in air around the throne of God, it is a place of holiness.

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And so their wings cover their feet. And with two, they flew, which means to put the angels there around God in his presence.

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The angels are higher than we are. We are privileged to receive a grace of God that they don't have because you just consider those fallen angels.

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They will not be redeemed. Mankind made in the image of God, though we have sinned against God, we who believe in the

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Lord Jesus Christ will be redeemed. But for the angels, that is not the case. They are nonetheless higher than us, but we will receive greater grace.

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Ultimately, in the end, we who have been created in God's image and will dwell with him around his throne forever.

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But these wings with which the angels fly demonstrate that they are higher than we are.

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Verse three, and one called out to another and said, holy, holy, holy is

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Yahweh of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. Now, as R .C.

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Sproul has said, the only word in the Bible that is used three times to describe

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God is holy, not love, love, love, not grace, grace, grace, and even not wrath, wrath, wrath.

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But holy, holy, holy, meaning that he is, as I've heard Steve Lawson put it, he is holy.

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He is holier. He is holiest. There is no one greater or holier than God.

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There's also something inherently triune about that to describe God three times as holy, holy, holy.

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The whole earth is full of his glory. He is Yahweh of hosts. That is his name.

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And he is God even over the angels. And the earth is full of his glory.

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Isaiah is witnessing something happening here above the temple. But the glory of God really fills the whole earth.

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There is nowhere one can go and be out of the presence of God. Now, that would be assuring to Isaiah when he considers that here in the land of Judah, we are without a king.

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Well, it doesn't matter where you go. God is king over all of the earth.

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And you are never too far away from his presence. Verse four, and the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called out while the house of God was filling with smoke.

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So, again, the presence of God filling the temple and even smoke is pouring out from the temple. And I have to wonder if this was actually something physical.

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Isaiah is witnessing a spiritual vision, but perhaps smoke was literally pouring out of the temple just as had been witnessed before with the presence of God coming down into the temple.

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And there was smoke. First, there was smoke. And then there was the fire. So, smoke is pouring out from the temple to assure the people not everybody is seeing what

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Isaiah is seeing. But as the smoke pours out, maybe the rest of the people can see that to remind them that God is still with them.

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He is still dwelling in this temple with his people. And then it says,

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Isaiah, verse five, then I said, woe is me for I am ruined. I am a man of unclean lips.

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And I live among a people of unclean lips. This is Isaiah recognizing his own mortality and the fact that he is but an unworthy sinner.

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And he's seen the glory of God. How can he live now that he has witnessed this?

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I have to wonder if Isaiah is even feeling in his own physical body himself passing away because the vision is so great for him.

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And now it's going to destroy him. Like he could feel his soul detaching from his body somehow.

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I'm being figurative in a certain sense. But this is Isaiah seeing something that he doesn't think he will survive just because he's witnessed this.

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Now, to give us a picture of the glory of God, oftentimes you might hear a preacher refer to the sun.

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You can't stare at the sun for more than a few seconds without the sun burning your eyes right out of your head.

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And yet you think you can walk right into the presence of the glory of God? God's glory is even greater than the sun that he has created.

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And Isaiah is experiencing that. He is seeing God. And it's like he's feeling himself being destroyed by this very vision.

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And not just because he's a man of unclean lips, but because he lives in a place that is not worthy of the glory of God.

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It's not in the presence of God. It's in this place of this people of wickedness who we've been reading about for the previous five chapters and all the wickedness that they're guilty of and the judgment of God that is going to come upon them.

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My eyes have seen the king, Isaiah says, Yahweh of hosts.

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And then in verse six, then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs.

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The altar, we don't know if this was the heavenly altar or if it was literally the altar in the temple.

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But whatever it is that's happening here that Isaiah is witnessing, it is only by the grace and mercy of God that Isaiah be purified so that he could stand in the presence of God and address him as God.

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And he touched my mouth with it and said, behold, this has touched your lips and your iniquity is taken away.

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Isaiah being purified there in the very presence of God and your sin is atoned for.

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And then in verse eight, then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us?

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It's a reference to the triune God, father, son and Holy Spirit. Then I said, here am

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I. Send me, Isaiah responds. And the Lord says, go and tell this people, keep on hearing, but do not understand.

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Keep on seeing, but do not know. It is the

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Lord who has closed their hearts, has closed their ears, has closed their eyes from hearing, from seeing, from understanding so that they will come into this judgment that God means for them.

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Verse 10, he says, render the hearts of this people insensitive, their eyes dull, their eyes dim.

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This is a command that God is giving Isaiah and the words that Isaiah speaks. This is what's going to do.

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This is what it's going to do in the hearing of the people. He's going to say it. They're not going to understand it.

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But what's happening is the fulfillment of God's decree. He has said they're not going to understand.

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Isaiah will speak it. They won't understand because God has closed their hearts. Lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and return and be healed.

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But the Lord isn't allowing them to do that. Their sin is too far gone. His judgment is coming upon them.

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And we understand exactly what the Lord said to Moses in Exodus 33. Once again, I will have mercy on whom

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I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. Paul repeats that in Romans 9.

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Whatever the Lord does is good and just. And so Isaiah responds in verse 11.

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Then I said, Lord, how long? How long are you going to afflict this people with dumbness so that they cannot understand your words that are being spoken to them?

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And the Lord replied, until cities are devastated and without inhabitant. Houses are without people and the land is devastated to desolation.

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And Yahweh has removed men far away and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.

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Though Isaiah has the privilege of being able to see God in his glory in his heavenly dwelling place, the

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Lord is going to show his glory to the rest of Judah in a different way. It's going to be his glory witnessed in the judgment that comes upon them because they would not worship him in the glory that he had shown them previously in the mercy, the mercies of God that had been poured out upon them.

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They forgot the one who had rescued them out of Egypt and called them into a promised land and had called them to himself, had put his presence there with them and said, this is my people and made them a great nation over every other nation.

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So because they've done this, God's judgment is going to come upon them and his glory will be seen among them now in this way.

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And so verse 13, he says, yet there will be a 10th portion in it. Even after all of these things have happened in Judah, there will be a 10th.

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It will again be subject to burning. We saw the reference to the 10th even in the prophetic portions that we were reading in the first five chapters.

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But even that will be destroyed. The Lord is saying he's not going to leave anything left. It will again be subject to burning like a terebinth or like an oak whose stump remains when it is felled.

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The holy seed is its stump. So everything that the Lord is saying here is that the judgment that comes upon Judah is going to be total.

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I'm not going to open their ears again to know who I am, open their hearts to understand who

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I am and what I am doing until my judgment is complete. Of course, we've got promises coming up and we've already seen previously, even in the prophetic sections, that those who are righteous will be saved.

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And thus, it's also said here in verse 13, whose stump remains when it is felled.

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The holy seed is its stump. And that's a reference to those holy

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Jews that will be spared. And if it was not for their sparing, then

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Israel would be totally wiped out, like completely and utterly not even existing on the earth anymore.

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But that's not quite the extent of the judgment that God means. His judgment will be complete, complete in as far as he means to exercise it.

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But there will be a remnant that will remain. And if not for that remnant, then

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Judah would have been utterly wiped out. Now, we likewise have been shown

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God's mercy, though what we deserve is to be destroyed. We are people of unclean lips dwelling in a land of unclean lips.

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How wicked are the people that we dwell among and how wicked we once were when we were among them.

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But God has been merciful to us. And he did open our eyes to see, our ears to hear, our hearts to have understanding that we might see the holy

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God and the person and work of Jesus Christ. He who died on a cross for our sins and rose again from the grave, ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God is coming back to judge the world in righteousness.

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And we have come to know this and recognize our need for a savior and turn to Jesus Christ, who is that savior.

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All of this by the mercy of God. And my friends, we've been called to go into this land and speak to them.

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And there are many who will have their eyes and ears open to hear and understand the gospel of Christ, but many others who will have their eyes and ears closed from understanding.

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And both of these things are from the Lord. Those who see and those who do not see.

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For God will have mercy on whom he has mercy and compassion on whom he has compassion.

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Praise God for his wondrous grace. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we've read here.

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And may it be reminders to us to live lives of holiness and righteousness before you.

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We do not deserve to be called your children, but you have nonetheless called us to yourself through the gospel of Jesus Christ so that all who believe are saved.

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We're saved from the judgment of God. We are promised that holy place where we will be made to be like you.

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We will see you as you are and dwell with you forever. May that be our hope, our desire, our ambition to see

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Christ and be where you are. Lead us in lives of holiness until that day.