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How do you get people's attention? Well, it was about 10 days ago when I was riding on my bicycle, complete with my outfit and had my helmet on, and I was in Sterling.
It's a bunch of woods, green, getting dusky outside.
The new racing helmets have many vents, so you can not have your head sweat as much and lots of air flowing through.
I was riding along and I could see this little black speck with my peripheral vision, and it slowly was going like this.
It was getting larger and larger, and I could look at the speck, and it had some kind of wings to it, and then it flew into my vent of my helmet.
I'm going about 20 miles an hour, so it's stuck in there now. It's stuck to my head, and it is a wasp, and it begins to sting me.
If you ever get a bee in the car, you know it could cause an accident, and so here you are riding a bicycle, lycra and spandex and all that stuff, and trying to get my iPod out, my glasses off, my helmet off, and then to begin to hit myself on the head, hoping that people would see the whole thing, not just the end result.
Then I was thinking, well, my heart rate, you know, when you bike sometimes gets up to 170 beats a minute, and so whatever you have in your system is really pumping through your system quickly, and I thought,
I have no EpiPen, I have nothing else, and so we'll just see how far I can get home before I fall down dead.
Eight days later, I was riding up in Pepperell, Massachusetts, and I saw a little black bug out of the corner of my eye.
I kid you not. I wanted to just start sucking my thumb right there, calling for my mother.
Well, there's not much you can do. You're on a bike, and I'm flying down that path, the A .L. Rail Trail on my way, and all of a sudden, a wasp came in to one vent lower than the previous week, and began to sting me on my temple.
Want to go bike riding with me on Saturday? Complete attention was given to that issue.
The sting, the burn, the throbbing, the hitting, and everything else. And as I studied
Isaiah 6, I thought, this passage is so impactful that it is like a theological wasp sting.
It will get your attention. And we got stung last week, and now let's turn our Bibles to Isaiah chapter 6 for the second sting in two weeks.
It will get your attention. It is given to us so we might not just see Isaiah's call for ministry.
You can't read this passage and say, it's just for Isaiah. I'm glad he saw God that way.
I'm glad he saw himself that way. I'm glad this is all written down in ancient lore for us to cogitate upon.
It is written for us. As you see God through the eyes of Isaiah, I want you to say, this is written for me, and God use this.
I want to say yes to righteousness. I want to act more like Christ. I want to be saying no to sin.
God, I know you've forgiven me. I know because of what Christ Jesus has done, you couldn't love me anymore.
God, you've raised your son from the dead and me with him. And God, I don't want to obey because you'll love me more.
I want to obey because you've loved me. God, I don't want to obey because then somehow you'll have more favor upon me because that can't be.
But because you favored me, God, transform me. Make me different.
If you're a Christian here today, I hope you won't be comfortable. I hope you'll say to yourself, this is pushing me beyond what
I'd like to do. And if you're a Christian here today, I hope you say to yourself, God, I know your spirit is sufficient.
I know your grace is sufficient. And so if you're going to push me into the deep end, God, I'm willing. Make me willing.
God, I'm not willing. Help my unwillingness. And if you're not a Christian today, I hope you see this text and say to yourself, if that is the
God who is my creator and my judge one day, then
I'm in so much trouble. I better run to a savior. I met somebody this week and they said, you know, when
I first met you, I came here many times and I hated you. Well, that's an interesting thing to say to the pastor.
But Martin Luther said, you know, when you preach Melanchthon, his successor, you preach in such a way that people will either hate their sin or hate you.
And if you're an unbeliever here today and you know you're sinful, you probably will hate me for it.
And for that, I rejoice because I want you to so hate your sin and realize that if you die today where you'll be going, that you'll say,
I have no other hope. And I'm going to have to look to the one who is gracious and redeeming and who will save.
When I preach, I want to preach in such a way that I say to myself, God, you can save people. You can sanctify people.
You can do great things. And sometimes I forget that. I know we should get into the text. But just one other quick story.
I have a neighbor. For four years, I've lived in this neighborhood. I've never really talked to them much. I wanted to.
And this neighbor has gone through a trial in his life. And I began to talk to him a little bit more. And yesterday,
I had to go borrow his mower because my mower broke. Actually, it broke two times. And so after the second break,
I went to borrow his. And he said, you know, I'm on vacation and I want you to borrow anything you want,
Mike. Anything you want. And he said, and maybe someday for return, you could save my soul.
Now, the first thing I thought was, I'm not the one who saves. That's God almighty. And you see the father before time elects and then the son redeems.
And then the spirit seals to the day of redemption. But I just bit my tongue and I couldn't do any other response.
So I just laughed like I could save your soul. I mean, from pagan neighbor. And he looked at me and he said,
I'm not kidding. And I said, I'd love to sit down with you at your request and talk about your soul.
And then it was almost like too deep for him. And so he goes, that's a good thing to know. All right, noted.
Spurgeon used to come up to preach and he would shake knowing the weight of what he would have to do. You come here with your kids and your wives and your family and some save some unsaved.
And then I think to myself, I have to get up and preach the riches of Christ. And who am I, especially after Isaiah?
Who am I to preach? And yet God loves preaching.
God loves to work through preaching. And I hope today you're not the same as you. I hope when you leave today, you won't be the same as when you came in.
Here's a book, Isaiah chapter six, specifically this chapter that will talk about the glory of God, the sin of man and God's gracious forgiveness.
Everything about Isaiah, it just reeks holiness. If you take the book of Isaiah in the form of a scroll in the
Old Testament and just wound it up as tight as possible, what would leak out of the middle would be the word holiness, transcendence, greatness.
And if you'd like to be used more by God for his pleasure, we're going to see five visions here in Isaiah, five lessons for you that will change any frail, sinful, weak
Christian into the Hudson Taylor who went to China, into Isaiah, into John the
Baptist, into a Mary or a Martha who can be used by God. In review, the first requirement for William Carey -like ministry, we found it in verses one, two, three, and four.
Number one, you must see God as holy and on high. Isaiah chapter six, verses one to four.
It all starts there. Isaiah is going to see this transforming view of God seated on a throne.
Necessary for us to kind of look through the annals of history and say, we don't know what it's like to live under a monarch.
Oh, certainly Britain has some constitutional monarch, but it's all paper. It doesn't really work.
Back in these days, there was an absolute monarch who sat on his throne, bestowing grace as he saw fit, with complete judgment, with a court and a throne room.
So when you walked in, all eyes look to this great king. And all of a sudden, Isaiah, a frail, sinful man, is going to be called by God to do his work.
And so what does it look like when God takes someone and says, I'm going to use you for my glory, whether that's in West Boylston or in Judah?
And here's what it looks like. Number one, this person sees God's holiness.
Chapter six, verse one, just we'll review this for a while. It's just such a great text. I could preach it every week.
In the year of King Uzziah's death, very odd way to set the date here, like no other prophet does,
I saw the Lord sitting on a throne. So you've got the one King Uzziah, who has been reigning since he was 16 years old, and he dies now 52 years later.
What's 16 plus 52? 70 what? 68. 68 years old.
It's been peace, prosperity, the good times, at least materialistically, at least when it comes to safety and border, international relations.
But on the inside, the place is crumbling. One king who is making the society secure on the outside, it dies.
And Isaiah needs to see the king who is going to reign internally, spiritually. And this king,
God himself, is sitting on a throne. And if you want to serve
God with all your heart, you must see God like this. You don't need a God who's the big guy in the sky, the big guy up there.
You don't need a God who is your buddy. I got my buddy, God, wherever I go.
Me and my buddy, God. You don't need to have a God who says, you know, I'm a savior, but when it comes to Lord, you know, you have your hell insurance, but in terms of me commanding you to be holy and to put off sin and to act like I am your
Lord, you know, we'll do that later. That's a second level deal. Not at all. Not in this passage. The one king was dead.
Here is another king, and he sits on a throne. All language to try to get us to think absolute monarchy.
Whether he saw it with his real eyes or not, that's not the point. Here's the contrast of the king who dies,
Uzziah. He dies by getting leprosy for disobeying God. And here's the other king, a king described in Jeremiah 17 this way.
A glorious throne on high from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary. Oh, Lord, hope of Israel.
And this king's train fills the whole temple. Do you see your text there? This oriental monarch who impresses the prophet with his godness, or as Steve Lawson would say, the bigness of God, and it fills the palace is the literal word that fills all the palace.
And what is Isaiah doing? I don't think he's doing anything except lying on his face. And as the old kind of oriental kings had all kinds of attendance, so to their attendance here, and these attendance, verse two, are the seraphim, burning hot angels stood above him.
They're around and by him, each having six wings. Two, they cover their face. They blush, even though they're perfect, even though they're sinless.
With two, they cover their feet. Because when you're in the presence of a king back in those days, you didn't walk around and show your toes.
And with two, he flew, doing whatever God bid them to do. Fire, throne, judgment, king, it's all trying to show that this is a great
God. Lots of times, fire is directly associated with God's holiness.
How about this one? Then Elijah said to the people, I alone am left a prophet of the Lord, but Baal's prophets are 450 men.
Now let them give us two oxen and let them choose one oxen for themselves and cut it up and place it on the wood.
Put no fire under it, and I will prepare the other ox and lay it on the wood, and I will not put fire under it. Then you call the name of your
God, and I'll call the name of my God, and the God who answers by fire, he is
God. And all the people said, that is a good idea. Numbers says, now the people became like those who complain of adversity in the hearing of the
Lord. And when the Lord heard it, his anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of fire.
They can name that place Taborah, because the fire of the Lord burned among them. The fire showing holiness, the throne showing holiness, the name showing holiness, the palace showing holiness,
Isaiah needs to see the holiness of God. And do you think
God's holy? If I grab you in the hall and say, God is, do you say holy?
And so often we forget this view because here's what we want today. We don't want holiness, we want what?
Happiness. I want to be happy. Forget this holy thing, I'm about happiness. And then years, you know, 20 years ago, in comes another kind of attack into Christianity and God's holiness.
We don't want to be just happy, we want to be what? Whole. We want wholeness.
It's a therapeutic thing. Friends, we're going to see that I don't think
Isaiah is happy. And I don't think Isaiah is going to be whole. Isaiah is going to be unhappy with a sin.
He is going to say, I have integrity before others. I have no integrity before you. But Isaiah is going to give a glimpse of holiness of God so he would be holy.
And by the way, you show me someone who's happy and I'll show you somebody who is whole and what? Happy.
But there's not just on your face before this creator. There's praise. Do you see verse 3? Again, reviewing and one called out to another.
Antiphonally. Like when Miriam would say something and she would answer.
Antiphonally. Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh of hosts. I think
I said Kadesh last week. It's Kedosh, Kedosh, Kedosh is the Lord of hosts to the superlative degree.
There's no other God like this. God is a cut above.
He's different. He's holy. And then what happens?
Well, I can't even go any farther because I have to talk about this for a minute. Let me give you just a quick theology lesson.
When you think of God, there's two ways to think about God and both are true. One way you think about God and his attributes is that he is transcendent.
He is over. He is above. He is different. He is as Isaiah is seeing
God in verses 1, 2 and 3. He is so above that he's not like us. He's he's alien.
He's he's a stranger. He's sovereign. He's king. He's holy. He's just so different.
But God is also very close to his people by decision. Here is nature says transcendent.
But by decision, by will, by condescension, by the incarnation of Christ, he is close to his people.
He's a friend that sticks closer than a brother. And Isaiah, if you'll turn to Isaiah 57 verse 15, so I can show you the beauty of this.
If God was only transcendent, we would be dust. If he was only the holy one, what would we do?
Think about it. God is set apart. Well, how can we be near him? How can we climb Jacob's ladder?
We can't. How can we build a tower of Babel to come up and be God or be like God?
How can we somehow access this God on the slippery slopes of sin?
We can't. So God, by choice, becomes close to his people.
Get this. This is worth the sermon today. Isaiah 57, 15. For thus says the high and exalted one who lives forever, whose name is holy.
God says, I'm transcendent. I'm different. I'm over. I'm Lord. I'm sovereign. I'm different. And I'm other than you.
Well, how can I have fellowship? How can I have forgiveness? How can I have closeness? How can I have this God who walks with me and talks with me along life's narrow way?
Because God chooses to be close. Transcendence is who he is. Eminence or closeness is by his choice.
I dwell on a high and holy place. And then the two best words of this verse.
And what? Also with. So we've got the we've got the transcendence and then we've got with the contrite.
And with the lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the
God is so set apart, we could never have any fellowship. Yet he by decision, by will.
Signified mainly by the by the incarnation decides to be close to us. It's the mercy of God.
That is absolutely mind boggling to me. And it's mind boggling to the angels.
If you go back to Isaiah chapter six, they're all shouting the whole earth is the launching pad for his glory.
Everything about the world says God is great. God is wise. God is powerful.
And what happens in verse four and the foundations of the thresholds tremble that the voice of him who called out while the temple was filling with smoke.
I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and we had tornadoes. And we were told if a tornado comes, you quit, you know, get home and you get in a certain corner of the basement because tornadoes always come from one direction.
And so you want to get into the corner that's closest to the point of hitting the being in the path of the tornado.
So the tornado throws all the debris of the house down into the far corner and it kind of just goes over you.
So you're here and it just blows over and you think, I don't want to do that if I'm a kid. When we heard tornado, we thought of roof.
That's what we thought. Get on the roof to see. We want to see. If it's coming, I got to know some kind of close encounters with something.
I don't know. I want to know what's happening. Of course, my dad never really liked that idea. Then I moved in 1983, late 82 to Los Angeles and we had shaking of a different kind.
And I remember that day when our house started to sway back and forth, it felt like there were some kind of rumbling from underneath the ground and my bookshelves were flying down.
Haley was a little baby. And before I could get conscious, Kim is already up, has
Haley and is standing out in the middle of the backyard. And now I finally get outside. There's glass all over and you could just see the house go like this.
And then all of a sudden the aftershocks and the rumbling. And here with Isaiah is seeing the holiness of God and everything is shaking.
There is is all kinds of concussions and tremors. And it is just wild. Tremble that the voice of him who called out while the temple was filling with smoke, sight and sound overload for Isaiah.
He saw that God was holy. And friends, until you see, God is holy. A, you'll never be a
Christian. And B, you'll never be used the way God can use a man like Isaiah.
What else do you have to see? God, I want to be used by you to a greater degree. God, how can
I live for sports when there's doping in the tour, the NBA refs tweak the games, when the
Yankees will pass the Red Sox? I don't know if they will or not, but they probably will. God, all my idols have clay feet.
Why live for these things? God, I want to live for you. Don't you ever sit there sometimes just in solitude and think, you know,
Lord, thank you for what you've done in my life. But if you want to turn up the volume and let me live for you and let me see things like David Brainerd did or Jim Elliott did or Amy Carmichael did, would you just help me burn out for you?
You just get so caught up in it all. Well, the second thing you've got to see besides the holiness of God is, number two, you must see that you're not worthy to serve such a king.
Number two, you must see that you're not worthy to serve such a king. It starts with the recognition that God is this great thing and we just don't saunter in because we're sinful.
And that's what verse five says. Look at this. Then I said, Isaiah, God, you're my buddy.
God, you're a God that when things are going good, I'll forget about you. But when things are bad, I'll say some of our fathers.
When I'm in that foxhole, God, I'll call on you.
But right now I've got my own life to live and woe is me, for I am unruined.
I'm a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips for my eyes have seen the king, the transcendent one, the
God who's holy, the Lord of hosts. Isaiah doesn't even really notice himself for these first four verses until five.
And he realizes, like with all good theology, once you get a good glimpse of God, the second glimpse you need to have is of yourself.
One man said he is brutally aware of himself. Now, if you go back to chapter five, you know what
Isaiah was doing in chapter five? Let me just show you these examples. He is pronouncing woe on other people.
Woe, damnation. He's cursing people for God. Look at verse eight,
Isaiah five, one chapter to the left. Woe to those who add house to house and to join field to field.
Verse 11. Woe to those who rise early in the morning that they may pursue strong drink, who stay up late in the evening that wine may inflame them.
Verse 18. Woe to those who drag iniquity with the cords of falsehood and sin as if with cart ropes.
Verse 20. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
Verse 21. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight. And now
Isaiah in chapter six isn't saying woe to other people anymore, is he? Gone are the woes to Judah, woes to so -and -so, woe to these other sinners.
And now the woe comes to Isaiah. And I'll teach you
Hebrew word today. And you'll know it because if you know any Yiddish, you'll know this word.
Here's the Hebrew word for woe. Oy. Oy is an interjection.
It is one of these exclamations 22 times in the Old Testament. That's very on a monopoetic.
It sounds like what it is. Oy. Oy vey? Oy. He didn't say oy vey, but he could have.
Alas, oh, it is a wail. It is a lamentation. It is not, you know, when people go, well,
I just was at Walmart two days ago, and I walked up and there's some book that from the latest false teaching heretic, aberrational lying dog who says, tell me what
I really think. I've been to hell. I've been to heaven. And now I'm going to write a story about it.
Friends, you need to get saved if you write a book like that. You don't go to hell and write a book.
You go to hell and stay there. You don't go to heaven and come back because Paul isn't even allowed to talk about what he sees in heaven.
And God gets some thorn to put in his side. So Paul is humbled. Whoa. I don't even know what
I was going to talk about with the story about the book. It tied in somehow, but I'm not exactly sure. It's a bad book, so don't buy it.
If you ever teach a group of kids and you forget where you are or what you were saying or the rabbit trail doesn't seem to make sense, then you always say, well, let's just look back at the text.
Do you see that? See that in verse five? In verse five, he says, woe is me.
It is despair. He is basically saying this, God, I see who you are.
Now I remember what I was talking about. God, I see who you are and I know who you are. And that makes me want to say,
I'm damned. I'm damning myself. You don't come back after you see the wrath of God and write a book.
Woe is me. I am ruined. Curse me as my pastor used to tell me, damn me, send me to hell.
I can't be in your presence. And you know what?
Have you ever noticed a text? Why didn't Isaiah jump in and start singing holy, holy, holy or chanting it with the angels?
He can't. His chant is not holy, holy, holy. It's oi, oi, oi. I'm undone.
I can't sing with those who are sinless. And yet still cover their eyes because I am a sinner and I don't deserve to sing holy.
I deserve to experience the holiness of God, which manifests itself in alas. So what does he say instead?
Well, you can see right there in the text. What does he say? He says, woe is me, for I am undone.
I've not only seen the greatness of God, his transcendence, his differentness, but his holiness now is manifesting itself as ethical purity.
No sin, no stain. And now I see God's holiness. Therefore, I experience my own sin.
Commentator Oswalt said where God's glory is manifested, there is judgment for sin. For the two cannot exist side by side and his self esteem was gone.
Erwin Lutzer says with a shocking, shocking quote. Today, modern men self confidently trapeze into the presence of God without the slightest thought that it might be a bad idea.
Trapezing into the presence of God. Isaiah's King Uzziah dies of leprosy.
And now Isaiah thinks he's a spiritual leper. And as the lepers of the
Old Testament and Leviticus were required to shout out something, what were they required to shout out? Unclean, unclean.
Isaiah realizes he is the unclean leper in the sight of God. After all, it took how many sins for God to kick
Adam and Eve out of the garden? How many sins did it take for Moses not to be allowed to be buried in the promised land?
How many sins did it take for Elisha's servant to be smitten with leprosy?
How many sins did it take for Ananias and Sapphira to be killed by God? One sin before the utter, unapproachable majesty of this
King and people are undone. It is self abasement. R .C.
Sproul said, you know, if you've got a phobia like arachnophobia, that's what?
You're afraid of spiders. Claustrophobia, you're afraid of when you speak in front of people, you have phobias.
I don't know what that's called. Does anybody know? Speakophobia, get out of here. Note to self, don't ask congregation questions.
And then R .C. Sproul says, xenophobia is the fear of strangers or foreigners or anything that is strange or foreign.
God is the ultimate object of our xenophobia. He is the ultimate stranger. He is the ultimate foreigner for he is holy and we are not.
Meeting him personally with our sins not covered would be our greatest trauma. And that's what happens.
I'm ruined. I'm undone. One translation says I'm lost. Septuagint says
I'm miserable. And that's just the way the scriptures always describe the nuclear reaction between holy
God and sinful mankind. Now, the angel of the
Lord did not appear to Manoah or his wife, Judges 13, that Manoah knew that he was the angel of the Lord. So Manoah said to his wife, we will surely die because we have seen the face of God.
How about Luke? Turn over to Luke with me, if you would, as we are discussing what happens when a man realizes how holy
God is, he will see his sin. By the way, that's why when I meet unbelievers, I want to hammer the holiness of God because they need to know about the one they're sinning against.
Not this way. I told a lie. Yeah, therefore I'm sinful. No, you have told a lie about this
God or before this God who's on a king and the smoke and the fire and all these things. It's not just one of these, you know, hop, skip and a jump into the presence of God.
And Luke five shows that even with the incarnate God, even with love incarnate
Jesus Christ. Way before the resurrection, but still, if you look at Luke five, five, you will see the proper response and Isaiah like response, a response that I want you to have if you're not a
Christian. And if you're a Christian, I still want you to realize that you are playing with fire, that you are worshiping
God is a more reverent way to say it. Luke five, five, Simon answered and said, Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing.
But I will do as you say and let down the nets. I mean, after all, what do you know? We're the fishermen and you, you know, you're not a fisherman, but you're master.
When they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish. Their nets began to break. So they signaled to their partners in the other boat verse seven for them to come and help them.
And they came and filled both the boats so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw that he jumped up and did a double mint chewing gum kick, he fell down at Jesus's feet saying, go away from me,
Lord, for I am a sinful man. Oh, Lord, I used to have integrity.
I have no integrity. You told me you were God. But as you have demonstrated before my very eyes that you are, in fact,
God, you are the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And you are such a holy, transcendent, different God.
And you cannot look at evil. You cannot be around sin without there being a reaction.
I understand. And now I respond properly, just like Job and Job 42.
I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear. But now my eye seeth thee. Wherefore, I abhor myself and repent in dust and what ashes.
That is the response back to Isaiah chapter six, please. Interestingly, with Isaiah six, we're not talking about someone here who is a
Hamas terrorist. We're not talking about an ethnic cleansing leader from Bosnia.
We're not talking about an abortion doctor. We're not talking about a prostitute. We're not talking about a drug addict or a murderer or a
Republican. Democrat. You said to me, are you Republican or Democrat?
I don't care because everybody's going to hell without Christ. I have an agenda.
Here would be a good trade off. I don't care if you all become Democrats, if you all will be born again. What do
I care? I don't care if you all become Republicans. The crucial essence of politics is compromise.
And the crucial issue for every one of you is what Pastor Steve read this morning, is you can gain the whole world and lose your soul.
And you will die one day and stand before God. And if Isaiah, the man of God, Isaiah, the spokesperson of God, Isaiah, the prophet of God, when
Isaiah spoke, out came the oracles of God, a holy man. Whoever the holiest person is that you can think of.
You think, oh, Billy Graham or this person or my grandfather or whatever. Here, the holiest men alive, holiest women ever born see
God. And they think, you know what, with your MRI like vision into my soul, you see the tumor and the tumor is not something
I have. It is a bedine tumor and I am the tumor. It's not what
I have, it's who I am. He doesn't have some kind of laughing fit.
People say, I experienced the presence of God and I lay down on the ground and the Holy Ghost super glues me to the floor and I just laugh the whole time.
I just bark like an animal the whole time. Such flippancy is repugnant.
Come up to the front of the church and get slain in the spirit. You want to see slain in the spirit? Here is slain in the spirit.
And he doesn't say, you know, it's the people you gave me, God, to be a prophet over first. He says, you know what, it's me first.
And then I'm a man of unclean lips and I serve a people of unclean lips.
All because, do you notice the text? Because my eyes have seen the King, the
Lord of the armies of God. I've got a dirty mouth.
And God, I'm going to need some kind of spiritual welder's goggles to even look at you.
You still think you're a good person? You still think you're better than your neighbor? The third view for transforming people to serve a thrice holy
God. Number one, you see God's holiness. Number two, you realize you're not worthy. And number three, you must see that God's forgiveness comes from him.
God is the one who initiates forgiveness. You must see the initiating gracious forgiveness of God.
Verses six and seven. Now we come to the grace of God. You can't miss this. It's not just holiness.
And it's not just holiness and sin. But it's holiness, sin, and now comes mercy, forgiveness, graciousness of God.
This is the God we serve. The God of all grace, he's called in the New Testament. And what happens?
Let me tell you what doesn't happen. God, I realize I'm a sinner. Against thee and thee only have
I sinned and done evil in thy sight. God, please grant me forgiveness. God, I know I don't deserve forgiveness. I know
I've always compared myself to other people and other prophets. And I'm better than Amos and all that. And God, I ask for your forgiveness.
Would you please grant it? Have mercy on me, a sinner. Isaiah never asks one time.
He's undone. He can't ask. He doesn't ask. And so God initiates.
God brings. Friends, salvation and grace is initiated by God and always by God. God isn't waiting for you to pray a sinner's prayer and then says, all right, now you did it.
Now I guess I'll be able to save you. God is the one who saves and man responds with a sinner's prayer.
It's God and God alone who initiates. Then one of the seraphim flew to me.
Can you imagine what that must have looked like incoming? He flew to me with a burning coal in his hand.
I mean, I only have one word for Isaiah, duck, right? Here it comes. I'm undone. We already know the story.
He gets, you know, cauterized. The sin's forgiven. He goes and serves and everything's fine. He doesn't know that.
If you said to Isaiah, is that seraphim in your freeze frame? Timeout, 20 second timeout.
Isaiah, what do you think's going to happen? A, God will forgive you and make a profit of you. And cause you to be in the annals of church history.
B, because you're sinful and because God always judges sin. Because God's not a
God who kind of like, you know, oh God, George Burns, kind of a grandfather kind of God who just overlooks sins.
God will just, you know, come and just, you know, say, oh, let bygones be bygones.
It's kind of like the day, you know, when my grandmother said, if you do that one more time while your mom and dad are at work, I'm going to take that ruler over there, that yardstick, that yellow one from that lumber company, and I'm going to spank your little bottom.
She said it so many times, I realized it wasn't true. And so the next time she said it, as I've told you many times from this pulpit,
I went over and got it. I broke it over my knee and handed it to my grandma. And you think, well, you know, there's some grandparents license for all that.
And it'd be nice when I'm a grandpa and let the kids get all wound up by me and send them off home for the parents to deal with.
It'll be very nice. But even though God is love and God is merciful and God is kind and patient,
He's also a God who's just. And that justice of God must have been seen by Isaiah coming at him full blast.
And he would have said, I should be executed. God, you're just to do it.
Get rid of me. And if you could have said to Isaiah, Isaiah, what would be better, death or staying in the presence of God with your sin?
It would have been better for him to say, kill me. But we know the story.
We know the story that even though Isaiah's mouth has caused him to be mute based on what he's seen.
There's that glue that's fairly new, gorilla glue. Have you ever seen gorilla glue? It's kind of like super glue, but brown and has a grill on it.
And it's just as if Isaiah sees the holiness of God and it just pours a whole bottle of gorilla glue in his mouth and his tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth.
He can't talk. I don't know what else happened to Isaiah.
The text doesn't say. But if you read Zechariah chapter three and see what's happened to that priest, who's there.
Some people can't even contain themselves literally when they see the king. Isaiah doesn't talk.
He's got cotton mouth. He didn't say, God have mercy. God have mercy on my soul. Here comes the death angel, except it's not
God's gracious. It's not. This is just mind boggling.
If I was God, what would I do? If you were God and somebody dishonored you, what would you do?
Yep. God's not like us. Aren't you glad? He had this live coal from the altar.
A burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. He doesn't just go over to the altar where all the burning coals are and say, you know what?
I'll just pick that up. He could, it's not going to burn him. He's a burning one by definition.
He's a burning one. But as Moses had to take his sandals off to walk on the holy ground of God.
So to almost with reverence saying, I've got to pick up that coal from the holy altar because I dare not even touch it with my perfect angelic wings.
So he picks up the coal and now he brings it with his hand.
He comes zooming over to Isaiah. And then verse seven says, all driven by God, all motivated by God.
Grace is always sovereign. Grace is always undeserved. Grace is always initiated by God and received by man.
God is active in salvation. Man is passive. And he touched my mouth with it. It's granted.
It's given. It's a gift. People like, well, you know, you want to receive the gift. Then all you have to do is hold out your hand and receive the gift.
There's none of that here. And with symbolism of touching his lips, it says his, his, your iniquity is taken away.
What's in your heart comes out of your mouth. Yes. Didn't Jesus say that in Mark seven?
And your sin is forgiven, cleansed. It's purged.
This is a great word here. If you study the word forgiven in Isaiah six, seven, Kofar is where we would say in Hebrew, it means to cover.
It means to make what atonement. And what
Moyer said is quote, as we speak of a sum of money as sufficient to cover a debt.
So this word is the payment of whatever divine justice sees as sufficient to cover the sinner's debt, the death of the substitute sacrifice on the altar.
The altar is where you kill the animals. And here we have the substitute. And the substitute is applied to the mouth and the body and the soul of Isaiah.
And his sins are covered. That covers the debt. That's why the
English Standard Version says, and your sin is atoned for. That is great news.
That is great news that God is the one who initiate salvation. It is great news that God is the one who saves.
I was reading this morning Psalm 130, and I asked the congregation the questions that come exactly out of Psalm 130, because if there's not forgiveness with God, how can we live
Psalm 130 verse three congregation? If God, the
Lord marks iniquities, who could stand? No one who could stand.
But it says in verse four, there is forgiveness with you that you may be feared. Turn to John chapter 12 for the coup de grace of this whole passage.
There's grace that's given by God's initiation. Forgiveness is a gift. It's not earned.
It's not merited. You can't eat enough wafers or be baptized enough or anything else. God has to grant you forgiveness based on a sacrifice.
And Isaiah is seeing this picture. If you had to describe this vision, if you had to say, you know, did
Isaiah see anything? You know, Ezekiel says there's some kind of form of a person or a man on that throne.
Yes, God's a spirit, but there's some form or resemblance. It looks like there's some kind of man on the throne.
How can Isaiah see a man? And when you think of God's forgiveness, God's mercy, God's love,
God's initiating grace, you think of one person and who's that person? Christ Jesus.
And that is who Isaiah saw. John 12, verse 39. For this reason, they could not believe.
Isaiah 610 is being quoted. Because as Isaiah says elsewhere, he has blinded their eyes and darkened, deadened their hearts so that they cannot, they can neither see with their eyes nor understand with their hearts nor turn.
And I would heal them. Isaiah said this, underline this verse in your heart, at least, if not your
Bibles. Verse 41. Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus's glory and spoke of him.
Isn't that amazing? That is absolutely amazing. The first time I heard that and understood it, I couldn't get over it.
I couldn't get over it. Who does Isaiah see? He sees Jesus Christ. Christ wasn't just born and started beginning at the birth.
Jesus is the eternal God. And here this glorious, illustrious, magnificent, beautiful, thrice holy
God is Jesus. No wonder Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2, we've crucified the Lord of glory.
The holy one, Jesus, the one without sin, Jesus. The one that the demons look at and say, what do you want to do with us,
Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, exactly from a title from Isaiah.
You are the holy one of God. That's who you are. The only way
God is ever approached is through a sacrifice. The holy
God can only be approached through a holy sacrifice. And that is exactly who
Jesus is. The holy sacrifice. One man said of God's holiness,
God is so holy that it was easier for him to be born of a humble Jewish virgin, easier for him to hang stretched out upon the cross of Calvary than it was for him to overlook one single sin.
When you see Isaiah, you should see the glory of God. You should see Jesus, that is.
So I have a question for you if you're here and you're not a Christian. We probably have members that aren't Christians. You obviously know the truth now.
You've always known the truth because when you look outside, the Bible says there are no such things as atheists.
There are people, God says, who say to themselves, you know what? I know God made things.
I know that God designed the universe. I know that God is wise.
But because I like to sin, I've got to push that down. I've got to suppress that truth about God and his goodness, his greatness.
I can't look at a baby being born and say, God, you're such a merciful giver. Because I like my sin so much,
I have to say that is a product of evolution. And instead of thanking God, I just have to be kind of thankful on the inside.
I know there are no atheists in the room because God says so. And you say, well, I am an atheist. And I would just say, that proves my point.
God is holy and you are sinful. You say,
I hate that. I don't want to talk to you about it anymore. It is the mercy of God.
It is the goodness of God that he would send you to a place to hear the truth, that one day you will die and your only hope is
Christ Jesus, the God -man, the one who was raised from the dead. That your sins will either be punished by you in hell forever or upon Jesus on the cross.
And Jesus is that lamb of God who was slain instead of people. And today,
God has given you mercy and grace to say, you know, the world says I'm all love, but I am a God of holiness. And I'm a
God that's so holy, I'll even kill my own sin because I have to judge sin. You think God would judge
Jesus on the cross as he bore someone else's sins, but he'll let you go scot -free? Henrik Hepp said, things are admirably arranged.
God likes forgiving sins and I like committing them. You must approach
God on the basis of another. Hebrews 10 says, since therefore, brethren, we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he inaugurated for us through the veil that is his flesh.
The way to God is through Jesus. And Jesus said, when you were born from your mother because of Adam, you were born sinful and therefore you need to be spiritually born again.
And that's why Jesus said, truly, truly, I say to you, you must be what? Born again. People say,
I'm a Christian, I'm not born again. Sorry, you've got to be born again because that sin has to be cleansed and paid for on another.
Titus 2 .14 says, Jesus gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous.
I proclaim to you today a savior who will save you from every one of your sins. He's such a holy
God that he should have you see your sin, but he's such a gracious God. He has granted
Christ Jesus and has called you to believe, to look. And for us as Christians, we haven't even got to the part yet where we would say,
God, I'll do anything to serve you because I deserved hell five billion times over.
And you've granted me free new life, the hope of heaven, a savior, a redeemer, a friend.
And I will serve you wherever I go. And God rid it from my mouth every time I complain. God, help me not to sin.
Help me acknowledge you in front of others. Help me to tell my unbelieving family that God is pleased to show
Christ Jesus and say, look and live, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah was never the same.
And for you not to be the same, it takes all three components, the holiness of God, your sinfulness, and the grace of God.
And if this isn't a divine attention getter, I don't know what is.
Let's pray. Lord, I rejoice this morning that we have such a great savior who would stoop down to our level.
That he would, even though without sin, would take on the form of a human being.
He would be completely man and God. So he would be able to identify with us as he would bear our sins.
And I pray, Lord, that you would help us today not to just say, oh, it's another sermon, another savior, another bit of Bible teaching.
Lord, I pray that our church would be willing and able to serve you with a new desire, a spirit of God -driven and granted firmness and love for one another.
Lord, would you help us to love you more with our heart, soul, mind, and strength? Love our neighbors, love our church family more because of how good you are to us.
And how if you love sinful people, we can certainly love saints who sin. And Lord, for the unbelievers who are here today,
I pray, Lord, that if the choice is made to either hate me or hate their own sins,
Lord, grant them a desire not to see what they are as a crime against humanity or some kind of breaking the law or just not whole or therapeutically.
I pray that they would realize that in their heart, everything about them is sinful and that they would cry out to you.
And Lord, I praise you that you're a God who loves to save sinners who cry out for mercy. Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner, and you respond with great saving, redeeming grace.