The Wonderful, Awful Motivation For Ministry - (part 2) - [Isaiah 6:1-13]

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, kind of a bunch of woods, green, getting dusky outside and the new racing helmets have many vents so you can not have your head sweat as much and lots of air flowing through.

And 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, 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 Ale 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 used 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 to 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 begin to talk to him a little bit more. And yesterday I had to go borrow his mower because my mower broke, actually 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 for 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. And 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 looked 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, a 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've got my buddy God wherever I go.

Just 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 to 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, but 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 a 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 a 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 three again, reviewing and one called out to another and Tiffany, like when Miriam would say something and she would answer and Tiffany, holy, holy, holy is Yahweh of hosts.

I think I said Kadesh last week. It's Kadosh. Kadosh. Kadosh 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 one, two, and three. He is so above that he's not like us.

He's alien. 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 his 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 verse 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 contrite.

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. I remember when 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 all kinds of concussions and tremors and it is just wild. Trembled at 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 as 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 a Hebrew word today, and you'll know it because if you know any Yiddish, you'll know this word. Here is the Hebrew word for woe, oi, oi, 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, oi, oi, vei, oi. He didn't say oi vei, but he could have, alas, oh, it is a whale.

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 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 didn'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, 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 5? In verse 5, 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 oy, oy, oy.

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, end quote.

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, well, I told a lie, 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 5 shows that even with the incarnate God, even with love incarnate Jesus Christ. Way before the resurrection, but still, if you look at Luke 5, 5, 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 5, 5, 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, 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 in 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. Somebody 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.

Why do I care? I don't care if you all become Republicans. The crucial essence of politics is compromise. The crucial issue for every one of you is what Pastor Steve read this morning. You can gain the whole world and lose your soul.

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 experience the presence of God when I lay down on the ground and the Holy Ghost superglues 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 I'm guilty. And God, I'm going to need some kind of spiritual welder's goggles to even look at you.

The Unworthiness of the Prophet Before a Holy King

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?