Worship in Heaven

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Hey, everybody. I'm Pastor Jeff Durbin with Apologia Church. I want to thank you all so much for watching the content right here on Apologia Studios channel.

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What you're about to watch is a sermon, a message from Apologia Church's worship service. And again, I want to thank you all so much for watching, for liking, for commenting, for sharing the sermon itself.

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We truly believe that it's important for the Christian church to have an engagement in the public square with the

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Word of God. So we thank you so much for partnering with us to send this out across the world. I just wanted to say something before you actually watch this, and that is that I'm not your pastor, though I'd love to be,

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I am not your pastor. And it's very important as you're watching this, you know that it's

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God's design for individual Christians to be part of a local Christian church under the care of qualified, faithful, biblical elders.

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And so as much as we love all of you watching these sermons, and we're thankful to God that God uses them to bless you, to encourage you,

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I do want to encourage you as a minister of the gospel to get plugged into a local body of believers, particularly

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I think important, a reformed church would be best. But we want to encourage you to get plugged into a solid biblical church where you can fellowship, where you can worship, where you can serve, where you can be connected.

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That is vitally important and actually a biblical command. And so as much as, again, as we love for your participation, your partnership, and we are so thankful to God that He's using these in your lives, we want to encourage you to get plugged into a local church.

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You can, though, actually partner with Apologia Church as we proclaim the gospel and provide a defense of the biblical gospel all around the world.

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You can do that by going to ApologiaStudios .com. You can partner with us by becoming All Access.

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When you do, you help to make all of this possible, and you get all of our TV shows, our aftershows, and Apologia Academy, all of that.

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And you're a part of all that God is doing with us in the world to proclaim, herald the gospel of the kingdom.

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You can partner with us. And I want to say one last word about that. Do make sure that none of your giving and partnership towards Apologia Church interferes with your giving, your worship, your tithes, your offerings to a local body of believers in your area.

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So thank you again so much for watching these and sharing them. God bless you. When I got the call from Pastor Jeff yesterday that despite his best attempts, he had had some interviews this past week and had gone straight home

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I believe on Thursday, and he could tell that a truck was attempting to run him over.

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And so he was immediately quarantined from the rest of the family. And as I began thinking about what

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I would do, because I love to have this role, I like to be the guy that is up in a pinch.

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I grew up doing radio, and I have done the dividing line for, well,

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I'm going to tell you how long. Let's just put it this way. Most of you weren't alive when we started that. So what that means is we take calls, and so I have to be ready on short notice to answer a lot of questions and things like that.

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So I love to have this opportunity, but I was, I'm supposed to preach, I will be preaching next

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Lord's Day as well, assuming I don't get run over by a truck literally or physically, either way, or metaphorically or whatever.

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Anyway, and so I started thinking, well, I've got two Sundays in a row, so what am

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I going to do? And so I started thinking about the fact that I had the opportunity at the

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G3 conference to do a rather special sermon, and I've always sort of felt badly that sometimes

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I get to do those types of things, and in my home church doesn't get to actually experience that. And I thought, you know, that subject that I addressed then really coalesces real well with another text from the book of Revelation.

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And so if we had two weeks, that would be almost enough time. I'm going to have to push it. I may have to do some

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Jeff Length sermons, but I'll try not to, to get through this. But today, if you'd like to turn to the sixth chapter of the book of Isaiah, I want to begin there.

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And what we're going to do is when you think about the Scriptures, there are only a couple of times when the

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Scriptures give us the opportunity of seeing what heaven is like. Oh, there's lots of books.

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There's lots of stories. You can find, I don't know how many cartoons there are of Saint Peter at heaven's gate.

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Why anyone thinks that Peter would be so bored as to be at the gate of heaven,

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I have no idea, but it's all over the place. And you can go to Christian bookstores. And what was it about 10, 12 years ago now, you had the young kid that allegedly died, went to heaven, came back, and then they wrote a book and then it was all exposed to be a fraud and everything else.

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But they made millions of dollars and didn't give any of it back. But you have the entire heaven tourism industry, and you've got all sorts of teachers and preachers who claim that they've been to heaven and they can tell you all about it.

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So you would think that there would be a tremendous amount of stuff in Scripture describing for us heaven, but there isn't.

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There are a lot of things that Scripture simply does not even begin to attempt to talk to us about, because I'll be perfectly honest with you.

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I don't think we can even begin to comprehend what it's going to be like to be in the presence of our

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Creator. Well, Scripture tells us the eye is not seen, the ear is not heard.

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We cannot comprehend. And I can speculate as to why that is, the limitations upon our knowledge right now, the limitations upon the kind of experience that is ours.

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I mean, it's fun to sort of speculate. So I've thought, you know, Jesus walked into a locked room after his resurrection, but he had a physical body, and the

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Scriptures emphasize the reality of his resurrection body. So what does that mean?

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And I've sat around, I've gone, well, what's the only thing really keeping me from being on the other side of those doors back there at the back of the room?

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It's time. That's the only thing that keeps me from being on the other side. It's time. So maybe there's a different experience of time in the resurrection.

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I don't know. How could I even describe it? Our language is based upon time, so we can't even go there.

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So there's lots of speculation, but the Scriptures don't give in to giving us a basis for spending all of our time in speculation.

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But there are a couple of times when we are allowed entrance into the very throne room of God.

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Just a couple. And hence those passages are very, very well known to us.

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So today we're going to look at the Old Testament image that is given to us in Isaiah chapter 6,

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Isaiah's temple vision. But then I'm going to suggest to you that over the course of this week, you then read what we're going to look at next week, and that is the fourth and fifth chapters of the book of Revelation.

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And ask yourself the question that hopefully we will delve into and answer.

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What has changed and what hasn't changed? Because we see in both instances

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God sitting upon a throne, and we see the cherubim.

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They're not identified specifically as that, but the creatures both have six wings, so there aren't too many creatures running around with six wings.

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And so we have parallels between the two, but then we have amazing differences.

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And there's more detail given in chapters 4 and 5 of the book of Revelation, because now we're looking into heaven after the incarnation.

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What can we learn about our God, about worship, about who

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Jesus is, in light of the comparison of these two texts? That's where we want to go.

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Now, if you've listened to or seen my sermon,

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I apologize, but most of you probably haven't.

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And one of the things I'm going to be doing, which is unusual is

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I am not preaching this morning from an English translation, and I am not preaching from the

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Hebrew Masoretic text, upon which almost every single one of your translations is based.

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Almost all of your Bibles, whether it's ESV, NASB, New King James, King James, Christian Study Standard Bible, NIV, etc.

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etc. The standard text of the Old Testament that is translated there is the

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Hebrew text, because the Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew, with a number of chapters originally written in Aramaic, primarily in the book of Daniel.

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Almost all English translations are based upon that, but modern English translations also take into account one other thing, and that is the

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Bible of the early church was not primarily the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, because the vast majority of people in the

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New Testament church spoke Greek, not Hebrew. And so they had what's called the

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Greek Septuagint, and that translation differs in some places from the

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Hebrew manuscripts. And so I'm going to be translating from the

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Greek Septuagint. You have the first seven verses. This is all we could sneak into the bulletin, but you have the seven verses.

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And I'm going to explain why I'm doing this by the end of our time together.

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You will, I think, hopefully find the reason to be something that will be memorable and useful to you in your defense of the faith at another point in time.

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But at the very least, we're reading from the same words that, for example,

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John's audience would have been most familiar with when they first read his

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Revelation, and the book of Revelation is filled with references to the

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Old Testament. This would have been the Old Testament that they would have been familiar with, so you'll be able to see the connections a little bit more clearly.

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All right? So, Isaiah chapter 6 as found in the

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Greek Septuagint. And it came about in that year, the year that King Hoseas died,

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Uzziah in the Hebrew. I saw the Lord seated upon a throne, a throne which was lofty and lifted up, and the house was full of his glory.

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That might be the temple. This may have been a vision in the temple, but it's literally the word the house.

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The house was full of his glory. And Seraphim stood around him, each one of them having six wings, and with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.

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And they cried out one unto the other, saying, Holy, holy, holy is the

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Lord of hosts. All the earth is full of his glory.

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And the lintels, the cross beams, literally, literally, the lintels were shaken or lifted up by the voice when they cried out.

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And the house was filled with smoke. And I said,

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I am wretched because I have been pierced through, because I am a man, and I have unclean lips, and I am living in the midst of a people of unclean lips.

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And I have seen the King, the Lord of hosts, with my eyes.

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And one of the Seraphim was sent to me, and in his hand he had a coal, which he had taken from the altar of sacrifice with tongs, and he touched my mouth with it, and said,

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Behold, this has touched your lips, and it will take away your lawlessness, or your transgressions, and it will cleanse you from your sins.

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And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Who will I send, and who will go to this people?

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And I said, Behold, here I am, send me.

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And he said, Go and say to this people, Hearing you will hear, and you will not understand, and seeing you will see, and will not comprehend.

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For the heart of this people has become thick or fat, and their ears can barely hear, and their eyes are closed, lest seeing with their eyes, and hearing with their ears, and understanding with their heart, they might turn, and I might heal them.

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And I said, For how long, Lord? And he said,

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Until the cities become a wasteland without an inhabitant, and the people are away from the houses, or the houses are made empty, and the land becomes an uninhabited waste, and God sends the people, the men, far away, and the uninhabited places are multiplied in the land.

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And yet, there will be a tenth, a tenth, that will again be subject to testing, possibly burning, as the terebinth or as the oak when it has been cut down from its place.

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And there are some manuscripts of the

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Greek Septuagint that have what's also found in the Hebrew text at the very end, where it says, and that whole, that stump of what is left is the holy seed.

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So some Greek manuscripts have it, some Greek manuscripts do not, what is found there in the

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Hebrew text. So there you have what is known as Isaiah's temple vision.

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Now normally, I would not suggest that it's a good idea to try to envision things during sermons.

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People like to try to get you to turn off the part of your mind that analyzes and is critical, but this is one of those places where you have to.

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You have to try to see, because you're being given a description. You're being given a description.

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And so I invite you to think about what it was that Isaiah saw. We don't know exactly why it is into the prophecies of Isaiah before we see this section.

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Was Isaiah already prophesying to the people? Most people see this as his being set apart as a prophet to the people of Israel, but he had already been seemingly preaching to the people of Israel.

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Maybe this was a specific instance where the prophet is given the foundation that is going to allow him to undertake his ministry, because when you think about what he is entrusted to speak to the people, it's not the most positive thing you've ever heard.

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Indeed, when he says, how long, O Lord, you sort of wonder, was he going, how long, O Lord?

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That's a really negative message to have to be delivering to the people. But here in the sixth chapter,

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Isaiah, was he in the temple when this happened? We're not told. We're just not told.

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Does he have a vision of the heavenly place of worship, or is this a vision that takes place in the earthly temple that would eventually be destroyed in 586

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BC by the invading Babylonians? The fact that it talks about the lintels or the cross beams of the house shaking and being lifted up by the voice, the one who cried out, maybe this did happen in the temple.

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We're simply not told. But what we are told is what he saw, and what he saw took place at a time in history.

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Notice it's not once upon a time. It's not why that, that's not, that's not how biblical revelation takes place.

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It's not some type of mythology. It's the year that King Isaiah died, and when a king would die, there would be political upheaval and uncertainty.

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Who's going to be the new king? Very often, you would see situations where the next king would be murdered by someone else, and there'd be a struggle for the throne, and there would be uncertainty, and the nation would suffer.

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And so, Uzziah has died. There is uncertainty, but what Isaiah sees is there may be political uncertainty on the planet, but there is never uncertainty in the heavenly kingdom, and that's something we might want to keep in mind over the course of the next number of months.

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Things may change. Kings come and go, as do presidents and senators and representatives and dog catchers, but as we're going to see, we compare what's here with what's in the book of Revelation.

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Over 700 years pass. Let's make it a round number of 800 years between Isaiah's vision and John's, and God's still on his throne.

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The angels and the cherub and the seraphim have not become tired. That worship has been continuous, and you and I can be assured it's going on.

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Right now, right now, there are angelic hosts saying, holy, holy, holy, and it doesn't matter what happens here on earth.

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That will remain true. So, he sees the Lord seated upon a throne.

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The throne is lofty and lifted up. Sometimes you'll see little thrones.

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I've seen thrones as I've traveled in Europe. I've never found them all that fascinating, but I've seen a few, and the bigger they are, the more they become lifted up.

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This is a throne that is lofty and lifted up. It's a high throne because on it sits the king of the universe, and the house was full of his glory.

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Not just the throne, but the whole house reflects the incredible light that flows from God himself.

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The house is full of his glory, and Isaiah sees this, and this is very important to note because this is going to explain.

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He's going to say, I'm undone. I am wretched. I am pierced through. I expect to die because I have seen the king, the

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Lord of hosts with my eyes, and I am unworthy to see that.

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So, this is the vision that Isaiah sees, and he cannot help but know that there are seraphim, these creatures, these fiery, glorious creatures.

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They have six wings. With two, they cover their eyes. They are stationed around the throne, and so they are right in the glory blast zone, and even though they are pure and holy and unfallen, they still cover their eyes, their faces with two of their wings.

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This shows us that his purity is so consuming that even the creatures that he himself has made to worship in that way are made to worship with respect and reverence.

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They cover their feet. Remember when Moses sees the burning bush, what does

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God tell him to do? Take off your sandals. You're on holy ground. They cover their feet. They cover their eyes.

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With two, they fly. They have been made by God to worship him, and you might go, oh, what would that be like?

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Think about something, my friends. They're not made in the image of God. We are.

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They're not made in the image of God. The eternal

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Son did not take on their being. He became man.

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God does not seek to redeem them. He redeems us.

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I don't know about you, but that's astonishing. That is astonishing. It certainly causes me to stop and think, how much of my time do

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I spend thinking upon earthly, temporal things that will pass away when

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I've been made in the image of God and have the privilege of being able to think upon eternal things and worship

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God in a way that even the creatures he's made to be in his presence will not be able to worship him?

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Because when you and I worship him, as we will see, we are united with the Son. It's astonishing.

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It's astonishing. And they're crying out. And what do they cry out?

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This is called, if any of you have listened to almost anything by the late, great

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R .C. Sproul. And if you've not read a book by R .C. Sproul, shame on you.

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But if you read any one of them, read The Holiness of God. I read it in one night. Couldn't put it down.

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First book I'd ever read. Well, okay, I read some Hardy Boys Mysteries when I was in, you know, second grade.

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But as an adult, I simply couldn't put it down. And there's an awesome section in there about this vision.

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The thrice holy God. Holy, holy, holy.

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And yes, that means pure. And yes, that means totally separated from sinners.

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But it also means completely other. The great temptation of idolatry of all of man's religions is to make

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God like something in the creation, especially like us.

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He is completely other. And these exalted creatures, they cry out to one another, holy, holy, holy is the

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Lord of hosts. Again, we struggle with this language.

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We do not have kings and queens any longer. We're Americans. We're individuals.

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We got rid of any type of royalty long ago. Though, to be honest with you, looking at the current queen in England and some of the choices we have to deal with,

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I'm not sure if the red hat shouldn't say make America Britain again. But we struggle with this idea of worthiness in a king, because for us, someone just made you that way.

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You know, we're all equal. The Lord of hosts.

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What does that even mean? Well, it talks about the hosts of heaven, the armies of heaven.

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And again, we go, yeah, well, we got a pretty good army too. Do you remember what one angel did in the

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Old Testament in one night? How many hundreds of thousands he killed? One. This is an army of angels.

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As Jesus said, my father can send a legion. What would a legion of angels do?

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Well, I would say pretty much wipe out the entire population of the planet pretty much instantly.

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Of course, God could do that just simply with a thought if he wanted to. He is the

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Lord of the armies of heaven, and he is holy.

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This is the one that Isaiah sees. And then the statement, all the earth is full of his glory.

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The house is full of his glory. The earth is full of his glory. Do we believe that today?

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Everything we experience when we encounter the fallen creation is intended to cause you and I to no longer see and believe that the earth is full of his glory.

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The way that we are educated is specifically intended to dull our senses in seeing the glory of God.

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If we do not have regular exposure to God's word, we will struggle to continue to truly believe these words, all the earth is full of his glory.

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But who has a better perspective the angels surrounding

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God's throne or you and I who live for but a precious short period of time in a fallen state who know so little, and yet we are the ones who stand up on our hind legs and say glory of God?

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I don't see any glory of God. Every brilliant scientist that has studied the very essence of creation around us, that in their arrogance decides

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I don't see any evidence of God, will someday see this God upon his throne and they will see that his glory did fill all the earth.

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So when they cry out to one another, the voice is like thunder.

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It shakes the house and the house fills with smoke. The glory is obscured by the smoke that comes forth.

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And Isaiah may be one of the holiest men in Israel of his day, but his response must be understood.

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I'm a wretched man. I'm a wretched man. I've been pierced through because I'm a man.

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I'm not a God. I recognize there's a vast difference between men and God. This is something our

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Mormon friends don't understand. This is something Mormonism denies. But Isaiah gets it.

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I'm a man and I have unclean lips and I live in the midst of a people of unclean lips.

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You say, why the lips? Well, he's a prophet. He speaks the word of God. And now seeing

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God as he is, this may indeed have revealed to him the uncleanness of his own words.

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And there may be a temptation for almost every one of us in this room right now to be finding something else to think about because it's not just what comes forth in the lips, but in our generation, my friends, it's what comes forth in the fingers as well.

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Is it unclean? How often, how often do we indulge in the words, the speaking, the typing, the texting that we would never, ever, ever do if we were really cognizant of the fact that we live in the presence of God?

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He says, I'm undone. I'm a wretched man. I can't be here. My eyes have seen the king.

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And that means I'm going to be struck dead because I sense his holiness and my sinfulness and his wrath must break forth upon me.

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And notice he doesn't try to come up with some kind of a system.

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Lord, could I, could I offer you some of this? Could I give you some of that?

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Can I have some time to try to clean myself up? No. And what's interesting is immediately one of the seraphim is sent to him.

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Now you'll notice if you're looking at your own translation based upon the Hebrew, one of the seraphim flew to him, but in the

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Greek septuagint is sent to him. The very same term that's used for apostolos, an apostle is sent to him.

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God takes the initiative and sends one of the seraphim to him and provides a painful means of cleansing because he has taken by tongues from the altar, a glowing coal.

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If you've never seen an altar, I hate to diminish it in this way, but okay, the barbecue, it's about as close as we

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Americans are going to get. But this is a, a white hot coal held with tongues.

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And he touches Isaiah's mouth. And what's interesting is it says he touched his mouth but then it uses a different word when it's, when the, the, the seraph actually says, behold, this has touched your lips.

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And interestingly enough, will take away, future tense, will take away your lawlessness and will cleanse you from your sin.

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What should we see? God provides the way for the sinful man to be in his presence, not man.

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It is not up to man to tell God, well, we're going to do it this way. And this is the great idolatry of our age, my friends.

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This is the great idolatry of man's religion, that we would dare to say to God, we appreciate your provision in Jesus, but you know, this blood sacrifice stuff, that's just not going to fly in the modern world.

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And so we're going to come up with something else. Hope you don't mind. Thank you very much. But we're going to come up with a mechanism of making ourselves right with you.

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That is the idolatry of man's religion. That's the idolatry of modern man who thinks himself so much wiser than these poor fools from back in the stone ages, or maybe the bronze ages.

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God provides the way. He's the one who gets to determine who can stand in his presence and who will not.

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And he provides the means of cleansing. And that probably wouldn't have been Isaiah's suggested means, but God's the one who provides.

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And then having experienced God's cleansing, Isaiah hears the voice of the

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Lord saying, who will I send? And who will go to this people?

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So in the Greek Septuagint, it's an emphasis upon the specific message to the people of God in Israel.

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And having received the redemption from the hand of the Lord, the forgiveness of sins from the hand of the

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Lord, the immediate response of Isaiah is behold, here

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I am, send me. Probably the most popular missionary preaching text in the

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Bible. Isn't it? Here I am, send me.

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And if the Lord has used that to send his people out, great.

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I just hope that in all those sermons, the message that Isaiah was sent with was included.

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Because so often today, even when we say, here I am, send me, just don't make me say things the world's going to get angry about.

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Because when you listen to what he was sent to say, do you think the people of Israel enjoyed the message of God's coming judgment?

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God says he's going to judge you. And God says he's going to send you away and the cities are going to become without inhabitants.

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And he says that your heart is fat, your eyes are closed, you can't hear anything with your ears, you can't understand anything anymore.

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That's a real positive, uplifting message. Positive, uplifting message.

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But that's all he was given. Now you might say, well, there is that little ray of hope at the end.

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And when you think about Isaiah's message, you do have Isaiah 55. You do have those chapters which are literally as close as you can get to a gospel presentation in the

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Old Testament. So yes, God shows himself merciful, but it's to a specific people.

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It's to that remnant. It's to that tenth down there at the end.

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It's to the seven thousand that in the days of Elijah didn't bow their knee to Baal. It's to the remnant that Paul talks about in Romans 9, 10, 11.

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God has always had his people. Even in the midst of apostasy, he always has his people.

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God has always been sovereign. God has always been able to save. That's what Romans 9 is about.

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But there is a message of judgment, and that message must be delivered.

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How unfaithful would Isaiah have been if he had not delivered this message to the people?

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What if he had edited it? What if he had changed it? Well, he would not have been a true worshiper of God.

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He would not have been a prophet. Sometimes the message that we have, if we start with Romans chapter 1, it's tough to get through chapters 1, 2, and most of 3 before you get to the gospel that begins in chapter 3.

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There's bad news first, and then the good news comes. But certainly for Isaiah, having seen

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God, he's not going to be questioning what God's message is.

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And that's really the issue for us. If we are regularly in God's Word, if we are regularly seeking the whole counsel of God, we will be over and over again hit with the reality that God is

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God and I am not. I am a creature. I am likened to the blade of grass, to the flower that sprouts up in the morning dew.

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There are places that have dew, by the way. We live in a desert. I suppose we could say the morning sprinklers.

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That's about the best we can do. But in lots of places, I remember as a kid, I lived in Pennsylvania, you got up first thing in the morning and you went out and went running across the lawn, you got soaked because there was something called dew on the grass.

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Yes, we had grass. We didn't have rock lawns. We had grass. And so there'd be stuff that would shoot up.

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But then if it was a really hot day, by the end of the day, some of that stuff that had shot up was already wilted and dying.

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And so it's easy for us to see that, and we sort of look down upon that because we live so long.

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Comparison to God, that's how long we live. Comparison to God, that's how much we know, too.

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And so if we will but be constantly aware of our finitude and His greatness,

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His holiness and our uncleanness, the beauty of the redemption that He has provided for us in Christ, then we will be a people who will not be tempted to edit

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His message. We will not be looking for the acceptance of the faces of men.

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We will want only the acceptance of one. We will want to please one and one alone.

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Now, I said to you that there was a reason why I chose to speak today from the

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Greek translation of the Old Testament. And if you were looking at your own translation, you may have noticed a couple of interesting differences as I was translating the

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Greek. And the most important one that I hope you will remember was actually in the very first verse, because you may have memorized

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Isaiah 6 from the Hebrew, maybe from the King James, New American Standard.

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And you know the final phrase is, the train of His robe was filling the temple.

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But that's not what we have here. We have, the house was full of His glory.

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And you'll notice that I emphasized a couple of times the theme that Isaiah had seen this glory.

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He saw the glory filling the house. He heard the seraphim saying, the whole earth is full of His glory.

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And then Isaiah himself says, my eyes have seen Him. I have seen the

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King, the Lord of hosts. And why is this important?

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Well, some of you know. If you don't know, you're about to find out.

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And when you do find out, I hope you won't forget it, because there are a bunch of people in the world that need to hear what

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I'm about to explain to you. And I pray that the Lord will use you to explain it to them.

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Why? What am I talking about? In the 12th chapter of the

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Gospel of John, John is narrating for us the end of Jesus' public ministry.

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Some Greeks have come seeking an audience with Jesus.

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And what's interesting is, Jesus does not meet with them.

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And as He explains why, He talks about judgment.

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He quotes from Isaiah 53, and He also quotes from Isaiah 6, verse 10.

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And specifically, it is about why it is that Jesus is now going to go into private ministry to His disciples, and judgment has come upon the people.

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And when Isaiah 6 is quoted, right afterwards, you have one short little verse.

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And most of us just go flying right by it. We go flying right by it because it seems like just sort of a transitionary statement or something.

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But these words in verse 41, Isaiah said these things because he saw

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His glory and He spoke about Him. Do you ever notice that? Isaiah said these things because he saw

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His glory and He spoke about Him. Who's the

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Him? Well, the next verse says, even so, many of the Jewish leaders believed, but they wouldn't confess

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Him because they didn't want to be put out of the synagogue. We're talking about Jesus. There's only one person in view in the text.

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This is talking about Jesus. So John is saying that Isaiah saw

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Jesus' glory and spoke about Him. When? Well, he quoted from Isaiah 6, 10.

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Who did Isaiah see in Isaiah 6? The Lord sitting upon His throne.

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Now notice, John says he saw His glory and He spoke about Him.

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What version of Isaiah would John's audience have before them?

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What language is John writing in? He's writing in Greek. He's writing to Greek speaking people.

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What version of the Bible are they reading? The Greek Septuagint. And so when he quotes from Isaiah 6 and then says

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Isaiah saw His glory using the exact same Greek word that's right there in the

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Greek Septuagint in verse 1, His glory filled the house, everybody knows who he's talking about.

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Everybody knows who he's talking about. So here's the issue. Isaiah, whose glory did you see?

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The Lord of hosts. Now he uses the word in Hebrew, Lord, Adonai, in verse 1.

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But later on, it's Yahweh, the divine name, the

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Tetragrammaton, Yahweh, or as we slaughter it in English, Jehovah. Isaiah, whose glory did you see?

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I saw Yahweh's glory. John, whose glory did

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Isaiah see? And John's answer is Jesus.

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Jesus. You see, this is the same John who said in John 1, verse 18, no one has seen

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God at any time. The monogamous theos, the unique God who is in the bosom of the

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Father, He has exegeted Him. He has explained Him.

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He has made Him known. Who is the one that Isaiah saw?

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The one who would become incarnate, the one who would make himself the sacrifice, and the one who we will see in the book of Revelation as the

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Lamb standing as if slain and yet alive, who by the end of the vision in chapter 5, every created thing in heaven and on earth, under the earth, in all the seas, everything that is made, joins in the worship of Him who is upon the throne and the

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Lamb. This is the one Isaiah saw.

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Can you see Him with me? As you think about what is going on in heaven right now, how do you respond to it?

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If you're a Christian, you understand Isaiah's fear, but you also understand the provision that has been made for you.

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And so as a Christian, we long to be in the presence of our

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Creator. Oh, yes, with great reverence and holy fear, but the

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Spirit He has placed within us makes us want to be with our Maker who has loved us and redeemed us.

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But I can assure you of one thing. If you're playing at religion, the last place you want to play religion at is in the presence of God, because you can fool me, every one of you.

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You can fool me. You know all the words to use. You know how to act.

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You know how to speak. You can fool me, but you cannot fool

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God. You cannot fool Him.

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He sees you. He sees your heart. He knows what you love better than you do.

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We want to see the worship of God, but when we see that worship, we are reminded of the great cost that He Himself has paid to bring you and I into that place.

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But that also means that there will be those who play, and when you finally see

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Him as He is and you realize, I am pierced through, oh, wretched man, the cleansings already been offered.

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It won't be offered again. Now is the day of salvation. Now is the time to deal with the

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God. If there's anyone in this room, you have not bowed the knee in repentance and faith to Jesus Christ.

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Please realize, not a one of us has a promise of laying our head upon a pillow this evening.

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Not a one of us. If the death of an NBA superstar recently doesn't remind you of that, it should.

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Not a one of us has that promise. So please do not sit in the pews of a church and hear the truth repeated to you over and over again and say someday, but not now.

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Is it because you love that sin so much? How will you love that sin when you stand in His presence and His glory burns away everything else of this creation?

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There won't be anything left to love. Now is the day of salvation.

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Now is the time. If you don't know that you have truly bowed the knee to Jesus Christ, then please, the elders, the deacons here, we want to help you.

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We want you to know that you have peace with God, because any one of us could this night be standing before this holy

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God. Now is the time of salvation. But for those of you who are my fellow believers, that we together will be partaking of the

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Lord's Supper, memorializing the very means by which God has given us access into the presence of God.

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I pray that during the course of this week, as God brings it to your mind, you will think about the fact that that worship is ongoing every single day, day and night, unceasingly.

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And when we come together, we call what we do worship. You might say, doesn't really look like what we just read about.

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But what you need to keep in mind is that what we do here is meant to be but a dim reflection, suited to us where we are now.

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But you see, we have something that none of those creatures around we're going to read about creatures, more creatures in Revelation 4 and 5.

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Read Revelation 4 and 5 this week. We have something they have never had, the same spirit that raised

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Jesus from the dead, that empowered Isaiah for his ministry, that hovered over the waters in creation.

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That same spirit has not become weak, and he is amongst us.

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When we prepare our hearts and our minds for worship, he will lead us to that throne of grace.

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Let that elevate our singing. Let that elevate our partaking of the

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Lord's Supper as well. Indeed, as we prepare to take the supper, we have a few words of instruction.

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If you're a visitor, we want to make sure you understand that you are welcome to partake if you are a believer in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. But at the same time, we very strongly encourage reflection and examination.

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If you are not a believer in Jesus Christ, this is not for you, because this represents the price that he has paid for our redemption, his body and his blood.

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Examine yourself. Christian, if you have ought against your brother or sister, you need to deal with that before you partake of the supper.

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Christian, if you are a visitor and you are under discipline from another church, a like -minded church, do not use our table as a means of escaping the discipline of that church.

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Talk to us and we'll seek to help you. But believer, the angels in heaven, they look down on what we get to do here with amazement.

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Ever thought about that? No angel gets to partake of the supper and be reminded of the redemptive price that was paid for their forgiveness.

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What does that mean for you and I in how we should partake of this supper?

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What kind of thanksgiving should be ours? What kind of joy should be ours in partaking?

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Made in the image of God, that's you and I, redeemed by the

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Father's love in and through Jesus Christ, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, what privileges.

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Let's partake of the supper together. Let's pray. Our great

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God, we have read the ancient words that describe your worship and we are in awe.

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We are truly in awe. And when we think of the condescension you have shown in providing for us forgiveness in Jesus Christ, we don't know what to say.

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But our hearts are full of thanksgiving, love, and joy.

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So as we partake, Father, may we with fresh understanding truly understand why the term you used to describe this is

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Eucharistia, thanksgiving. And may we truly be thankful for what you have done for us.

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We thank you and praise you. In Jesus' name,