This is one of those passages that the preacher often goes to when he talks about the Lord Jesus Christ and the glory of the pre-incarnate Christ, perhaps contrasted with the humility of the incarnate Christ. There's something here that we ought to notice, because John's testimony is true in the Gospel of John, that we have Isaiah seeing the pre-incarnate Christ. He sees the Son of God, has this vision of the second of the blessed triune. We have in Isaiah 6 wonderful language that hopefully we'll be able to explore, if only for approximately 51 minutes. perhaps shorter, perhaps longer, whatever the Lord has in store.
But let's read Isaiah 6. Now, the portion that we're going to be focusing on is verses 1 to 7, but we'll read the entirety of the chapter. Let's do that now, then, once again, the word of the triune God, Isaiah 6, verse 1. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple.
Above it stood seraphim, each one had six wings. With two He covered His face, with two He covered His feet, and with two He flew. And one cried to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory.
And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. So I said, Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar.
And he touched my mouth with it and said, Behold, this has touched your lips. Your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, here am I, send me.
And he said, go and tell this people, keep on hearing, but do not understand. Keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy. And shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed.
Then I said, Lord, how long? And he answered, until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant, the houses are without a man, the land is utterly desolate, the Lord has removed men far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. But yet a tenth will be in it and will return and be for consuming as a terebinth tree or as an oak whose stump remains when it is cut down. So the holy seed shall be its stump.
Amen. Let us ask the Lord's blessing upon our worship. Heavenly Father, we pray that you would help us now, as we have gathered to worship you, to be attentive in this act of worship, the preaching of your word. We would pray that you would help preacher and pulpit to proclaim well the things of your truth.
Give him aid. We pray for those in the pews this morning, that you would strengthen saint, that you would save sinner, that because it is possible with you, Lord God alone, that you would cause each and every one to leave this place rejoicing in the King of kings and in the Lord of lords. And it is in the name of Jesus Christ that we pray. Amen.
Introduction
Well, perhaps you're like me, or perhaps you're not. You don't have to be. But whenever I come to certain passages in Holy Scripture, I'm reminded of chapter 1, paragraph 5 of our confession. You read certain texts, and you're confronted with the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, and the majesty of the style.
There is a certain palatable a certain palatable cadence, if you will, to Isaiah 6, verses 1 to 7. We read this language. It's absolutely glorious. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up. the train of His robe filled the temple.
What a blessed sight that must have been for the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amoz. What a wonderful and glorious day that was to see the Lord. But you see, it was wonderful and glorious, but it was also awful and terrible because of the immense glory, because of the immensity and the majesty and multiply the superlatives, the absolute glorious sight that He would have beheld. We want to navigate through these seven verses and consider them under three headings that we're going to examine this passage by.
And those three are this, and then we'll get to a bit of an introduction. We want to look at the vision of the unrivaled majesty. Secondly, the appropriate response by the Son of Amoz. And thirdly, the blessed atonement from the altar of the Lord.
Now perhaps a side note, if we were to generalize in a wholesome manner these seven verses, we could simply summarize them with God, man, and gospel. But because there are things peculiar to Isaiah and peculiar to this occasion, We want to look at them under those headings already stated. Now, Isaiah was a prophet in the 8th century in Judah, and he is prophesying, as verse 1 of chapter 1 says, the vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. We come to verse 1 and we read here, "...in the year that King Uzziah died." King Uzziah reigned from 790 to 738. a 52-year reign.
You can read about him on your own time from 2 Chronicles 26, the entirety of the chapter. He was installed as king at the age of 16 and reigned 52 years. Now, at the tail end of his reign, his son, Jotham, was the regent, if you will, active over over his particular rule, because if you read 2 Chronicles 26, it didn't really end all that well for Uzziah. He offered up, against the sanctions of the Lord, incense in the temple of the Lord, and the priests come in and indict him, and so he's given by God leprosy as a judgment for his opposition to the proper course of religious practice in the day.
And so he's judged by God and given leprosy. But during his reign, his nation is brought, the dominion of Judah is expanded. There is political prosperity. There is, we may even say, a measure of military prosperity.
But there was not a concordant moral character, there was not a matching godliness to any prosperity that they may have had. They were not walking in the old paths where the good way is. In fact, just before we move to point number one in Isaiah 2, we can read of the situation in the nation at that particular time. Notice just very briefly in Isaiah 2 and verse 6.
The reason we read this is to see the plight of the nation, to see the condition that it is in, and to see why God grants to Isaiah this vision and commissions him on a peculiar preaching ministry. Notice in Isaiah 2 at verse 6. For you have forsaken your people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled with Eastern ways. They are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they are pleased with the children of foreigners.
Their land is also full of silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures. Their land is also full of horses, and there is no end to their chariots. Their land is also full of idols. They worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made.
People bow down and each man humbles himself. Therefore, do not forgive them. Enter into the rock and hide in the dust from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His majesty. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled.
The haughtiness of man shall be bowed down. And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. So this vision comes in chapter 6, the Lord manifesting Himself, the Lord disclosing a sight of Himself to Isaiah, and then sending him out to preach judgment against this nation of idolaters, against this nation of wicked men. Isaiah, again, is a prophet preaching in the 8th century Assyria, the dominant world power of the day, gaining territory, gaining dominion.
And Isaiah, while his name does mean and does signify Yahweh is salvation, nevertheless he comes with a preaching tongue to indict the nation and to set before them the only way of escape, the only way of salvation, the suffering servant of the Lord, even our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Vision of Unrivaled Majesty
Well, let's look first then at the vision of the unrivaled majesty. What does that language mean? Kids, unrivaled simply means unmatched. There is no other that can compete.
In the case of God against all others, no one comes close. The vision of the unrivaled majesty we see in verses 1 through 4. This vision of the Lord God Almighty. This sight that Isaiah casts his eyes upon.
The Fact of the Vision
We want to note first the fact of the vision. Notice, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. It's a wonderful thing. It's a wonderful thing and we need to ask a couple questions or we need to make a couple observations.
The first is that Isaiah saw the Lord. This is an absolutely amazing thing. What is the nature of this seeing? Do we need to seek to mine the scriptures to find out what the nature of this seeing was?
Was it with the physical eye? Was it a vision? Was Isaiah brought into a trance? Was it in a dream?
Was it a Christophany like the many that we see in the Old Testament? Well, we need not explore vainly, but we do know this. Isaiah saw the Lord. Now secondly, what we need to say is that Isaiah did not see the Lord as He truly is in Himself.
When we come to the Scriptures, we must conclude that God is invisible. God is invisible. When we come to the Scriptures, we find this in John 4, God is spirit. Perhaps you know the catechetical language, God is a spirit.
Infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, etc. There's some that think that we should not say God is a spirit, but rather God is spirit. Because saying God is a spirit sort of seems to have the language of putting him in a category along with angels and men. He's just another constituent fellow in the order of being along with men and angels.
He's the highest, to be sure. He's supreme to be sure, but he's nevertheless a spirit like angels. Just maximal instantiation of an angel, if you will. No, he is, God is spirit.
He is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable. He is the one who is above all. And so this seeing of the Lord, we must say, with the scriptures, with God's own self-revelation, that Isaiah did not see the Lord as he truly is in himself. Our confession says that the Lord our God is but one living and true God, whose subsistence is in and of Himself, whose essence cannot be comprehended by anyone but Himself, a most pure spirit without body, parts, or passions.
He is immutable. He is invisible. God is a spirit. God is spirit, rather.
You can turn to a place such as John 1.18. This language ought to be familiar to you in the prologue of John's Gospel. We have this confession clear in its declaration concerning the essential nature of God. Notice in John 1.18, no one has seen God at any time. the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him." No one has seen God at any time.
This language of seeing, if it is anything, we know what it is not, that someone actually casts their eyes upon the form of God, for there is no form of God, properly speaking. You can as well turn to 1 Timothy 6. It's a wonderful doxology that we have there in 1 Timothy 6. You can begin reading at verse 13.
If your fingers have found yourself there quickly, let's read. I urge you in the sight of God, who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus, who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate. that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ's appearing, which He will manifest in His own time. Now notice, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen.
The Lord, our God, does not have form. He is without body, parts, or passions. He does not properly wear a robe. He does not properly sit upon a throne, though the Bible uses this language.
Gil, with regards to Isaiah, seeing the Lord, he says, not God essentially, but it is His essence, is not to be seen. So what do we mean then when we say, what is this manner of seeing? Whatever it is, we know this with Calvin. It is asked, how could Isaiah see God, who is a spirit, John 4, 24, and therefore cannot be seen with bodily eyes?
Nay more. Since the understandings of men cannot rise to his boundless height, how can he be seen in a visible shape? But we ought to be aware that when God exhibited of the fathers, he never appeared such as he actually is, are below the heavens, there is no absurdity in supposing that God comes down to them in such a manner as to cause some kind of mirror to reflect the rays of His glory. There was therefore exhibited to Isaiah such a form as enabled him, according to his capacity, to perceive the inconceivable majesty of God And thus he attributes to God a throne, a robe, and a bodily appearance.
Brethren, we're confronted with two amazing things. The first is clearly the glory of our God, isn't it? What do we mean when we say the glory of God? We say that a lot, don't we?
The glory of God. We pray, and we rightly pray, and we refer to the glory of God. What do we mean when we say that? Well, there is a sense of the meaning where we are to ascribe to God a surpassing weightiness to His being and to His reality.
The superlatives mount. The perfections of God mount. We cannot adequately mount adjectives and nouns upon each other to adequately describe the majesty, the perfection, and the glory of so great a God. We're confronted with the fact that when we speak of the glory of God, we're speaking that we are giving a high opinion of Him.
He is not the stuff of casual contemplations. He's not the stuff of simple speech, but rather He's the stuff of surpassing majesty, glory, holiness, perfection. Infinite eternal and unchangeable and all of his beautiful attributes our God nevertheless Isaiah saw and that second great thing the glory of God is the first the Condescension of God is the second isn't it? What a glorious condescension to meet Isaiah in his frail and finite capacity, making himself known in a way that Isaiah can comprehend and understand.
Well, maybe not comprehend, but know, because the living and true God is incomprehensible. He condescends to Isaiah's creatureliness and gives a manifestation of himself in such a way that Isaiah can receive it. our glorious God, and our condescending God. Whatever the manner of seeing, it is an instance of God condescending to our finite capacities, tending to our creatureliness in making Himself known.
The Content of the Vision
Notice then, besides the fact of the vision, we have the content of the vision. And the first thing is, the majesty of God. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. This is to cause us to reflect with high opinion upon the majesty of God, His surpassing glory, His royalty.
He is regal. He is the unrivaled majesty. He is matchless. That's what the language is to speak to us.
He's sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. perhaps disagreement or different ideas as to what this means when we read, the train of his robe filled the temple. Some might see that we have this temple vision, the Lord our God again meeting Isaiah in his capacity as a creature. He's there in some sort of human form of a king, and the robe entirely fills the temple. And so there is this one seated on a throne in a heavenly temple, and the robe fills that temple.
Others see it this way, that there is just a hem of the garment that is filling the entirety of the temple. So Isaiah's vision of the Lord is really just the hem of a garment that fills the temple. God is so immense. The Son of God, the second of the blessed triune, the brightness of the Father's glory, the express image of His person, who upholds all things by the word of His power, is so glorious that only the hem of the garment fills the temple.
It's a picture of His majesty. In both instances, it's a picture of His majesty. In the latter, not that it isn't in the former, but in the latter, it's a picture of His immensity. God is immense.
He is omnipresent. You see, we cannot confine God. As Christians, we don't worship the god of the pagans. He's not the god of, you know, weekly comic book strip gods.
That is, grey beard with a cane, speaking, you know, wise sayings, or doing whatever he does in the folly of the comic books. There is no form to God. We cannot confine him. He is unconfined.
There is nowhere that he is confined and there is nowhere where he is restricted from. He is omnipresent. He is immense. He does not move from one place to go to another, absenting himself of that place and coming to a place where he was previously absent.
He fills the heavens and the earth. He is everywhere. He is omnipresent. His immensity, brethren, if you were to sit, if you were saved at the age of eight, and you were to sit daily to reflect upon and to search out and to discover His immensity, and reflect upon and meditate upon His omnipresence, By the time, let's say you live till you're 137, you would not have come close to exhausting even a minutia of the glory and the majesty of God in only one of the attributes that we can consider Him after.
Our God is glorious. Our God is not a pagan conception. He's not some individual being that occupies some space and goes about to various places of His created universe. He is nowhere found, and yet He is everywhere found.
You see, men are circumscribed by space. Angels are definitively located in a place in time and space. But our God, our majestic God, the Creator of men and angels, is repletively unconfined. He is everywhere, immediately present by the fullness of His essence.
Our God is immense. Brethren, hopefully, hopefully, maybe not now as I'm preaching, but hopefully, well, hopefully now as I'm preaching, but whenever you find yourselves in your word, contemplating on our God, spend some minutes doing so. You see, kids, there are some glorious things in God's creation. There are some flowers.
I'm okay in my madness to say there's some pretty beautiful flowers out there. My eye can land upon a flower, and I see God's creative beauty, his ingenuity, his genius in creating things to the beauty of the human eye. There's a certain majesty even in the smallest flower. You transcend a bit to a tree, some pretty cool trees out there, majestic trunks, you know, a multitude of branches and their flowers and their leaves and we can look upon trees and we can be amazed at the splendor of a tree.
Transcend a bit further, not transcend, but ascend a bit further to mountains. Kids, you drive around in British Columbia and hopefully you haven't been here too long, where you just, you know, don't even look at the mountains. Sometimes we can become acclimated, you know, we adapt to our environment. Ah, yeah, there's mountains.
Majestic. Majestic, God's creation is majestic. You can find yourselves contemplating earthly things and seeing an inherent beauty even in those things, but remember the one who made those. If a flower is majestic in its minuscule beauty, if a tree is majestic in its larger grandioseness, if the mountains are majestic in their massive appearance and in the seemingly boundless size that they have before our eyes, What about the God who made those things, who fills the heavens and the earth, who cannot be confined by anything of His creation, who is completely unconfined and yet not restricted from any place?
He fills the heavens and the earth, and if that latter translation or understanding is right, in this vision, in order to communicate something of His glory and His unrivaled majesty, there's only a hem of the garment of the robe filling the entirety of the temple. Our glorious God. We need to move from wholesome and lawful, but small thoughts of flowers and trees and mountains, to high and heavy thoughts of the unrivaled majesty. Our blessed God.
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The angels cry, but we're not there yet.
The Seraphic Attendance
Notice secondly then, after the majesty of God, the seraphic attendance. The Seraphic Attendance. I typed Seraphic into Word and it didn't put a little squiggly red line under it, so it's a word. If Microsoft Word says it's a word, then it's a word.
The seraphic attendance. Notice what we find in verse 2, and this is still under the content of the vision. Notice in verse 2, above it stood seraphim. Each one had six wings, with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
We have these seraphic attendants, and if you think now that we've moved on from the majesty of God to these seraphic attendants, and then so we've put aside for a moment the majesty of God, you'd be wrong. Because this vision of the seraphic attendants isn't moving on now from the majesty of God, but it simply amplifies what was before stated. You see, these seraphim attend unto the worship of this unrivaled majesty, and they fly. With two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
Whenever you hear somebody preaching from the old King James, it sounds cooler, I think. With twain he covered his face, with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he flew. You see what's going on here, hopefully, and perhaps you've heard it before. These angels, glorious in their own being to a certain degree because they have the derived glory of God, they don't have the glory originally like God, it is derived, it's non-essential, but nevertheless, the angels in their appearance are glorious, they are the fiery ones who fly about the altar of the Lord, the throne of God giving him praise.
But you see, they have to cover their eyes from the glory of God. These sinless, elect angels who serve God are flying about and they cannot look upon the majesty of God. They hide themselves from the glory of this glorious one by covering their eyes with two of their wings. You see, we haven't moved on from the majesty of God.
We're only more deeply exploring the majesty of God when we see the sight of these seraphim, these seraphic attendants. Each one had six wings. With two, he covered his face. With two, he covered his feet. differing interpretations of this as well.
The most common one, I think, is they cover their feet as a symbol of modesty and humility. as a symbol of modesty and humility before the creator of Seraphim, before the creator of Isaiah, before the creator of all things, who made all things from nothing in the space of six days, and all very good. There's another interpretation, though, that has this covering of feet, meaning that they are blocking their angelic glory from Isaiah. They're blocking their own angelic glory from Isaiah by covering their feet. They're flying above the train of the robe, and Isaiah's looking at this glorious sight.
And they have to mask, if you will, their own glory. Whatever interpretation you take, and I... I personally prefer the former because God is disclosing a measure of His own glory by this vision to Isaiah, so why would the seraphim need to be hiding theirs from Him? But nevertheless, what it shows is still the majesty of our God.
The Angelic Refrain
As we get then to, under the content of the vision, the angelic refrain, because what are these seraphic attendants doing, but continually crying out to one another, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory. The whole earth is full of His glory. As you've heard Pastor Butler say before in some versions this holy is repeated nine times, in others it's repeated six.
Here it's repeated three. The force I imagine, not I imagine, the force is the same. God is holy. God is holy.
And there is something very interesting about this passage. You've heard it before. These angels are holy. These angels are maybe more to what we want to say sinless.
You see, we can take the definition of holiness as it pertains to God and bring it down to a lesser level. We can strip it of its full glory. Sorry about that. We can strip it of its full glory.
If we only say that holiness is the sinlessness of God, or His ethical perfection, His impeccable morality. If we only say that that is what holiness is, then the angels have that too. The angels are sinless. They are the elect angels who do not transgress any laws of their creator.
They are ethically pure, the seraphic attendants. So holiness must mean something else. One man describes it or defines it this way, as a predicate of deity, holiness, as a predicate of deity, it expresses, first of all, the awful contrast between the divine and human, and those positive attributes of God which constitute true divinity. So in the first place, we would want to say that holiness is that awful contrast between divinity and the nature of angels and humanity.
You see, we have God and we have angels and men. There is a transcendent, unrivaled, and unmatched glory to God. There is an otherness. There is a separateness to our God.
As we said earlier, He is not a constituent fellow along with us and angels in some order of being, but rather He is transcendently removed from any category of created being, and He stands alone as the one who is immense, invisible, eternal, a most pure spirit, without body, parts, and passions, whose subsistence is in and of Himself. He is that most pure Spirit, whose essence cannot be comprehended by any but Himself." There is this otherness to God, where He is not just a, you know, a better... He's just not a... He's not a super angel.
He's not a sinless, higher, supreme version of men. You know, in His omniscience, He is not simply some uber Santa Claus. He is immense, eternal, glorious, majestic, wholly removed, if you will, from His creation, yet by His eminence, wholly present by His glory, because the whole earth is full of His glory. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
We will not exhaust explorations of the holiness of our blessed God. We will not exhaust it. The angelic refrain, holy, holy, holy, is only used twice in the Bible. It's only used twice in the Bible.
Here, and in Revelation 4. Notice in Revelation 4, something quite similar. And I would want to say, and we should want to observe, that there are great similarities between John and Isaiah. What does John see at the outset of his revelation, the revelation of Jesus Christ to him?
He sees the Son of Man, a vision of the Son of Man, this glorious one. The description that He gives is quite glorious. Notice in Revelation 4, though, with respect to the language of holy, holy, holy, notice verse 8 of Revelation 4, the four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes around and within. And they do not rest day or night saying, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.
Notice as well the song in 11. You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things, and by your will they exist and were created. You see, this language of holy, holy, holy is only right.
It's only proper. Brethren, if this section is to break, well, let's get to that point in a moment. Let's get to that point in a moment. But hopefully you sing with the angels, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
Hopefully your contemplations, Christian, is at this point of blessed doctrine and reality. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. His, the awful, contrast between the divine and the human. But let's not forget those positive attributes of God which constitute his true divinity.
There's probably a two-pronged aspect, if you will, to the holiness that he's speaking of when he talks about positive attributes, if we could sum it up in two things. It would be the perfection, the impeccability, the absolute purity of his moral and ethical character. He is perfect. There is, of course, as well, the reality of His holiness, where we see its effect, the wrath of God, the exercise of justice.
The holiness of God is seen in the destruction of enemies and in the judgment of those who oppose His Christ and reject His gospel. The book of Revelation, we saw that earlier. Holy and just is this one who renders the judgment upon the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth. So holiness is seen in His awful contrast compared with angels and men and everything else.
It's seen in the perfection of His being, the point of His ethical and moral character, and it's seen in the fact of the hotness of His justice, the glory of His wrath. God is holy, always, infinitely, eternally, and unchangeably.
The Manifest Terror of the Vision
Lastly, then, under the vision of the unrivaled majesty, we want to note the manifest terror of the vision. The manifest terror of the vision. We see this in verse 4. We're back in Isaiah 6 now.
And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. manifest terror of the vision. It has already been terrible because Isaiah has cast his eyes upon the Lord of hosts. He's already seen the Lord of hosts seated on a throne high and lifted up with the train of his robe filling the temple. He's seen these perfect angels having to hide themselves from His glory, having to cover their feet in absolute modesty and humility, flying with the other two, and now the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of Him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.
I'm not sure if any of you, it was just, I'm not sure how long ago, maybe a month ago, we had a little bit of an earthquake. I put it in quotes because it wasn't as immense as earthquakes in other areas, but my family and I were in our house and we were shaken. It disturbed us a little bit. You know, there's this shaking, and as far as I can remember, there were two instances of a shaking of this massive 4.2 earthquake.
We were startled at the first one, and then the second one, and 10 seconds later, even more startled. At first, we thought maybe someone fell out of their bed. I was downstairs, so I don't know who was heavy enough to make a loud noise falling out of their bed. Nobody.
But the second one came and we were shaken to the core of our beings. It was just a little bit of an earthquake. You know, when natural disasters come, when we hear the rolling of the thunder, When we hear the screaming of a storm, isn't there something in your soul? You're rattled.
There's something going on where you're driven, as Christians, you're driven to be thankful to your God, and yet there is this sense as well of a reverential terror and awe at his majesty. You see, because it is God who raises up the stormy winds that shake you to your core. We don't have a God that has just created and now sits back and watches the winds roar, watches the hurricanes blow, and watches the earthquakes rumble. We have a God of unmatched sovereignty who has ordained these things, who brings them about for His own sovereign purposes.
Hopefully, when you feel those things, or it is the case that when you feel those things, there is this sending of the contemplative mind to God. For the unbeliever, this is very often the case as well. The unbeliever has a knowledge of God, don't ever forget that. Romans 1, Psalm 19, the unbeliever has a knowledge of the unrivaled majesty.
And when his soul is rattled, if it's even just an earthquake or the screaming of a storm that sounds like a steam train, there is something in him. that reminds him that there is a king in high heavens who has hung out his coat of arms bearing shield to show the atheist how much he despises their denunciations of him. And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out and the house was filled with smoke. This speaks to two things. The glorious majesty of the presence of the Lord and the wrath of that self-same Lord.
The house is filled with smoke. Hopefully instances, this reminds you of instances in the Bible, that Exodus occasion of the giving of the law upon Mount Sinai. God giving himself a special, or bringing a special instance of his presence upon that holy mount. There were thunderings and fire and smoke.
We go to the book of Revelation and there is something of the same thing in John's vision. We see, in fact, even in the book of Acts, and perhaps it's a little bit different, but the house where the disciples were gathered, it was shaken in Acts 6, confirming the presence of God. All of that to come back to this, the manifest terror here. This is only the doors being shaken, the threshold being shaken, by the song of the angels.
You see, were this the exercise of the unmatched power of God, it wouldn't just be a shaking. It would be an utter destruction of whatever is going on here and whatever is in view. Only the song of the angels singing, holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts to each other, rattles the place, and the house is filled with smoke.
The Appropriate Response of Isaiah
And we see then, now as we move to the appropriate response by the son of Amoz, our second large point, we see why this was so terrible, or we see what happens in response to this terrible thing. The appropriate response by the son of Amoz, notice in verse 5, So I said, this is Isaiah, he's the son of Amoz, Woe is me, for I am undone. Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." The appropriate response, isn't it?
From everything we've just briefly explored, this is the proper response to the glory and to the majesty of God. How often do we come into church where we may not be confronted by the glory of God as Isaiah saw it, but nevertheless we ought to be confronted by the glory of God. God is present, and he is present peculiarly through the preached word. The hymn books that you open are hymns.
The hymns that you sing with an open hymn book have glorious language that speak to the glory of our God. As we pray and as we read the scriptures, the glory of God is disclosed to you. How often do you come in thinking about your lunch sandwich and leaving thinking about your lunch sandwich? Not being confronted with the glory of our God. not being confronted by the glory of God and responding like the son of Amoz.
Woe is me, for I am undone.
The Cry of Alarm
Notice first the cry of alarm under the appropriate response, the cry of alarm. There is what we find here in this cry of alarm, and it is simply these three words, woe is me. Woe is me. Brethren, there is something in this language of self-recognition.
In fact, this whole verse 5, we ought to note, first off, self-recognition. Generally, Isaiah is made acutely aware of his sinfulness, frailty, and inadequacy before such a glorious spectacle. Again, the Lord our God has not revealed Himself as He truly is. He has revealed Himself, make no mistake, Isaiah saw the Lord, and even in that condescension to Isaiah's capacities as a finite creature, nevertheless it elicits this response of self-recognition.
Woe is me, for I am undone, etc. Notice Calvin on this point, and this is important to understand with regards to the response. Man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God's face, and then descends from contemplating Him to scrutinize himself. The whole of our wisdom, wisdom that is which deserves to be called true and assured, broadly consists of two parts, knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves.
That is what true wisdom is seen. If we could summarize it in two parts, knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves. Calvin in his Institutes, I think, begins the Institutes, not with only this, but with this particular portion, the statement, know thyself. Know thyself.
In fact, the pagans even had that on their pagan edifices. In Delphi, for example, stamped or engraved, or however it was done back then, know thyself. Whatever the pagans meant by that, we know what the Bible means by that. Examine yourselves in the light of God and His revelation.
What does God say about men and what does God do to men to whom He discloses Himself? What ought man's response to be in the sight of such a God and after contemplations of such an unrivaled majesty? It isn't hands in the pocket and just going to cut parsnips at home and not giving any thought about what we heard on the Lord's Day, what we heard in church. It's not just leaving, you know, getting in the car and turning on sports radio and moving on with your day.
We are to take pause as Christians. We're to take pause. When we leave these doors, there's not really, you know, there is something absolutely special to the church and the gathering on the Lord's Day Sabbath, but when we leave that door, there's not some sort of invisible membrane that we walk through and now we can just, you know, talk about everything worldly and pagan and that sort of a thing. All that to say this, brethren, hopefully when you come in and you're confronted with the glory of the Lord here on the Lord's Day in the Church of the Living Christ, you're brought to a place like Isaiah, where you scrutinize and examine yourself, you explore the inner depths as much as you can as a finite being of your own soul, and you arrive back at God, and you say, God, cleanse me.
Lord, clean me. Make me to walk in the old paths where the good way is. Give me the grace. If you're a Christian, and you're going through that exercise, and that's who I was specifically talking to, you leave this place with contemplations of your God, and you seek to glory in Him.
You seek to sing with the angels, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. Self-recognition is absolutely vital for the people of God. We should be welcoming of divine scrutiny, is how Dolezal puts it. When we come up against a knowledge of our God, when we grasp only the smallest picture of the glory of our God, we are to welcome scrutiny.
We are to welcome divine scrutiny as His truth drills itself into our inner core. We are to arrive at the place where we're with Isaiah. We say, we're with you, man. Woe is me.
Woe is me, for I am undone.
Self-Imprecation and Unclean Lips
Notice as well, we have something under this cry of alarm of self-imprecation or commiseration or an exclamation of grief in the face of calamity. Woe is me, for I am undone. You know, this language of I am undone has been translated I am lost, which carries a little bit of the meaning, but not enough. I am ruined.
Is closer. I am undone. Is good. Carries the meaning of I'm utterly destroyed.
I have ceased. God has caused me by His glory to cease. It is as if I have been obliterated. By the majesty of God, by the knowledge of Him, and no doubt, by the knowledge of my own sinfulness in sight of such an unrivaled majesty.
Woe is me, for I am undone." The reason behind this alarming assessment, well actually not quite yet, because notice what we have in the assessment of His condition, Not only is He undone, not only is He ruined, not only is He destroyed by this glorious vision, but we have this language of unclean lips. He goes on, He's acknowledging something of the dirtiness, the uncleanness of His lips. And we make a mistake if we simply say that this means that Isaiah said bad words occasionally. You know, if we just occasionally, oh, he cursed when he spilled his coffee.
A man of unclean lips, woe is me. You know, there's something to this largely where we are to see hypocrisy, deceit, even silence. I'm a man of unclean lips. Hypocrisy, deceit, and even silence.
There might be something here peculiar to Isaiah that he did not cry out like the angels or does not continually cry out like the angels. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory. He goes on to say, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.
And yet I find myself, perhaps Isaiah is rehearsing, I find myself not saying with the angels, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. Dirtiness of lips is seen when we don't use them aright in silence. There may be something as well here as not engaging in His prophetic ministry.
And so in Isaiah 6, we have a peculiar and special recalling, if you will, or recommissioning by God for Isaiah to go and proclaim to the nation their wickedness and their covenantal unfaithfulness. I'm a man of unclean lips, because I was charged by God to go about my prophetic ministry, and now He must charge me again. He goes, in verse 8, remember what we read there, or sorry, yeah, at the end of verse 8, then I said, here I am, send me. He's confronted with the holiness and the majesty of God and it's designed to put Isaiah back out there to proclaim to this nation, to make the heart of the people dull, to make their ears heavy, shut their eyes, et cetera, and to proclaim divine judgment for their iniquity.
There is something much, much more than saying bad words with unclean lips. There is something much more. And he dwells among a people of unclean lips. And I dwell, he writes, in the midst of a people of unclean lips.
This is something that marked that nation. Hypocrisy, deceit, silence. Hypocrisy, you know, they render me service with their lips, but their heart is far from me. They give me service with their mouths, sure, but it's hypocritical service.
Their hearts are far from me. It's a common refrain by God to the people, in other forms, but a common refrain. This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Christ himself uses that language in Matthew 15, doesn't he?
When he's talking about those hypocritical, self-righteous Pharisees who come and talk about the disciples not washing their hands and eating with unwashed hands. Their hearts were far from the Lord. Their lips might confess superficially service to the Lord, but they were wicked and abominable." Deceit. It's throughout one of the illnesses, the sicknesses, the diseases of this people.
Deceit. Deceiving neighbor. Deceiving family. Deceiving friend.
Deceiving themselves. Silence. Not proclaiming, not singing unto the Lord, holy, holy, holy.
Application
You know, we have to move to a close now. I'm gonna pick up the rest tonight because we've gone on and the young preacher has not managed his time well. We need to take a few things from this. We need to take a few things from this.
We're gonna look at the reason behind the alarming assessment tonight and then the blessed atonement from the altar of the Lord, our last point. But let's close with a few observations and the first is this, brethren. I think we've lost something. We've lost something at the point of Christian worship.
What I mean by that is, yes, we are not to engage in the excessive pomp and circumstance and empty religion of, let's say, the Roman Catholic Church or the Eastern Orthodox Church and other churches where there is sort of this over-emphasis on liturgical externals and that sort of a thing. perhaps the popish Anglican environments around the world where there is much of this external religion. But you see, we shouldn't perversely overreact and just casually stroll in to the house of the Lord. Showing up, you know, three, five minutes late, strolling in, I'm not picking anybody. I'm not looking at anybody.
You showed up late. If you showed up late, you might have a reason. Perhaps you don't have a reason, though. We treat worship as it's a visit to a seminar where we're going to hear about the latest Skittle flavor.
I don't know, I can't think of any other example, but some worldly and casual and some sort of thing where you're just rolling into a meeting. Hopefully when you show up for a work meeting, you show up early, you find your seat, and you get ready for the person to pull down the little projector, kick up the laptop to bring out the fact that green has now changed to apple, it's no longer lime. Hopefully you're there on time. The church of the living God.
This One who is majestic, this One who in this vision of condescension, the hem of His robe only fills the temple. This One who is holy, holy, holy. This One whose glory fills the whole earth. The whole earth is the fullness of His glory.
We come in to worship this God. We are not to treat Him as a speaker disclosing the verities of candy. This is the King of all the earth. We'll look at tonight, this is the King, the Lord of hosts.
Brethren, worship is an honor. We come in and we worship the triune God. We should approach it not with liturgical superficiality, but with a measure of outward respect. We should put on our best.
We should be on time. We should come and sit, perhaps even a few minutes before the service starts, open up our Bibles, and prepare our minds for the worship of God. because we worship such a one. Think about it, the majestic one who created all things, who upholds all things by the word of his power. We don't even know what that means, but we know he upholds all things by the word of his power.
To use borrowed language at the point of his holiness, when we say God is holy, one man has said something like this. When we say God is holy, we have not really known what we said, we have only intimated what we adore. We cannot comprehend Him in the fullness of His essence. This immense and glorious One has made Himself known in His holy Scriptures.
Here to Isaiah He has disclosed His glory. And the response of us, the sons of Amoz, the response of us, the sons of men, saved by grace through the Lord Jesus Christ, is to come with a solemnity. with a sobriety, with the highest measure of respect for the King of Kings and for the Lord of Lords. And hopefully if you're here this morning and if you don't know this God, I pray by His Spirit and for His glory He would make known to you the severity and the weightiness of this passage. Note that you will one day be confronted with the glory of God.
If you remain in your sin, if you remain in your rebellion against him, it will be too late. It will be too late. And that day, your knee will bend the force of the power of the unrivaled majesty, and he will say, depart from me, you wicked, into the everlasting fire reserved for the devil and his angels. Close with this Christ.
Be confronted by the glory of our God. Understand that woe is you. Say with the prophet, woe is me, for I am undone. I am brought to oblivion.
But then know what we'll see tonight, that in Christ Jesus there is atonement. In Christ Jesus, if you believe upon Him by grace, then behold, this has touched your lips. Your iniquity is taken away and your sin purged. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.
And you won't look with horror on that great day at this glorious unrivaled majesty, but you will look with peace and joy. And you'll sing with the angels everlastingly, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. Let us pray.
Closing Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for this vision of Isaiah. We thank you for what it discloses concerning you and concerning men. We thank you for what this shows us about your glory, about your majesty.
We thank you for what it shows us concerning our own state before you. We do pray that you would help us to rejoice in you. We pray that you would help us to sing your praises. We pray that your saints would all the more be lifted up to diligence and walk, that we would know with whom we have to do, and that we would adequately respond to your glory with our own service in this lower world.
And we do pray for those who do not know you, those who are here this morning outside of Christ, that you would confront them with your glory. that you would meet them with your grace, and that you would cause them to leave this place, singing the praises of our gracious God. We pray that you would go with us, that you would help us. We pray that you would just cause us to leave this place, reflecting upon your glory, and seeking to live in light of it. We pray in Christ's precious name.
Amen.