For us as a church fellowship
here at Trinity, these are very exciting and yet very sad days. Most of us are fully aware by
now that next Lord's Day, if God spares us all to come to
another Lord's Day, will be the last Lord's Day that Pastor and
Mrs. Blaise will be among us for some
time to come. And so we are excited in the
proper sense that the head of the Church has been pleased to
lay his hand upon another member of this fellowship and to set
that one apart for the work to which God has called him. And
when we have prayed, as we often do, that the Lord of the Harvest
would send forth laborers, when we've asked King Jesus to extend
the scepter of his gracious mediatorial reign Why we cannot help but
be excited and filled with holy anticipation when we see tangible
indications that the Lord has heard and is answering such prayers. And yet they are nonetheless
days of sadness, because the affections, the mutual appreciation,
the sense of identity in worship and the work of God is such that
when it must be severed, there is pain. And that pain is real. We ought not to be ashamed of
it. We ought not to bury it out of sight. For the scripture records
in that most touching passage in Acts chapter 20, the incident
of the apostle Paul's leaving the elders at Ephesus. And we
read from Luke, the historian, that they fell upon his neck
and they wept sore, sorrowing that they should see his face
no more. And it is possible to have a
heart that at the same time is both excited, filled with joy,
and also sad, and eyes filled with tears. Some of us can remember
when we first began to find out one of the ways in which women
were made a little different from us men. When we found our
wives crying, we said, what's the matter? What'd we do? I'm
so happy. And their joy was mingled and
expressed with their tears. So all of us who've been married
for a little while understand that it's perfectly possible
to have grief and joy, excitement and sorrow bound up in the same
heart and at the same time. And it is such times as these
that afford a tremendous opportunity to bring into the sharpest of
focus some fundamental biblical principles which speak very definitely
and very specifically to our present situation as a people
of God. And if you have any acquaintance
with your Bibles, you are fully aware of the fact that many portions,
particularly in the New Testament, arise out of the historical situation
in which the various churches found themselves. And God's truth
was always coming through the apostolic writings, speaking
to specific churches in times of specific need and crisis. And so what I wish to do this
morning and again next Lord's Day morning, God willing, is
to direct your attention to a portion of the Word of God which I trust
will be used of God in drawing our hearts together, particularly
now, Pastor and Mrs. Blaze, as they leave us, and
our hearts as a fellowship of God's people, that by means of
the exposition of this particular passage we may be drawn together
into a very clear understanding of what it is that God is doing
and what aspects of his truth ought constantly to be held before
our minds and hearts as we will share together in the fellowship
of the gospel as our brother leaves us to establish a work
in East London. The passage to which I refer
is an Old Testament passage, a very familiar passage to those
of you who have been within the framework of the Christian Church
any period of time at all, but I believe a passage which is
perhaps more familiar in its external form and wording than
in its essential message. And I am referring to the record
of Isaiah's call in the sixth chapter of the prophecy of Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 6. And will you make an effort to
listen as I read this portion of God's Word, listening as though
you had never heard it before? This record of the strange way
in which God laid his hand upon this man Isaiah and set him apart
to the work of the prophetic office. In the year that King
Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted
up, and His train, that is His royal garments, filled the temple. Above Him stood the seraphim,
the burning ones. Each one had six wings. With two He covered His face,
and with two He covered His feet, and with two He did fly. And
one cried unto another and said, Holy, holy is the Lord of hosts,
the whole earth is full of His glory." And the foundations of
the thresholds shook at the voice of Him that cried, and the house
was filled with smoke. Then said I, 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 mine eyes have seen
the King, the Lord of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphim
unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken
with the tongs from off the altar, and he touched my mouth with
it." A live coal. You kids, you see those burning
charcoal briquettes in your backyard? When dad or mom is cooking hamburgers
on the 4th of July, if you've ever touched one of those, you
know what it feels like. Here the seraphim takes with
Tom's one of those coals and in this vision touches the mouth,
the most sensitive tissues in the human body, the lips, touches
the lips with it and says, thine iniquity is taken away and thy
sin forgiven. And 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, Hear ye indeed, but understand not, and see ye indeed, but perceive
not. Make the heart of this people
fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they
see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand
with their heart, and turn again, and be healed.' Then said I,
Lord, how long? And he answered, Until cities
be waste without inhabitant, and houses without man, and the
land become utterly waste. And the Lord hath removed men
far away, and the forsaken places be many in the midst of the land.
And if there yet be a tenth in it, it shall in turn be eaten
up as a terebinth and as an oak, whose stalk remaineth when they
are felled. So the holy seed is the stalk
thereof. Now in coming to a study of a
portion such as the one that I have read in your hearing.
I trust all of you are aware that there are certain elements
in this account of Isaiah's call to the prophetic office which
are exclusive to that period of special revelation. There
are things in this passage that we dare not expect to be repeated
in this day when God no longer is acting in a way of direct
revelation. There are things peculiar to
that period of the history of redemption in general, and certainly
things peculiar to God's dealings with Isaiah in particular. No prophet received a call identical
to that of Isaiah. And though the prophets were
called by direct revelation, the channel of that revelation
was different in each case. But what God did in this unusual
vision given to Isaiah was to reveal certain things about himself
as Isaiah's God. certain things about Isaiah,
the man, and certain things about his mission and the people to
whom he was sent, which things are just as applicable today
as they were in Isaiah's day. In other words, it is not the
vision which we expect to be reproduced, but we come to the
vision convinced it is part of Scripture that is profitable
for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction, and seeking
to extract its doctrine, to feel its reproof, its correction and
instruction, we look to the same Spirit who gave this direct revelation,
to take the truth contained in the record and to apply it with
our hearts with power, producing in us what it produced in the
prophet, so that though the method of God is different, the end
should be identical. For in a very real sense, this
vision given to Isaiah formed the very atmosphere and ethos
of the ministry of the prophet. I will further assert that the
prophet Isaiah's ministry was simply an extension and a continuous
commentary upon the principles embodied in this vision given
to him at his call. And it is the substructure of
essential and eternal truth that we wish by the Spirit's help
to glean from the passage, trusting that God by the Spirit will make
these things the very atmosphere of the ministry to which God
has called our brother, and in which we will be involved by
our prayerful concern and by the support of our substance
in the coming months and years. May I suggest that the vision
breaks down into three major categories of concern. First
of all, the foundational truths which God revealed about himself
as the sending one. Then secondly, and this will
wait till next week, points two and three, foundational truths
about his servant, the sent one, and foundational truths about
the people to whom the prophet is sent. So the vision then has
three major strands of ingredients, the revelation of God, the sender,
the revelation of Isaiah, the sent, and the revelation of the
people to whom the sender sends the prophet. This morning our
attention will be focused exclusively upon the first category. What
foundational truths about himself was God concerned to reveal to
the prophet Isaiah? One perceptive man of God has
said that the most significant thing about any man or woman
is his or her view of God. If I were to zero in upon the
one thing that is most telling in terms of what you are as a
human being, how you act, how you think, what you do, what
you don't do, how you react, the most fundamental thing determining
the whole color and flavor of your life is your view of God. Nothing is more influential in
our thoughts, in our actions, in the total lifestyle that characterizes
us as individuals than our view of God. And God himself knew
that principle. And so his concern when he lays
his hand upon this man Isaiah is first of all to give to the
man not a sight of himself, nor a sight of the people to whom
He has sent, their need, and everything that surrounds that
group of people, nor is it to articulate the message He is
to preach. The first thing God does is to
give to this prophet a shattering and undoing yet blessed experience
of a vision of Himself. Notice where the vision begins.
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. As he reflects upon this vision,
he does not say, I heard a voice, I received a commission, I was
given directions. He said, in the year that King
Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. And most fundamental to this
entire vision is this revelation which God gave of himself to
the prophet. And I would remind you that the
Lord whom Isaiah saw is none other than the God revealed in
the person of Jesus Christ. For in John 12 and verse 41 we
read this commentary upon this very passage, these things spake
Isaiah when he saw his glory and spake of him. This is a vision
of the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus Christ, the Eternal Word, who
has always been and ever shall be the medium of God's revelation
to men. For no man hath seen God at any
time. The Only Begotten, who is in
the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. And so the God
revealed is the God who is our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, let me
suggest that there are at least five fundamental things that
God reveals about himself to his prophets. five essential
aspects of his being and his ways, which the prophet must
not only hold in suspension in some kind of intellectual understanding,
but they must become the very fiber of his spirit as a servant
of the living God. And if we are to be bound together
in a ministry that is truly biblical, as our brother and his wife leave
us, And as we are identified with that ministry of the Gospel
in East London, let me suggest that the five things that are
characteristic of God in this vision must mutually be the sum
and substance of our perspective of our God. First of all, God
reveals Himself to His prophet as the God of absolute sovereignty
and unrivaled supremacy. And some of you kids say, oh,
there goes the preacher using big words. Now, wait a minute.
Don't I always explain them if they're unusually big ones? And
frankly, I am appalled at the limited vocabulary of the average
adult American. It is a shame. With the rich
heritage of the English language, we ought to get beyond using
third-grade vocabulary. Now, after that little aside,
This vision reveals God as the God of absolute sovereignty,
and I use the word absolute in the sense of the third meaning
in the Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, not limited by constitution. When you talk about an absolute
monarch, you mean a monarch that doesn't have to consult with
anyone, not even his wife, when he wants to do what he wants
to do. An absolute monarch is a man whose will is supreme in
the exercise of authority. Now in this vision, God reveals
himself to Isaiah as the God of absolute, that is, no one
is there to counsel him, no one there to cancel his decisions,
and he is revealed as a God of absolute sovereignty, and sovereignty
simply means supreme in power and authority, the right to rule
and to administer. Therefore, the vision we have
of God is one of absolute sovereignty and unrivaled supremacy. He has no rival. He has no one
who stands with Him in that posture of absolute sovereignty. Now,
where do we see that in the vision? Well, look carefully at the text.
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting
upon a throne, that's the place of his dwelling, high and lifted
up, that's his position with reference to all that is about
him, and his train, that is the skirts of his royal robes, filled
the temple. None was standing near him. And
in verse 5 he says, Mine eyes have seen THE King, Jehovah of
hosts. And I suggest that those four
things like the rays of the sun passing through a magnifying
glass that are all then pointed on that one spot where those
rays will burn, these four lines of biblical light all converge
upon this one fundamental principle. impressing the mind and the spirit
of the prophet with this tremendous truth at the very outset of his
commission, the God in whose name you go, my servant Isaiah,
is the God of absolute sovereignty and unrivaled supremacy. Let's look at those things very
briefly, each in the order that they come before us. I saw the
Lord sitting upon a throne. The throne is the symbol of rule
and of government. Now listen carefully. Rule and
government in administration. You see, the king still is the
ruler when he's in his bedroom. But it is not in his bedroom
that he exercises his royal prerogatives and his regal rights. The king
is a king when he's out on his boat in his private lake fishing. But it's not from his boat catching
fish that he administers his rights as king. But when with
all of his entourage and accompaniment and the blowing of the trumpets
he comes and ascends his throne, everyone knows he is in that
place from which government is exercised and administered. And
the vision that Isaiah receives of his Lord is that of the Lord
who is seated upon the throne. who is in the place and posture
not only of inherent right to rule, but in the present exercise
of that rule. It is on a throne that the Lord
sits to rule, to administer His government. And then secondly,
He sees him high and lifted up. You see, high and lifted up.
is a description of what one thing is in reference to another.
Right now, I am high and lifted up. In relationship to you, I'm
18 inches higher. But in relationship to the ants
that are crawling down the driveway here, you are high and lifted
up. You're about 8 feet above them. And in relationship to
the worms that are beneath the flower beds, even the ants are
high and lifted up. Now you see how the term is a
term of relationships? I am high and lifted up compared
to where you are. You are high and lifted up compared
to where the ants are, and the ants are high and lifted up compared
to where the worms are. But as Isaiah sees this vision
of God, A vision that involves seraphim, or cherubim, seraphim,
I'm sorry, I always get them mixed up when I look at the text.
Seraphim, a vision that involves the voice of God and these strange
happenings. One thing grips him, that the
Lord who is upon a throne is the exalted Lord upon an exalted
throne. It is this position of exaltation
and unrivaled supremacy, high above all else. And then, as
it were, to emphasize that more fully, it says, his train, that
is, the skirts of his royal robe, fill the temple, for no man would
dare step upon the royal robes of a king. You know how careful
we are at weddings. that no one step upon the train
of the bride. And the bride's made very carefully
when she turns to walk out, flutters it all out and gets it behind
her, because it's an insult to her person to trample upon that
which is an extension of her bridal beauty. And Isaiah says,
when I saw the Lord, I not only saw a throne, and this personage
upon the throne lifted up above all else in his presence, but
his royal garments filled the entirety of the temple. There
was none standing opposite him as his equal, none standing before
him to barter. He was there in the beauty of
his exclusiveness. as the one true and living sovereign
of heaven and of earth? And how desperately did the prophet
need to understand this first aspect of the vision? For when
good King Uzziah died, this was the beginning of the end for
everything good in Israel. From this point on, the theocracy,
that is, the state of Israel as a nation with peculiar privileges
and peculiar presence of God, the theocracy began to crumble,
a crumbling which never fully recovered until that nation,
after or at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, was scattered amongst
the nations of the earth. Isaiah had to prophesy at the
time when the Assyrian and Babylonian nations were being raised up
by God to be a scourge to Israel. What does he need to know? He
needs to know that Assyria is not king. Babylon is not king. The Lord is upon the throne.
And therefore, when you read the book of the prophet Isaiah,
you read some of the most graphic and beautiful poetic imagery.
God hisses for a nation. He likens them to a bunch of
And he says, I'll hiss for them and I'll call them and tell them
to do my bidding. And you turn to the 40, the chapter,
and he says, the nations, Assyria, Babylon, are like the little
sweat drop on the side of a bucket on a hot day in the middle of
the summer. Not nations are as a drop in a bucket, they are
as a drop of a bucket. The little sweat drops, the condensation,
mighty Assyria, mighty Babylon, what are they? Little drops on
the side of a bucket. the nations of the earth, the
Syria, Babylon, and all their armed might. What are they? Like
a bunch of little grasshoppers, he says in that 40th chapter.
Where'd he get such a vision? I tell you, he got it right here.
When God called that man, he stamped upon his spirit. He fused
into his understanding this tremendous concept that the God in whose
name he preaches is the God of absolute sovereignty, the God
of unrivaled supremacy. Furthermore, when the words are
heard, who will go? Isaiah does not interpret these
as the words of a whimpering, impotent God. The words of fawning
weakness? No, no. He regards them as the
words of gracious and condescending omnipotence. It's the God upon
the throne, high and lifted up. It's the God whose skirts fill
the temple who says, who will go? Can you imagine Isaiah ever
thinking that he had to run to help that poor God who was sort
of getting frustrated holding everything together? You see,
often this passage is rested to become, as it were, a lever
upon emotionally unstable teenagers to get them to respond to a,
quote, call to the mission field. The picture of some weak and
fawning God who is crippled in his weakness and who can't get
his work done. Won't you come to help him? Not
so, Isaiah. I saw the Lord high, lifted up, seated upon a throne
in His royal skirts, filled the temple in the year that a good
and godly King died. I saw the true King, Jehovah
of hosts, leader and commander of all the armies of heaven,
all of the angelic hosts. That's the significance of that
description of God as Jehovah of hosts. And He comes to understand. that this God is the God who
commissions him. Therefore, when God lays upon
him a terribly difficult mission. Imagine, it's one thing to labor
for a lifetime and look back and say, God didn't give me much
success. You could always labor in the hope of it. But at the
outset, God says, look, you know what your message is going to
be? One of judgment, one of condemnation. You're going to keep on preaching
till their ears get harder and harder. You're going to keep
on preaching till their hearts get fatter and fatter. But what
does he say? Lord, how long? If you're the
high and exalted one seated upon the throne, I cannot argue with
you, I cannot bicker with you. Yours is to command, mine is
to obey. And I say very seriously to you,
my beloved brother in the gospel, as you leave us to go to that
veritable Sodom of East London, you will meet, as I know you
anticipate, men, even Christian brethren, who will find the doctrine
of the absolute sovereignty and unrivaled supremacy of God the
occasion of railing, of maligning, constantly bringing up unbiblical
caricatures, that you will find that this doctrine will be the
sheet anchor to your soul. To know that the God who commissions
you is the one who says in the person of His Son, All authority
hath been delivered unto me in heaven and in earth, going therefore,
make disciples. And in the midst of men's opposition,
in the midst of hardness, in the midst of apparent unfruitfulness,
to have this stamped upon the Spirit, He has all authority
in heaven and in earth, and I go in the name of such a Sovereign.
And I say this is what will give to us as a congregation, persistence
in prayer, dogged persistence as we plead with God for the
blessings of His grace and of His Spirit upon our brother as
he goes to labor in that needy area of God's vineyard. Let us
never forget what Isaiah never forgot, that the God whom we
serve is the God of absolute sovereignty. unrivaled supremacy. But then in the second place,
God revealed something else about himself to his prophet, and it
was this, that he was the God of transcendent majesty and burning
purity. Transcendent, something that
is above us, beyond us, outside of us. He is the God of transcendent
majesty. Whatever Isaiah knew of majesty,
as he apparently had social intercourse with the court of Uzziah the
king, he now was struck with a majesty that went far beyond
anything he had ever seen or experienced in his association
with human royalty. It was transcendent, that which
went beyond any majesty ever known before. His God was the
God of transcendent majesty and of burning purity. And where
do we come to understand that? Look at verse 2. Above Him stood
the seraphim. Each one had six wings. These burning ones. Volumes have
been written about these seraphim. What were they? What is their
distinct mission? What is their peculiar function? Well, we don't know too much.
But I believe we can glean enough to know their significance here.
Each one had six wings. Two wings, the face is covered. Here are these creatures who
are not involved in that tragic deflection in Adam. They are
not part of Adam's race. They are part of that race of
the elect angelic beings. And yet, two wings cover their
faces. as they are near this throne
where God reveals His glory. With another two wings, they
cover their feet. Feet, the object with which their
errands are accomplished. But there is such a sense that
God is beyond them and above them that they cover their feet.
The face, that with which they see and are looked upon. Feet,
that with which they accomplish the designs of God. And then
with two of those wings they fly, the picture of a sanctified
restlessness that cannot stay too long in close proximity to
that great majestic being that sits upon the throne. And then
we read that one cried to another, Holy, holy, holiest Jehovah of
hosts. How many seraphim were there?
We do not know. There were at least two. One cried unto the
other, And there is this antiphonal chant, Holy, Holy, Holy is Jehovah
of Hosts, the King, the Lord, upon the throne, whom Isaiah
sees in this vision. And then they declare that the
earth is the fullness of His glory, or the whole earth is
full of His glory, either translation warranted by the language. And
then a strange thing happens. The foundations of the thresholds
actually shake when one of these is crying to the other and suddenly
the whole temple from this dazzling brilliant glory is filled with
smoke. Have you ever been in a room
filled with smoke? Your eyes burn and you know somewhere there's
fire. And when the prophets were caught
up in these visions often they experienced in the vision just
like in a dream when you're being chased by some mad bull in a
dream I tell you that's real to you. You wake up in a cold
sweat and find that you're safely in your bed. But I tell you,
while you were still in that dream, it was real. And it was
similar for these prophets when they were caught up in these
visions. They experienced these things in the transport of the
vision and the apocalyptic experience. And can you imagine when Isaiah
is there and suddenly the very foundations of the thresholds,
he seems to be standing, as it were, at the very opening of
this throne room filled with the train, the skirts of the
exalted Lord upon the throne. And the very foundation begins
to shake and suddenly the room is full of smoke. Now what is all of this? May
I suggest that comparing Scripture with Scripture, there is a clear
indication that what God was doing here was impressing upon
the mind and the spirit, and I keep joining those two things,
upon the mind and the spirit. upon the noetic, the understanding,
and upon the essence of His inner life, where truth must take hold
of us, that His God was the God of transcendent majesty and of
burning purity. The One who sat upon that throne
was the Holy One of Israel. And so fundamental was this revelation
of God's burning holiness to Isaiah. that this very phrase,
the Holy One of Israel, became common currency in the preaching
of Isaiah. He uses it 26 times in the book
of Isaiah, and it is found only six other times in the entire
Old Testament. And as though God anticipated
these crazy people that talk about two different Isaiahs,
Isaiah uses it 12 times in the first 39 chapters and 14 times
in chapters 40 to 66. It becomes, as it were, the Isaianic
stamp upon the authorship of His book, the God whom He preaches
in judgment in the first 39 chapters, the God whom He preaches primarily
in mercy in the last chapters, is the Holy One of Israel, the
God whom He saw in that vision at the very threshold of His
ministry. You see, God knows if His prophet
is to walk with Him. And no man is a true servant
of Christ as his mouthpiece who does not first of all walk with
him as his child and his servant. The prophet must know the necessity
of being cleansed from his own sin. He must know that if he's
to be an instrument to bring that remnant that we read about
in the latter part of the chapter into fellowship with God, they
too must be cleansed and made holy And in a sense, this whole
strand of Isaiah's preaching is caught up and brought together
in one little bundle in chapter 57 and verse 15. Look at it. I believe it is a direct reference
to the vision. When Isaiah proclaims in this
text, Isaiah 57, 15, Thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth
eternity, the high and the lofty one. I saw the Lord high and
lifted up. He inhabits eternity, whose name
is holy. I remember the chanting, the
antiphonal chant of these seraphim, holy, holy, holy. I remember
the room full of smoke, the shaking threshold, the pain of self-disclosure. Thus saith the high and lofty
One that inhabits eternity, whose name is holy. I dwell in the
high and holy place. with him also that is of a contrite
and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and
to revive the heart of the contrite. What is humility? It's the creature
taking full awareness of his creatureliness in the presence
of transcendent majesty. And what is contrition? It's
the sinner taking to heart his sinfulness in the presence of
burning holiness. And so when he saw him in his
transcendent majesty and burning holiness, he says, So majestic
a being is God, and I am but creature. So glorious and holy
a being is so utterly unlike what I am. And so humility and
contrition are the reflexive responses of the heart that has
the vision of the God that is. And so, my beloved brother, as
God sends you forth to labor there in East London, may he
ever keep before your eyes that the God before whom you walk
is the God who will not hold communion with the defiled, but
will hold communion only with those who walk in holiness before
him. And I solemnly charge you, my
beloved brother, as I know you would me, if I were where you
are this morning and you are where I am. Never to forget that
your greatest responsibility amidst all the labors of that
work is the nurture and the cultivation of your own walk in the presence
of God. He is the God of transcendent
majesty, of burning purity and holiness, and this is why the
cross of Christ must be central to your ministry. For it is the
cross alone which answers the dilemma, how shall this holy
being have communion with unholy creatures? And you'll remember
that in Isaiah's case, There was the introduction of that
which had distinct reference to the altar. It was a call from
the altar. There was sacrifice, there was
expiation, and this must be brought home to the heart and to the
lips of the man of God who would speak in the name of that God. He is the God of burning purity
and holiness, the God of transcendent majesty. Ah, but someone says,
Those were the sharp, bold, ragged, jagged lines of the Old Testament. Christ has come and smoothed
all of that over, my friend, nothing could be further from
the truth. The full revelation of God in Jesus, Christ has brought
into sharper relief than anything ever revealed in the Old Testament,
that God is the God of burning holiness. You say there's something
more vivid? than the destruction of Sodom
and Gomorrah to show that God is holy? Yes! Something more
vivid than the flood? Yes! For this was a holy God
dealing with unholy men. But in the cross of his own dear
Son, here is the holy God of the universe dealing with the
only holy man who ever lived. And the scripture says he spared
not his own Son. And Calvary is the clearest,
the most vivid demonstration of the burning holiness of God
ever made to the sons of men upon the face of this earth.
When Almighty God shrouded the heavens in that terrible darkness
and plunged the soul of His Son into the abyss of inward darkness,
God was saying, I am still the Lord who sits upon a throne.
And before me there is the acknowledgement that I am essentially and eternally
and spotlessly holy. No sin shall stand before me. Then in the third place, the
prophet must not only understand that God is the God of absolute
sovereignty, the God of burning holiness and purity, but he is
the God of manifested glory. Listen to this strange cry in
verse three. And one cried unto another and
said, Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts. The whole earth is
full of his glory, or as you have the marginal reading in
the ASV, the whole earth or the fullness of the whole earth is
his glory. Now, without trying to debate
and to discuss and to resolve the problem, which is the proper
way to render the words, this much is clear. that the seraphim
are acknowledging a tremendous truth that this God who is revealed
to Isaiah in this temple situation, whether again it was the setting
of the temple of worship or whether it was the court of the dwelling
place of the king, we don't know. In the Hebrew, the word for temple
and palace is the same. So we don't know precisely where
it was. But one thing is clear. This God does not confine the
revelation of Himself to that inner sanctuary, be it the temple
or be it the palace. These creatures cry one to another
and say, what God is in Himself before our eyes and before the
eyes of the prophet, He is in the midst of the whole earth.
The whole earth is full of His glory or the fullness of the
whole earth is His glory. What are they saying? They're
saying this God has revealed Himself. For the glory of God
is the manifestation of what God is in Himself. The rays of
the sun that we now see upon the trees outside this building
are the manifestation of the essential light and heat of the
sun. The glory of God is the manifestation
of what God is. And the scriptures make abundantly
clear that God has revealed himself to his creatures. He has revealed
himself upon his world. Romans 1 and 2 speak of this. Acts 14 and Acts 17, this God
has not hidden Himself from His creatures, but the whole earth
is full of His glory. Psalm 19, the heavens declare
His glory, and the firmament showeth His handiwork. There
is the revelation of God in creation. There is the revelation of God
in the conscience of all of His creatures. Romans chapters 1
and 2. Now, why does the prophet need
to know this? What in the world does this have to do with fitting
a man to preach? Ah, listen carefully. He's going
to preach to a sinning nation, a nation that is ripening for
judgment. And what he must know when he
thus preaches is that he has an ally within the bosom of the
most hardened Israelite to whom he must preach judgment. Isaiah,
when you go to preach that Israel's God is to bring judgment for
her sins, You do not preach in a vacuum. You preach into the
ears and into the hearts of people who've seen My glory, not alone
My glory in redemptive history, in bringing them out of Egypt
and establishing them in the land, but who, when they look
out, they know that the silly little things that they've made
and called their gods did not bring the heavens and the earth
into being. They know when they look at My handiwork that when
they bow down to Baal and to Ashtoreth, they are not bowing
down to a true God. Isaiah, My servant, listen. Never
be embarrassed. Never be fearful. When you thunder
out My Word, you have an ally in the bosom of every man to
whom you preach. His conscience affirms that an
idol is nothing. His own conscience affirms that
this that he worships is no true God. And when you summon them
to repentance, Isaiah, remember, you're calling to repentance
creatures made in thy image, made in my image to know me,
made to recognize my glory and delightfully to reflect it. Isaiah,
you're not alone. And I tell you, it gives me great
joy in preaching to know that no matter how anyone may sit
in this building this morning, upstairs or downstairs, and gnash
upon the message with your teeth, I've got an ally in your bosom. That when you hear the Word of
God objectively proclaimed, there is a subjective response that
says, Amen, it's true. Now you may put it down, you
may try to shove it out of there, but it's there. Their conscience
is accusing or excusing. Someone say, are you teaching
free will to spark a divinity? No! I'm teaching that man is
not beast. And until he has seared his conscience
and been abandoned by God and committed the sin against the
Holy Ghost, whatever it is, there is the answer in his breast to
the truth of the Word of God. And when I tell you you're a
sinner, when I tell you you've offended God, deep within your
breast there's an answer. It's true. And I tell you, God
cannot be found by your own devising, and God's favor cannot be earned
by your own efforts, that you must flee to Christ and abandon
yourself to Christ. There is an answer within your
own breast. And oh, Isaiah needed to know
this. As he looked out over Israel, there was not much, there was
not much of glory. The days of her glory were past.
at the peak of her success under Solomon, when the Queen of Sheba
comes, and Tyre and the kings of Tyre and Sidon and the other
places come, and the glory of God was evidently manifested
throughout the whole world through Israel. It might be easy to believe
the whole earth is full of His glory, but God says, right now,
Isaiah, going to preach to a nation slated for judgment, the earth
is still full of My glory. I've left My stamp upon it. And
so when Isaiah takes off, as he does in chapter 40, and mocks
the folly of idolatry in the bosom of every person, there's
the acknowledgment. It's true. It's true. He says,
now, look, you go out there and grab a hunk of wood. You take
half of it and you go home and build your fire. And then while
your fire is warming you, you take the other half and you make
yourself a little God. Now, isn't that smart? That's a paraphrase,
but that's exactly what he says. Now, isn't that smart? Isn't
that smart? My friend, listen. You know that
the gods that you've made and worshipped are no true gods.
Whether it's the god of your own head, your own notions about
life, your own philosophy of life, it's full of stupidity
and emptiness, and you know it is. The only reason you hold
to it is because it still gives you an excuse to go on doing
what you want to do because you love your sin. That's the only
reason. That which may be known of God
is manifest, but you hold it down in unrighteousness because
you love your sin. You don't have intellectual problems,
you've got moral problems. The moral problem is your rebellion
against God. It's amazing how the moment that's
subdued, why the truth of the gospel is the most reasonable
thing in all the world. My dear brother Asheel, as God
sends you forth into that land that once blazed with gospel
glory but has degenerated into a veritable sodden May God give
you great joy in the knowledge that He's manifested His glory
in the midst of East London. And when you stand to preach,
be it in a hired hall, be it by a lamppost in the open air,
to know that God's revealed Himself to those people and they cannot
escape the reality of their Maker's claims upon them. And may He
give you such boldness and confidence in that knowledge that you will
be, by His grace, a fearless proclaimer of the truth of the
whole counsel of God. And then, oh my, time is gone. We've only covered the three
points, and it's a warm day. Let me just give you the heads,
and maybe we'll flesh them out next week. He's the God of forgiving
grace, verses 6 and 7. shattered by this revelation
of God, impotent to change himself, suddenly look at the divine initiative,
then flew one of the seraphim unto me. God takes the initiative. And he touched my mouth and said,
This hath touched thy lips, thine iniquity is taken away, thy sin
is expiated. Not a word about what Isaiah
did, it's all a word about what God did. And God is saying, Isaiah,
I am not only the God of absolute sovereignty, the God of transcendent
majesty, the God of manifested glory, but I'm the God of forgiving
and pardoning mercy. And He comes to His servant and
purges away his sin, cleanses him and grants to that heart
shattered by the revelation of divine glory the sweetness of
reconciliation. and forgiveness. And there's
a sense in which I say it metaphorically, from that moment on Isaiah preached
with the scab upon his lips. You see, the man who's been shattered
by the sight of his own sin, and known the gracious forgiveness
of God, is a man whose preaching will have a peculiar winsomeness
about it. For he is no self-righteous preacher
of Moses, who says, I've attained, come and join me, but who says,
I am what I am by the grace of God. And that grace is sincerely
offered to all in Jesus Christ. You see, there is nothing like
the fragrance that comes to the ministry of a man who's felt
the coal upon his lips. You see, forgiveness is both
painful and sweet at the same time. It's painful because forgiveness
is always couched in the context of felt guilt. And that's never
sweet. Isaiah said, I'm undone. And
he wasn't being poetic. What I've seen has shattered
me. There's nothing left. Woe is me. I'm undone. I stand with my nation full of
sin. Then flew a seraph. Then flew
a seraph. May God grant to you, my beloved
brother, ever to have upon your ministry the fragrance that always
comes from the sense of fresh forgiveness, the pain of discovery,
the blessedness of God's pardoning mercy. Then we'll pick up the
other thought, God willing, next week. I'll just give you the
point. He's the God of condescending purpose. No sooner does he take
his servant into communion with himself in forgiveness than he
lets him in on his secret. He has a purpose. Whom shall
I send and who will go for us? And this majestic, almighty,
sovereign, transcendent, holy, forgiving God does an amazing
thing. He stoops to incorporate into
his sovereign purposes the efforts of a redeemed sinner. And that's
one of the most amazing things in all the world. And that forms
the background of the ministry of this great man Isaiah. And
I suggest that these are the perspectives that we need desperately
to have before our eyes. that our brother needs constantly
to have before him as he leaves us. May the Lord continue in
his own mercy to open up the word, burn it into our hearts,
that we may, in this new venture of the gospel, be bound together
in a fellowship of similar perspectives on the work of God, that under
God's blessing will result in the tearing down of the strongholds
of Satan and the establishment of God's own name as he brings
into being a vigorous church for his glory there in East London. Let us pray.