Good evening. Our text is going
to be Isaiah chapter six. We're going to look at the first
eight verses, Isaiah chapter six. Now our Lord in chapter
six here reveals himself to Isaiah as a pattern of the revelation
and the salvation that he gives to all sinners by his grace. And our God loved us and he chose
us in eternity, but we see, we know by the, according to the
scriptures and what he's revealed there in the scriptures and in
our own hearts, that in time, he brings all the blessings of
this salvation in Christ upon us. He reveals himself to his
people and he brings them to know that he is their salvation. They trust him and they believe
him and they are called out of darkness and they follow him.
They hear the voice of the Lord. So this salvation comes to us
in time, even though we were saved and chosen and saved in
eternity because God gave his word and his word is sure and
true and nothing shall prevent him from doing his will for us. Now what I want us to see tonight
is that we, like Isaiah here, we're going to see how the Lord
reveals and strips Isaiah down and brings him to see that Christ
is all. And this is what he does in all
of his people, so that we ourselves must have our idols removed and
taken away. We need the glory of Christ revealed
in us. We need to be made to confess
that we ourselves are sinners in need of his grace, in need
of the salvation that he's provided in Jesus Christ, his son. And
we must have our consciences purged by the blood of Christ. He's going to purge our guilty
consciences that we shall know that we indeed have been saved
by the Lord Jesus Christ and then he calls us and he sends
us to work in his kingdom. That doesn't necessarily mean
that we're all pastors and all teachers or all doing great and
mighty works but He uses each one of us, and he calls us to
serve and administer in his kingdom. Our title is Christ on His Throne,
and we'll have four divisions. The first that'll be the longest
is the sight of Christ, and then we'll see the flesh withered,
sins purged, and then here in Christ, the new man bears fruit. So we all begin to bear fruit
in Christ. All right, so let's look at this
first point here, the sight of Christ, and look there at verse
one, where we see the vision that the Lord gives to Isaiah.
Isaiah 6, one. In the year that King Uzziah
died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted
up, and his train filled the temple. Now, it's no secret that
Uzziah was a great king. He was a great king. He began
to reign as king at the age of 16, at the age of 16, and he
had very good counsel, so he was a wise king, and he did that
which was right in the sight of the Lord, and he reigned for
52 years. That's a pretty long time in
either the kings of Israel or the kings of Judah. So he reigned
for quite some time, and he accomplished a lot of projects at home, a
lot of projects. And he was very successful in
war, the war campaigns or the men that would go out and raid,
they were very successful so that he had much gold and much
silver that was brought into the kingdom so that he could
fund all these projects that he was doing at home for the
people. And Isaiah knew Uzziah. He knew him and he loved them
very much, it seems. It seems that he was akin to
Uzziah, that they were cousins, likely through Zechariah. And
this Zechariah counseled Uzziah. He was one of the men that counseled
him spiritually in his earlier years, at least. And it says
in 2 Chronicles 26, if you want to turn there, we'll look at
a few passages from there. But in 2 Chronicles 26, verse
5, it says of Uzziah that he sought God in the days of Zechariah,
who had understanding in the visions of God. And as long as
he sought the Lord, God made him to prosper. And Isaiah knew
Uzziah fairly well. And upon Uzziah's death, we read
in verse 22, 2 Chronicles 26, 22, It says, now the rest of the
acts of Uzziah, first and last, did Isaiah the prophet, the son
of Amos, write. So Isaiah was the one who kept
the history of Uzziah, and he likely worked in the king's court.
He was an educated man. He was probably one of the most
educated of all the prophets that we have in the scriptures.
And so he knew him very well. likely loved him and looked at
him too much, had too much confidence in Uzziah and what Uzziah did. So the first thing that we see
in this picture of salvation is that the Lord is going to
remove our idols, those things that we look to and that we draw
our security from and all of our comforts from. Rather than
the Lord, he's going to remove those things and that we learn
that He is our salvation, that He's our security, and that He's
our provision. So those things that come between
us and the Lord, the Lord will remove them if that's what it's
going to take. He'll remove those things that we look to if it's
preventing us from coming to the Lord and looking to Him alone. So he's going to leave it so
that Christ alone is our hope and that he's our God and that
he's the one that we worship and trust him. So now Uzziah
over time became lifted up with pride. He began to be so successful
that he gained a lot of confidence in his own abilities and so he
himself began to think that he could go into the house of the
Lord and worship God directly. He didn't think he needed the
priesthood. And what he was really doing
in that is that he was pushing aside Christ. Because the priesthood,
the temple and the priesthood and the sacrifices, they pictured
Christ. They pictured salvation by the
Lord Jesus Christ. So he was trying to bypass him. And that's why God wouldn't allow
it. And if you look there in 2 Chronicles 26 verse 16, it
says, But when Uzziah was strong, his heart was lifted up to his
destruction. For he transgressed against the
Lord his God, and he went into the temple of the Lord to burn
incense upon the altar of incense. And Azariah the priest went in
after him. And with him eighty priests of
the Lord that were valiant men. And they withstood Uzziah the
king, and said unto him, It appertaineth not unto thee, Uzziah, to burn
incense unto the Lord, but to the priests, the son of Aaron,
that are consecrated to burn incense. Go out of the sanctuary,
for thou hast trespassed, neither shall it be for thine honor from
the Lord. he became angry and he tried
to do it anyway and the Lord struck him immediately with leprosy
so that it began to show in his forehead and they saw it and
they were astonished and Uzziah knew something was up and so
he willingly allowed them just to push him out and he was removed
from reigning as king and he was put into a leper's house
and ceased to rule anymore over Israel and his son began to reign
instead, his son Jotham. This great king, in whom many
trusted, including Isaiah, he died. The Lord removed him so
that Isaiah could no longer look to him and trust in the security
that he felt having Uzziah as his king. But who remains? Doesn't matter what the king
is, who the king is, who remains but the Lord Jesus Christ. And
that's what we see here in this vision in verse one. In the year
that King Uzziah died, I saw also. For he saw that Christ
is the reigning and ruling King, the King of Kings, and the Lord
of Lords over all. I saw also the Lord sitting upon
a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple."
Now, the second thing that we see here in our salvation that
the Lord uses Isaiah to show us this picture of salvation
is Christ our High Priest is the only way to God. He's the
only way that God has given to men whereby they are saved, whereby
their sins have been put away and purged. It's by Jesus Christ
and Him alone. There's not another way and there
isn't some other possibility of another way. It must be that
Christ and Christ alone puts away our sins. Jesus said in
John 14, 6, He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No man cometh unto the Father but by me. So it was after Uzziah's
death that Isaiah sees Christ sitting upon the throne. Christ
is the one that he must be revealed to us. We must see him for who
he is because it's Christ who reveals the Godhead to us. Christ is the one who reveals
the Father to us and how we are to approach him and that it's
through Jesus Christ alone. He said in John 1 verse 18, No
man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which
is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." So it's
Christ that declares to us all the attributes of God so that
in Christ we understand and know who God is. Because naturally
speaking, we come forth in darkness and spiritually dead And we don't
know who God is, and we don't know how to worship him, we don't
know how to please him. When you look at all the religions
of man, you see what man thinks is the way to approach God. It's
through his good works, it's through his merits, it's by doing
certain things and not doing other things. that he thinks
he earns God's favor and merit with God. So God's got to destroy
those idols. He's got to remove them and show
us that Christ and Christ alone is the way to the Father. It's
as simple as that. It's as simple as Christ. He
is the way to the Father. A man doesn't receive that. As
simple as it is, all of us by nature are in darkness to that
very simple fact that it's through Christ that that's the one that
God has provided. And as I said, it's Christ that
reveals this, and we see, and just look at the crucifixion,
look at the death of our Savior on the cross, and we see there
the holiness of God. We know and understand that for
Him to give His Son, to sacrifice His Son, to save His people,
displays and shows us the love of God the Father and the love
of the Son and the love of the Spirit to do all this for us,
but it also shows us and declares to us just how holy God is. If it was just a matter of love,
he could have shown it another way, but Christ's crucifixion
declares to us that God is holy and he's just. Everything that
he does is just and right and holy And he's not going to bend
just because he has people that he loves. He's not going to turn
from his holiness and offend his holiness. That's why they
declare, holy, holy, holy. Holy is the Lord God Almighty. So we can't meet the demands
of His holiness and live. We can't do those things. But
He provided His Son to meet the demands of righteousness and
holiness, fulfilling all the things that we ourselves could
not do and could not keep ourselves, Christ did. So we see in Romans
3, verses 25 and 26, it says, whom God, speaking of Christ,
whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation. He's the covering
for our sins through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness
for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance
of God. Christ is the propitiation, which
means that he is the means of forgiveness. He is the way that
God can forgive us of our sins. He's the means of God being just
and the justifier of them which believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
which it says there in verse 26, to declare, I say at this
time, his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier
of him which believeth on Jesus. All right, so he justifies us
because of what Christ did. Christ is our righteousness so
he's justified us and he remains just because his holiness wasn't
assaulted or offended in any way. He remained just and the
justifier of his people. So we see what God has provided
in his son. The attributes of God are displayed
through Christ in the crucifixion on the cross. So now we see Christ
seated on his throne. He's been raised from the dead
because God accepts the sacrifice that Christ made of himself.
We know that God is pleased with it and that he receives all of
us who come to him through the Son because he's raised Christ
from the dead. It's an empty tomb. That's how
we know God is pleased with us. That's how we know God accepts
us because that tomb is empty. It testifies that God accepted
the sacrifice that Christ made of himself. He's pleased and
we are reconciled to God in the Lord Jesus Christ. So consider,
you know, our God, how great he is that he foretold the prophets
of these things. He says in Isaiah 46, He foretold
of this in Isaiah 46 verses 10 and 11. He said, declaring, speaking
of himself, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient
times the things that are not yet done, saying, my counsel
shall stand and I will do all my pleasure, calling a ravenous
bird from the east. And here he declares the promise
of his son. He says, and the man that executeth
my counsel from a far country. Yeah, I've spoken it. I will
also bring it to pass. I have purposed it. I will also
do it. So he promised, he foretold of
the salvation that he was to provide in his son, Jesus Christ. He promised it and he brought
it to pass, just as you said, so that Christ has purged our
sins and all the prophets give witness to Christ. They all give witness and declare
that that those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ shall receive
remission of sins. That's his promise. All those
who look to him, who have shown that they are, who have been
shown their need, that they are sinners, that they can't satisfy
God by their own works of righteousness, and they look to Christ and say,
that is the salvation that God's provided. He and he alone is
the one that God accepts. And they believe him. They trust
him. that His work is sufficient even to save them to the uttermost. Even though they are sinners,
they trust him. And he says, all who look to the son and believe
on him shall receive remission of sins. He does this. So Christ
is on that throne, seated in the throne of his father. And
it says in Hebrews 1, 3, who being the brightness of his glory
and the express image of his person and upholding all things
by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our
sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. So He
did all this work for His people, even though we ourselves are
undeserving sinners and undeserving of His mercy and grace. And because
the Son fulfilled the will of the Father, He raised Him from
the dead and He seated Him at His right hand in His throne,
where it says in Philippians 2, 9, wherefore God also hath
highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every
name. And Christ now says to us who
believe on him and hope in him in Revelation 3 verse 21, to
him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne.
Meaning to those who have been brought out of nature's darkness
to see their need of him and look to him and trust in him,
he says, I'm going to raise you up and you're going to sit in
my throne with me, even as I also overcame and am set down with
my father in his throne. So Isaiah here sees the King
of Kings and the Lord of Lords seated enthroned in glory now. That's what he's seeing. He's
seeing Christ seated on the throne. And like Isaiah, we must have
the Lord Jesus Christ revealed to us. He's got to be our Lord. He's got to be our Savior. And
so that it's not just enough that we know that, all right,
He's the Lord. We know that He's the Savior. But if He's shown
you your need of Him, then he promises all those who trust
him, who look to him, believing that he is the propitiation that
God has provided to save sinners and trust him. He's their Savior. There's no other salvation. There's
nothing else necessary. We don't need to think, well,
did He really die for me? Did He shed His blood for me?
His Word is a promise that all who look to Him, all who know
that they are sinners and that Christ is the Savior, they shall
receive remission of sins. Now, here's what the wicked do.
Turn over to John 12. John 12, verse 35. John 12, 35. Then Jesus said
unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while
ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you. For he that walketh
in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have the light,
Christ is that light, believe in the light, that ye may be
the children of light. These things spake Jesus, and
departed, and did hide himself from them. Do you feel like the
Lord is hiding himself from you? He does hide himself from his
people at times, but his people always seek him, and they hunger
for him, and they thirst for him, and they want to know him,
and they want to have that warmth and that nearness from the Lord.
But the wicked, they're happy. They're happy when the Lord hides
himself from them because they love darkness, and when the Lord's
not around, they love just being able to do the things that they
do without any conscience or any concern about it. So these people, though, he hid
from them, but they showed that they didn't care. They showed
that it didn't really bother them or concern them at all. It says in verse 37, but though
he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed
not on him. But if you believe, if your hope
is Christ, if you are a sinner, You have no hope in your works,
but your hope is Christ and Christ alone. That can't be said of
you. You do believe Christ. You do
trust him. Continue to look to him and trust
him. Believe his word that he shall
indeed save us to the end. He's not going to let us go.
But Christ spoke the truth to these people. He declared who
he was, but they showed that they loved darkness because they
didn't believe him. They didn't trust him. They didn't
care that he hid himself from them. 38 The reason why is that
the saying of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled which he spake,
Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom hath the arm of the
Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not believe,
because that Isaiah said again, He hath blinded their eyes. This is coming from Isaiah 6,
which we'll see probably the next time we look at Isaiah,
but these words come from Isaiah 6. He hath blinded their eyes
and hardened their heart, that they should not see with their
eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and
I should heal him. Look at verse 41. These things
said Isaiah when he saw his glory and spake of him. He spake of
Christ. So here on the throne this vision
that Isaiah sees is the Lord Jesus Christ. enthroned in glory
after he's been raised from the dead and has accomplished the
salvation of his people. It's a beautiful vision. It's
a beautiful sight. This is what Isaiah sees and
it's telling you right there in verse 41, that's who he saw. He wrote of Christ. He saw Christ
revealed to him. And that's what the Lord does
to His people. He reveals His Son, Jesus Christ, in their heart.
He reveals how glorious and how precious and wonderful a Savior
He is, and that He is their Savior. He reveals that they are sinners
and that they desperately need the salvation that God has provided
through the Son. So that's that glorious vision
that he's gonna reveal to us. Nevertheless, here's the wicked.
Nevertheless, among the chief rulers also, many believed on
him, but because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him, lest
they should be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the
praise of men more than the praise of God. And Jesus then cried. I mean, look at the continued kindness and mercy of our Savior. These people were refusing to
hear him. And yet it says here in verse
44, Jesus cried and said, he that believeth on me believeth
not on me, but on him that sent me. And he that seeth me seeth
him that sent me. So that Christ is indeed the
revelation of God. We see all the attributes of
God and we know God. because of what he has revealed
to us in his son, Jesus Christ. We see how holy he is, and the
love that he has for his people, and that he will not let us go. He's going to break us out of
that darkness in the kingdom of the evil one, and he's gonna
deliver us into his kingdom where we know and worship him. It says
in Hebrews 2.9, But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than
the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory
and honor, that he, by the grace of God, should taste death for
every man. So faith in Christ is a sure
hope. It's a sure hope. You who believe
on him, rejoice because it's a sure, perfect hope that we
shall indeed be with Him in that final day. It doesn't matter
what happens to us. It doesn't matter what happens
to our mind. We are His and we shall be with Him and He shall
indeed draws and raises us up to be with Him and we have that
confidence and hope because it's not in us, it's in Christ. It's
in Christ and Christ alone, so rejoice. So here we see Christ
seated on the throne of God having accomplished the work of salvation
as the God-man mediator. And Isaiah continues with this
vision. In Isaiah 6, 2 through 4, it says, above it or before
the Lord stood the seraphims. 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, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth
is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved
at the voice of him that cried. And the house was filled with
smoke. Now in Revelation, it talks about these seraphim and
it describes them as four creatures and it says in Revelation 4.8,
just listen to the description of them, and the four beasts
had each of them six wings about him and they were full of eyes
within and they rest not day and night saying, holy, holy,
holy is the Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come. So that There's disagreement
and there's sweet views. that do glorify Christ, even
though there's differences in what men think this means, but
it appears to be that these are ministers of Christ, not angels
as we understand them, but ministers of Christ who are declaring the
praise and the glory of what Christ himself has accomplished
in his mediatorial sacrifice for his people, right? What he
did for his people, and the eternal redemption and glory that he
accomplished to glorify his name and to be the glory of his people. So these are going forth by the
gifts and the moving of the spirit in them that's enabling them
to speak and to see what Christ has accomplished and to declare
that he is holy. As we saw before, when Christ
was crucified, it displays to us the holiness, the holy justice
of God being displayed, that he's not just going to wink and
pretend he didn't see our sin. Christ paid the price for that
sin. His blood redeems us. His blood
purges us. He worked hard for that, to accomplish
our salvation. That was no easy thing, what
He did. He's God, but as a man, He suffered. And He bore with that burden
for His people to put away that sin. So this is Christ making
and preparing and sending forth his preachers of the gospel of
Christ so that we preach. You see there, he's preaching
the cross of Christ. He's declaring the holiness of
God there. So he's preaching Christ and
the love of God and what he's accomplished for his people. So that's why we preach Christ
crucified, why we spend so much time declaring what Christ has
done because therein is the hope and the salvation of his people.
Therein we rejoice and are glad because of what God has accomplished
for us in his son. All right now, on to the next
three points here. We see the flesh is withered. In Isaiah 6-5 it says, 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. So when we
see the Lord in his glory, You know when you've seen Christ.
You know when he's shown you what a sinner you are. I mean,
you know when you've seen him because you know and confess,
Lord, I'm a sinner. Lord, I'm not deserving or worthy
of your grace and mercy. Lord, I don't deserve this, but
I desperately need the salvation. I need to be covered in the blood
of Christ. So you know when you've seen
him because you know what a sinner you are and you know that you're
undone and that there's nothing you can do to save yourself.
and that He's everything. He's everything you need. It's
all provided right there in Christ, our Savior. He puts us in the
dust. Our Lord said in John 6, 62,
what? And if you shall see the Son
of Man ascend up where He was before. If you see the Son of
Man ascend up where He was before, you're seeing the vision that
Isaiah saw, and you see that He is the Lord God Almighty. and that we ourselves are nothing
and our filthy rags and are dust before Him, and we shall not
stand. He brings us to see that, to
see that there's not this hope and confidence and idol in self,
but that He is everything to His people. So unless we see
Him, we remain in our darkness like the Jews who saw the miracles
of Christ, who heard Him preach themselves, and yet they believed
not. But once we have seen the Lord
in His glory, then we are humbled and brought low and laid down
the dust. 1 Peter 1 24, for all flesh is
as grass and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The
grass withereth and the flower thereof falleth away. You see it in Job, right? When
Job saw the Lord, what did he do? He said, I've heard of thee
by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee, and
I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. He was brought
to see the holiness of the Lord. He saw it. For a time, we hear
things, but we don't really know him until he reveals Christ to
us. And then we see, oh, um. I myself
am a filthy rag. I'm nothing. I have nothing.
Lord, if you don't have mercy on me, I'm dead. I'm cast away. Paul himself being overwhelmed
at the thought of his own sin and the filth of his own fake
false righteousness, he declared, O wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from the body of this death? And then he said,
I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind
I myself serve the law of God. but with the flesh, the law of
sin." So that we see the corruption and the deadness of this flesh,
that it's not able to help us or to save us in any way. But
it's the Lord who has to give us this sight. It's the Lord
who shows us these things and withers the flesh, shows us that
the flesh is grass, that we have no confidence in it. He humbles
us, brings us low, that He Himself might exalt us in due time. He'll
do the exalting. Don't let it be us, but let it
be the Lord who raises us up and exalts us in Him. Then we see that this is what
happened in Isaiah's case. His sins were purged. So in Isaiah
6, verses 6 and 7, it says, Then flew one of the seraphims unto
me. One of the ministers sent of
Christ to preach His word to His people. having a live coal
in his hand. That preacher comes forth with
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it says that he took
it with tongues from off the altar. And that altar is Christ,
who purges us with his own blood, purges us of our sins with his
own blood, who himself was roasted in the fiery wrath of God to
put away that sin. He suffered and bore the wrath
of God in the place of his people, to put away their debt, to pay
their debt that they owed by the price of his own blood being
shed for them. And it says that, and he laid
it upon my mouth." Christ himself was touched with the feeling
of our infirmities. He bore our sin in his own body. He lifted that burden off of
his people and said, "'Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine
iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.'" So that Christ
has carried away our sin far, far away where it can never be
found again. And God remembers it. no more. Christ did all that for his people.
That's the glorious gospel. That's the good news that we
have declared to us by the Lord Jesus Christ and the revelation
of him through this gospel. Peter said in 1 Peter 3.18, for
Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust,
that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh,
but quickened by the Spirit. So if we're to do this, if we're
to be saved, Christ must do this. He must bring this salvation
home to our hearts to deliver us and to make us to know that
we are delivered from the wrath of God that is coming upon the
wicked and the unjust of this world. He's delivering us from
that. He's accomplished it so that
we're not going to suffer with all the wicked. When Adam fell,
we were there in Adam. We sinned in Adam. We sinned
there in the garden. And our damnation is just. And yet Christ put that away
so that we are delivered from that just damnation. It says,
for as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by
the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. And that's
Christ who fully satisfied the righteous holiness of our God. It says in Psalm 85, verse 10,
mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have
kissed each other. Psalm 85, 10. God delivers us from our idols,
right? Isaiah died, we saw. God shows
us that Christ alone is the way to God. He withers this flesh
by removing the self-confidence and the self-righteousness that
we have in us by nature and that comes up continually in this
flesh. He's delivering us from that so that we're not consumed
by this flesh and the works of darkness that are all about us
and in this natural heart of ours. He delivers us from that.
and he purges our consciences from dead works so that we're
given faith in Christ. And then here, finally, we see
that when we're made alive in Christ, we hear his voice, right? His sheep hear the voice of Christ
and they follow him. And it says there in Isaiah 6,
8, also, right, also he saw Christ, also now I heard the voice of
the Lord, right? He hears the voice of Christ.
In John 12, 49 and 50, For I have not spoken of myself, Christ
said, but the Father which sent me, he gave me commandment, what
I should say and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment
is life everlasting. Whatsoever I speak, therefore,
even as the Father said unto me, so I speak. And that's how
we hear the words of Christ. That's how we hear his voice.
We hear the Father speaking and declaring to us, this is the
way wherein you are to go. You're not going to save yourself.
and there is coming destruction upon this earth, but this is
the salvation I've provided. You follow him, you follow Christ,
my shepherd provided for you, and he shall lead you home. He's
gonna bring all his sheep home. You just trust in him, look to
him, do whatever he tells you to do, and you're safe and secure
in Christ, because that's who he's provided to do this. And
he says, whom shall I send? And who will go for us? Who's
going to go and carry this message of substitution through the sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus Christ? Who's going to go and declare
this to the people that they might know the salvation that
God is providing in His Son? Who's going to declare this?
And Christ teaches His people, and being taught, they're made
willing to follow Him, and that's what Isaiah says. He says, here
am I, send me. So that he gladly picked up that
calling of the Lord to go and declare this same gospel message
to Christ. Really, when you look at Isaiah,
they call that the fifth gospel, because it's so sweet. It's so
full. It's just drenched with Christ
and all those sweet, beautiful views. I don't know if it's every
one, but I've seen in so many places just looking in Isaiah
that all those woes that he pronounced in the first five chapters, you
see him bringing out the gospel so sweetly later on. I'll try
and do that as we go through Isaiah, to show that he brought
that up in one of the first five chapters, and you see how the
Lord provides for his people so fully and abundantly and sweetly
in Christ, addressing all those woes that are coming to the wicked,
but to the righteous, it's always well. It's the Lord who brings
a man from nothing. He's dead in trespasses and sins.
That's every one of us by nature. But He gives them life and the
ability to see Christ and to hear Him. To see that He's everything
and we're nothing and to hear Him and to know that's who I
need. That's who I need to follow.
He is my life and my hope and my salvation. He's everything. And God's provided him for me,
to deliver me, to save me from my sins and my condemnation for
my own works and actions. And so I ask, has Christ worked
this in your heart? Has he revealed himself to you? to you. Do you trust Him and
believe Him? Look to Him. He's a sufficient
Savior. He saves to the uttermost. He's
the one provided of God to do this very thing. And when His
people have seen Him, they cry, woe is me, I'm undone. But they
also cry and say, thanks be to God for His salvation that He's
provided in His Son, Jesus Christ. So He makes His people to know
that in Christ they are forgiven. So I pray the Lord will We'll
lay this to your heart in that if you are struggling, if you
don't believe you're a sinner, I pray the Lord will convict
you and show you that you are a sinner and need Christ. And
that if you are struggling in your sin and you think, I don't
know if he's died for me, that you would hear the promises in
the scriptures that declare to us that all who see that they're
sinners and that they can't save themselves, but that Christ is
the one that God's provided and They trust Him, just believe
Him, because that's why God sent Him, to save His people from
their sins. So, all right, let's pray. Our gracious Lord, we confess,
Lord, that without You, without Your Spirit, we don't see, we
don't hear, we don't know anything as we ought to know it. But Lord,
You reveal Yourself to Your people, and we ask that You would reveal
Yourself to us. Let us see the Lord Jesus Christ,
high and lifted up, even as Isaiah saw him, Lord. Show us that we're
sinners, show us our need of Christ, and show us that Christ
is indeed sufficient and has put away our sins. Make us to
know him, that we would know and love the Savior that you've
provided. Not just to have a head knowledge,
but to truly know you in spirit and in truth, Lord. Bring this
home to our hearts. We pray this in Jesus' name,
our Lord and Savior. Amen.