We're going to leave this right
here because the thing's broke. Just make sure you're on green. And then when you're afterwards,
if you don't cut it off, you'll leave the same. Okay. I'll turn it off then. Good morning. It is a great privilege to be with
you all again. It's one thing to be invited
once. It's a whole different matter to be invited to come
again. And I do appreciate it. Open
with me this morning to Isaiah chapter 6. Isaiah chapter 6. And before I read, let's go to
the Lord in prayer. Our gracious Heavenly Father,
Lord, what a privilege you have given us, together, together, to come into this place seeking you, seeking to worship
your Lord, our Savior, Christ Jesus. Lord, send your Spirit among
us. Anoint me as I preach. Father, give me power and liberty
from on high that I might proclaim Christ and Him crucified. And
Lord, anoint the ears, anoint my ears, anoint their ears, that
we might hear of Christ. Open our eyes that we might see
Him high and lifted up. Lord, bless us with Your presence,
we pray. Father, for those who are sick
in grave trials, tribulations, Lord, we pray for them. Comfort
them. Give them your comfort that only
comes from you, that comfort that goes beyond all understanding. Uphold them and cause them to
seek you, to lean upon you for all their needs. Not only for
those in trial, Lord, but for all of us. Cause us to come to
You, to flee to Christ. For it's in His precious name
we pray. Amen. Isaiah chapter 6. We'll read
the first eight verses. 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. Above it stood the seraphims. Each one had six wings. With
twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet,
and with twain 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 post of the door moved
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 seraphims
unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken
with the tongs from off the altar. And he laid it upon my mouth,
and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity
is taken away, and thy sin is purged. Also I heard the voice
of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, here am I, send
me." I've heard several messages from this text over the years,
and many of you probably have as well, and for a large part,
most of those messages go along the lines of the calling and
the message of the God-sent preacher. But that's not the direction
I want to take with it this morning. By God's grace, I hope we'll
see who it is that answered the call and said, here am I, send
me. What it is he came to accomplish
and why, how he accomplished it, and what he learned. Verse
8 begins with, I heard the voice of the Lord. Isaiah heard the
voice of the Lord. Isaiah recorded this event. But consider as you read that
all the scriptures from Genesis to Revelation point to and reveal
Christ Jesus. Isaiah did indeed hear the Lord
saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? And he replied,
Isaiah replied, here am I, send me. But before Isaiah, before
Isaiah ever came to this place, there was another man that heard
a similar question, and he gave the same reply. Isaiah's Lord,
our Lord and our Savior, He heard this before God spake the world
into existence, before time, before the beginning. God declared
the end from the beginning and he purposed for his own glory
to redeem a rebellious people. When he purposed to do so, to put it in a manner
in which our finite minds can understand it, mercy and truth, righteousness
and peace stood opposed to one another. Mercy and peace stood,
and they cried out for the For those rebellious sinners, for
those who are enmity to God, that they might be saved, that
they might have life restored. But truth and righteousness declared
that those same people were condemned, they were unrighteous, and they
must be punished. It was there that the Son of
God, the second person of the Godhead, stepped forth and declared,
Here am I. Send me. When He did so, He did so to
first honor God. Turn with me to Psalm 40. We'll
come back to Isaiah in a little bit. Psalm 40. When mercy and peace stood opposed
to truth and righteousness, then said I, the Son of said, Lo, I come. In the volume
of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will. O my God, yea, thy law is within
my heart." And then turn over to Psalm 85. Jesus Christ coming in the flesh,
obeying the law, fulfilling all of God's decrees, suffering the
just for the unjust, paying the debt of sin for God's elect people,
being raised again for their justification, He reconciled
those opposing attributes of God. Psalm 85 verse 10. mercy and truth are met together,
righteousness and peace have kissed." Christ Jesus said, here
am I, send me in the counsel of eternity so that he might
honor God and reconcile mercy and truth, righteousness and
peace. Then in the fullness of time
our Lord came in the flesh Why? Why must he come and dwell in
a body of flesh? The angel of the Lord speaking
to Joseph announced what Christ would accomplish. He shall save
his people from their sins. Our Lord gave two things that
he would accomplish over in Matthew. Turn to Matthew 5. Matthew 5, verse 17. Matthew
5, 17. Think not that I am come to destroy
the Law or the Prophets. I am not come to destroy, but
to fulfill. Our Lord came to fulfill the
Law and Prophets. And then flip over just a few
pages to Matthew 9, verse 13. Matthew 9.13 says, For I am not
come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Our Lord
came to fulfill the law and the prophets, and to call sinners
to repentance. Paul sums up what Christ came
to accomplish in his first letter to Timothy. Christ Jesus came
into the world to save sinners. Why must it be Christ, the Son
of God, that comes in the flesh to save sinners? Surely, a man
says, surely there must be some other way for him to come. There
must be some other way for peace, righteousness, mercy and truth,
God and sinners to be reconciled. Surely it can't take God coming
in the flesh. Just listen to the average religionist
standing on their platform, talking to their crowds of people. All
you need to do is love one another. Try the best you can. Accept
Jesus, let Him into your heart. After all, God's love, and He
would never do anything to harm you. The thing that is harming
you, it must be of the devil. He's powerful. It must be of
him. It can't be of God. Those teaching
such are teaching fallacies. They are lying. They make merchandise
for men's souls. And their lies are their refuge. Isaiah 59. Let's turn there.
Isaiah chapter 59. Isaiah 59, first two verses. Behold, the Lord's hand is not
shortened that it cannot save, neither his ear heavy that it
cannot hear. There is nothing lacking from
our God. He does as he will in the army
of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. Continuing on in
verse 2, "...but your iniquities have separated between you and
your God, and your sins have hid His face from you that He
will not hear." Do you understand what verse 2 says? Your iniquities,
your guilt, your depravity have separated between you and your
God. Your sins, your actions or your lack of actions have
hid God's face from you. Man, woman, boy, girl, everyone
in here, including myself, we are by nature cut off from God. We are guilty, we are sinful,
not a single one of us can approach unto Him in and of ourselves.
And to try to approach God in any way other than through His
Christ, through His Son, is foolishness. He will not allow it and He will
not hear us. Psalm 58, I'll just quote it.
Psalm 58 records and is echoed in Psalm 14. God looked down
from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any
that did understand, that did seek God. What was the result? Every one of them is gone back. They are all together become
filthy. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one. Among the children of Adam, not
one can approach unto God for himself, much less try to approach
unto God for himself and another. It can't be done. Not one of
us is able to keep the most minute portion of the law. Adam tried it. He was in a perfect
environment. He had one law to keep. He failed. And to offend in one point is
to be guilty of the whole. It was because none other can
do, none other would do, that the Son of God proclaimed, Here
am I, send me. He came in the likeness of sinful
flesh, but He came without our rebellious nature. He came harmless,
undefiled, and separate from sinners, that He might, as a
man, fulfill the Law and the Prophets. Christ Jesus came in the flesh
and He walked among sinners, keeping the law completely, because
He is the God-Man. He did, as a man, that which
God would accept. He was accepted of God before.
He didn't have to keep the law. He had kept it. He was accepted
of God before. By keeping the Law, by coming
in the flesh, walking on this earth, and keeping the Law, He
added nothing to His own standing. By keeping the Law, He added
nothing to my standing. Had He come and kept the Law, and done nothing else, I have no hope in that. It added
nothing to me. It's what happens in verses 5-7
that satisfies the justice of God and brings hope to guilty
sinners. Let's read that again. Isaiah
6 verse 5. 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 seraphims
unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken
with the tongs from off the altar. And he laid it upon my mouth,
and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity
is taken away, and thy sin purged. Verse 5 shows us Christ on the
cross bearing our sin. Verse 6, the burnt sacrifice,
Christ's soul, our sin offering. Verse 7, His death purged our
sin and our condemnation. Having fulfilled the law in the
flesh, our Lord was betrayed. He was forsaken of his friends.
He was delivered to the Jews and a mock trial was held. And
he was taken to the Romans that he might be tormented. crucified
and slain at their hands. He who knew no sin, who went
about doing good, who was declared free of any offense by the law
of God and men, was delivered to the soldiers. And he was mocked
He was smitten. He was scourged. They plucked
out his beard. They plaited a crown of thorns
and placed it upon his head, not gently. They beat him over the head with
a reed after that crown was thrust upon his head. And his visage,
his appearance, was so marred, disfigured, more than any man. And after they had done all they
could do to him with their hands and in their torment, they nailed
him to a cross and let him out to be crucified. Paul writing
to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 5.21 said, For He, God the Father,
hath made Him, Christ Jesus, God the Son, sin for us, the
us, the chosen, redeemed, elect sinners, Who, Jesus Christ, who
knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God
in Him, in our Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah 6, 5, When our Lord, who
knew no sin, was made sin for us, He 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. I want to get very personal right
now. The Gospel and salvation is personal. I can't believe for you. You
can't believe for me. I can't believe for my son. You
can't believe for your son. Have you been to Calvary? I don't care if you fly over
the ocean and go to Israel, that won't do you any good. Have you
been to Calvary by faith, in the Spirit? Have you seen Christ
suffering? While you're at Calvary, gazing
upon that man whose blood is pouring forth from Him, Who's He suffer for? Does He suffer for Himself? The Jews weren't in debt. The
Romans were consenting unto His death. Is He suffering and dying on
that cross? So that when you decide to accept
Jesus, when you decide to allow Him into your heart, He made
it possible on that cross for me to go to heaven. And when
I get there, I'll proclaim how I accepted Jesus into my heart. And because He suffered on that
cross, shed His blood, and because I did all these great works in
His name, I'm allowed to go to heaven? Is that what you see
when you go to Calvary? But when you go to Calvary and
behold that man, do you know in your heart of hearts that
as you gaze upon him, it's for you he suffers so? There was a time in history,
2,000 some years ago, that a man stood over him with a spike and
he nailed it through his hands. And he nailed it through his
feet. And just as certain as that man was there, I did it. I was that man. I drove those
nails into his precious body. It was me who treated him so
cruelly in Pilate's hall. It was my sin upon Him that He
cried out in Isaiah, Woe is me, for I am undone. And then in
Psalm 22, He cried out, My God, not My Father, My God, My God,
why hast Thou forsaken Me? Because O be sinned. is found on you. My sin cut him off from the Father. My sin caused him such anguish. Have you been to Calvary and
seen this? Until you do, until we are made
to see who we are, that we are sin, that we deserve nothing
more than the righteous wrath of God against us, we'll place
very little esteem upon the life, the suffering, and the blood
that was shed by our Lord on that cross. And God the Father
shall not have His Son's crucifixion taken lightly in His presence. If you've not come to Calvary,
if you've not seen your sins on Christ, pray that God will
take you there, reveal your sin to you, and while there is yet
time, call upon Him for mercy. It is necessary that Christ our
Lord should suffer for our sin. But just in suffering, there's
no atonement made. Just as He walked and kept the
law perfectly, it didn't do anything for me. His suffering on that
cross, just in and of itself, does nothing for me. There's
no atonement made for the law that I have broken. The penalty
of the broken law is death. and our salvation demands that
it must be paid. 3. How did Jesus Christ accomplish
the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets and the calling
of sinners to repentance? Then flew one of the seraphims
unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken
with the tongs from off the altar. And he laid it upon my mouth,
and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity
is taken away, and thy sin purged." Cast back in your mind all those
times throughout scriptures that you've read of the altar. What
is always offered upon the altar? It's an animal, but more than
that, the innocent is always upon the altar. That which has no guilt is offered
in the place of that which is deserving of the guilt, of the
death. Nowhere in Genesis 8, after the
ark came to the ground, he built an altar to offer a sacrifice upon. The
world was destroyed by flood because of man, not because of
the animals. But it was those animals, those
guiltless animals, that Noah slew and placed upon that altar in the stead of guilty man. All
of the altars we read of through the scriptures are typical of
that one true altar, our Lord Jesus Christ. Concealed within
the body of flesh seen upon that tree is the Spirit of God, the
soul of Christ. As the wrath and fury of God
fell upon Christ, it was His soul that was made an offering
for sin. My sin upon him fueled the fiery
wrath of God's justice. His holy soul was a sin offering. Without sin, there is no death. If that man on that cross had
been sinless, he could not die. Without sin, there is no wrath
of God. He would have had no wrath fall upon Him had sin not
been upon Him. While every other sacrifice ever
recorded was consumed by the flames in the altar, our Lord's
soul endured the wrath until every last sin of those that
He came to save was burned out. And no more wrath could fall. The wages of sin is death. Christ
had borne in His body the just punishment, and His soul was
made an offering for my sin. But He still must bear the penalty.
He again who knew no sin was made sin for me, and bearing
my sin as His own, He suffered the penalty. Christ Jesus, the
Lord of Glory, life Himself, laid down His life. He suffered
the punishment for my sins. He endured God's wrath for my
sins. And He took my condemnation away. The burning coal taken from the
altar here in Isaiah 6 purged the sin He had made His own.
And in His resurrection from the dead, he ever lives to make
intercession for his chosen people. Jesus Christ saved his elect
people by living perfectly in the sight of God and man, willingly
bearing their sin and shame, enduring God's wrath, laying
down his life, and rising again for our justification. Now, our
final point. What did Christ Jesus, the Son
of God, learn by coming in the flesh? I want to be careful and reverent
here. This is the second person of
the Godhead. This is God. He knows all things. He declared the end from the
beginning. He is God. This is Jesus of Nazareth,
the Son of Man. He's a man. Paul writes to Timothy
and says, without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. And His first evidence of the
greatness of the mystery is God was manifest in the flesh. Luke
2.52 says, And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in
favor with God and man. What did Jesus of Nazareth learn
by coming in the flesh? First, he learned what it is
to be of the earth. All flesh is grass. There wasn't
a conditional clause put in there that said, all flesh is grass
except the Messiah. All flesh is grass. He learned
what it was to be weary, to be hungry, to thirst, to have sorrows,
to be betrayed. Second, he learned by experience
of our infirmities. Hebrews 4.15 says, For we have
not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of
our infirmities, but was in all points tempted, like as we are,
yet without sin. And here in Isaiah 6.3, Jesus
of Nazareth learned of the holiness of God. Isaiah 6.3, And one cried
unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his
glory. When the Son of God was made
sin, he learned the holiness of God will not pardon. Hebrews 5.8 says, Though he was
a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.
God is holy, and to come to Him requires the very righteousness
of God. If you or I try to approach Him
in any way apart than through His Son, we will be met with
the same reception that Jesus of Nazareth met with while He
was found to be sinned, without mercy, finding only God's justice
and wrath. But if we flee to Christ, if
we fall upon Him and sue Him for mercy, He has met God's wrath
and He has answered for it. so that there is now no condemnation
to those for whom he suffered and died. There is one way to
come before God and to be accepted, robed in the righteousness of
Christ. Any other way and the thrice
holy God will cast us out. Our Lord Jesus Christ, seeing
those He loved, polluted and dead in trespasses and sins,
answered the call of whom shall I send and who will go forth? With Here Am I, send me. being fully aware that to do
so he would be made a curse and separated from his Father. He
would have sin laid upon him, not only have sin, but be made
sin. He would suffer many things and
die at the hands of sinful men. But He endured the cross, despising
the shame that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
He who for the love of His elect people bore the wrath of God
in His body without mercy to accomplish their salvation. Our
Lord is one with His people. What we experience and learn,
He experienced and learned. That God is holy and those who
come unto Him must be holy as well. Are you holy? Can you, without reservation,
declare that you are as holy as God right now? No. In this flesh? No. then you need
a refuge. Flee to Christ now, calm as you
are, with nothing to plead. Your righteousness is filthy
rags. You have nothing with which to
plead. You and I are sinners from the
start of our lives to the end of it, and we must have a refuge,
a safe place to hide from God's wrath. There is but one refuge,
our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb slain from the foundation of
the world. He alone is a safe haven. He
came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets, and to call sinners
to repentance. Come to Him. Plead for His mercy
before you perish. Amen. It's own orange. One more time. There we go.