I Saw the Lord

Q: What does the Bible say about God's sovereignty?

The Bible teaches that God is sovereign over all creation and holds ultimate authority over everything. God's sovereignty is highlighted throughout Scripture, emphasizing His control over the universe, human history, and the lives of individuals. Passages like Isaiah 54:16-17 demonstrate that God orchestrates events for the good of His people, declaring that no weapon formed against His children shall prosper. His sovereignty is evident in His ability to manipulate history for His glory and the salvation of the elect, as seen in Romans 8:28. Therefore, believers can trust in His plans knowing that He reigns with absolute power.

Q: Why is understanding God's glory important for Christians?

Understanding God's glory helps Christians recognize His ultimate authority and the majesty of His character. God's glory is central to Christian belief, reflecting His holiness, majesty, and the fullness of His nature. When Isaiah saw the Lord's glory, it was a transformative experience that redirected his focus from earthly kings to the sovereign ruler of the universe. This encounter emphasizes the importance of revering God's nature and understanding that worldly glory fades, but God's glory endures eternally. Recognizing His glory encourages believers to worship Him in spirit and truth, as they comprehend the depths of His love and grace revealed through Christ's work.

Q: How do we know that Jesus Christ is Lord?

Jesus Christ is declared Lord through His resurrection and exaltation, fulfilling Scripture. The New Testament affirms Jesus Christ's lordship through His work and resurrection, which culminated in His exaltation to the right hand of God. Philippians 2:9-11 states that God exalted Him and gave Him a name above every name, indicating His sovereign authority. Furthermore, this lordship is rooted in Old Testament promises, such as Psalm 110:1, which proclaims the Messiah's position at God's right hand. Understanding Christ's lordship is foundational for faith, as it establishes His authority over all creation and His role as the Head of the Church, ensuring that all believers are under His lordship.

Q: What is the significance of Christ's completed work of salvation?

Christ's completed work of salvation assures believers of their everlasting standing before God. The doctrine of Christ's completed work is central to the Gospel, as it signifies the fulfillment of God's redemptive plan for humanity. Through His sacrificial death and resurrection, Christ atoned for the sins of His people once for all, as emphasized in Hebrews 10:12, where it states that after making one offering, He sat down at the right hand of God. This act of sitting indicates that His sacrificial work was complete and effective, providing eternal security for all who believe. Consequently, Christians can have confidence in their salvation, knowing that their standing before God is secure through Christ, which fosters assurance in their faith.

Q: Why is it important to see Christ on His throne?

Seeing Christ on His throne highlights His authority and completed work in the context of Christian faith. Understanding Christ's position on His throne is critical for Christians as it illustrates His sovereign reign and the fulfillment of His redemptive work. Unlike earthly kings who face decline, Christ's throne is exalted, representing His victory over sin and death. This is a powerful reminder that He is not a defeated savior but the reigning Lord, actively interceding for His people. The vision of Christ on the throne instills hope and assurance in believers that He governs all creation and their lives according to His perfect will. This perspective empowers faithful living, encouraging Christians to submit to His dominion and participate in His Kingdom work.

Now this part of Isaiah's vision was referred to by our Lord in
John chapter 12, verse 41, when He said, These things said Isaiah
when he saw My glory and spake of Him. This passage then is
about the glory of God. That's what it's about, as all
the Scriptures are. but this in particular speaks
of and points to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is about the Lord's
accomplishment on Calvary's tree, the salvation that He accomplished
by His substitutionary propitiatory work and His being glorified. In John chapter 17 and verse
4 and 5, our Lord in His high priestly prayer to the Father
said this, I have glorified thee on earth, I have finished the
work which thou gavest me to do, and now, O Father, glorify
thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with
thee before the world began. Now this is also in Isaiah chapter
one a picture of an elect sinner's response to seeing Christ enthroned in
His glory. Now, this first verse supplies
us with a great deal of information. First, we have a time frame set
here, but not as to specific time, but as to incidental chronology. And that means that Isaiah's
eyes were on something in this instant. Someone else was revealed
to him, and he saw someone else. And this tells us something about
the sinner being confronted with the Lord Jesus Christ. And make
no doubt about it. The fact is, when you meet Christ,
it is a confrontation. It's a confrontation of your
flesh against the truth. And Isaiah was not looking to
the Lord, as no man is naturally. He was looking to a king named
Uzziah, also called Azariah in the Chronicles and in the 2nd
Kings. Now some have said that Isaiah
was a kind of biographer of Uzziah, keeping notes on everything that
the great king did. It is evident that his eyes were
upon Uzziah when the Lord revealed himself to him. There is a possibility,
and I'm sure this was almost common among all those who looked
for the Messiah, that Uzziah himself was the Messiah. He was,
after all, a king in Judah, which was required. And he was greatly
helped by the Lord, so that his exaltation was great among the
people of God. And they fully understood that
God had made him great. And so it might have been that
Uzziah, at least in the back of his mind, was thinking, perhaps
this is him, the one that the Lord promised back in Genesis
3.15, and has promised all the way through his book. Though
Uzziah's end was a sad and a just end for his rebellion, his life
up to the point of his blatant rebellion was a life of heroism
and success. And that is clearly set forth
if you want to turn there in 2 Chronicles chapter 26. It says
in verse 1, Then all the people of Judah, took Uzziah who was
16 years old and made him king in the room of his father Amaziah. And he built Eloth and restored
it to Judah. After that the king slept with
his fathers. 16 years old was Uzziah when
he began to reign and he reigned 52 years in Jerusalem. His mother's
name was of Jerusalem, and he did that which was right in the
sight of the Lord according to all that his father Amaziah did.
And 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 he went forth and warred
against the Philistines, and broke down the wall of Gath,
and the wall of Jadna, and the wall of Ashdod, and built cities
about Ashdod and among the Philistines. And God helped him against the
Philistines, and against the Arabians, and dwelt in Gerbil
and Mehulam. And the Ammonites gave gifts
to Uzziah, and his name spread abroad even to the entering in
of Egypt, for he strengthened himself exceedingly. Moreover,
Uzziah built towers in Jerusalem at the corner gate and at the
valley gate, the turning of the wall, and fortified them. He
also built towers in the desert. and digged many wells, for he
had much cattle, both in the low country and in the plains,
husbandmen also, and vine dressers in the mountains, and carmel,
for he loved husbandry. Moreover, Uzziah had a host of
fighting men, that went out to war by bands, according to the
number of their count, by the hand of Jael, and the scribe
of Masaiah, the ruler under the hand of Hananiah, and one of
the king's captains. The whole number of his chiefs
of the fathers of the two mighty men of valor were 2,600, and
under their hand was an army 300,000 and 7,500 that made war
with mighty power to help the king against the enemy. And Uzziah
prepared for them throughout all the host shields and spears
and helmets and harbingers and bows and slings to cast stones. And he made in Jerusalem engines,
invented by cunning men, to be on the towers and upon the bulwarks,
to shoot arrows and great stones withal. And his name spread far
abroad, for he was marvelously helped till he was strong." Till
he was strong. That's the good part of Uzziah's
life. We know that it didn't end well
for him, for the word goes on, but When he was strong, his heart
was filled up to his destruction. For he transgressed against the
Lord his God, and 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 fourscore priests, 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 sons
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 God. Then Uzziah was wroth and had
a censer in his hand to burn incense. And while he was wroth
with the priests, the leprosy even rose up in his forehead
before the priests in the house of the Lord from beside the incense
altar. And Azariah the chief priest,
and all the priests looked upon him. Behold, he was leprous in
his forehead, and they thrust him out from thence. Yea, himself
hasted also to go out, because the Lord had smitten him. And
Uzziah the king was a leper unto the day of his death, and dwelt
in several houses, being a leper. For he was cut off from the house
of the Lord, and Jotham his son was over the king's house, judging
the people of the land. Now the rest of the Acts of Uzziah,
first and last, did Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz also
write. So Isaiah slept with his father,
and they buried him with his father in the field of the burrow
which belonged to the kings, where they said, He's a leper.
And Jotham his son reigned in his stead. There's a good reason
why Isaiah was writing about Uzziah because Uzziah was a great,
great king made so by the Lord until his pride got him into
all kinds of trouble. And it was when the king that
Isaiah honored died or was dying that the Lord appeared unto Isaiah. For it says in Isaiah chapter
6 and verse 1, in the year that king Uzziah died, I saw also
the Lord. I saw also the Lord. The glory of Uzziah as with all
earthly kings was temporal. It was a derived glory and a
derived honor and as it being under the old covenant and temporal
it was bound to fail. Don't look to anything in this
world and value it above what it is to be valued. Because everything
you see and everyone you see and I see will soon pass off
this world and will be no longer. Now some of us think that we
might write a piece or say a piece that will live after us, and
it may for a day or two, but soon it will all be gone. I know
people say the works of Shakespeare and so forth are eternal and
they have lasted a long time because they're so well written.
I like to read them myself, but they're not eternal. There will
be no memory of Shakespeare and glory in the new heaven and new
earth. Our only subject and the subject
that will occupy our minds for eternity will be the glory of
the Lord Jesus Christ. As all kings, as all flesh, as
all men, as all things we now see, they are glorious but for
a moment as the summer flower. It is lustrous, but its lustrous
bloom fades, withers, and falls away. Debbie and I were driving
to Silver the other day and we looked out and said, boy, everything
sure is brown. And it is brown. Boy, wasn't
a while ago, just a few months ago, it was bright and green
and lovely and blooming and full. What happened? Like all things,
it fades, withers, and goes away. The reason that is, is that the
Lord will countenance no rival to his glory, whose eye was a
glorious king, but he was just an earthly king. And Isaiah must
be confronted with the glory that has no rival, and you must
be confronted with that glory also. Barnard used to say, if
I'm going to introduce you to the true God, I'm going to have
to kill your God first. And that's the truth. That's
the truth. Salvation is not changing doctrine. It is changing gods, flat out. The Lord slew the king that Isaiah
was looking at, and then revealed himself to him. The Lord smote
Uzziah with leprosy, and he ended up hiding from house to house
because he was a leper. Nobody saw Uzziah anymore. He
was a leper. Why? Because there's another
king, the one true king that Isaiah must know. And so God
reveals himself to Isaiah. In the year that King Uzziah
died, I saw also the Lord. I saw also the Lord. The second
thing is this, Isaiah saw the Lord. The word also indicates
that the prophet's eyes were turned from Uzziah to the vision
of the Lord. And this is a vision, and that's
important to understand. Being a vision indicates that
Isaiah saw with different eyes than he was looking at Uzziah.
He saw with the eyes of faith, He saw with the seeing eye of
spirituality. You see, the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit, they are foolishness to them,
neither can he know them nor discern them, because they are
spiritually discerned. But the spiritual man discerneth
all things, yet he is discerned of no one. Our Lord said in 1
Corinthians 2.14 and 15, Our Lord said in 1 John 2.20, He
had given His people an unction, and they understand all things. They understand all things. The
thing to recognize is that Isaiah saw the Lord. God is Spirit. No man can see God at any time
and live, saith the Scripture, but he saw the Lord. He saw the
Lord. He saw the One who is invisible,
yet Isaiah saw Him. He saw the Lord. Who did he see? He sees who we see by faith. He saw the Lord Jesus Christ,
the embodiment of the triune Godhead, for in Him dwelleth
the fullness of the Godhead body. This is one of those pre-incarnate
Christophanies of the Lord Jesus Christ, when He showed Himself
as a man and who He was. And men could actually see him.
Isaiah, or rather Abraham, argued with him about how many people
it would take to save Sodom and Gomorrah. He said, is there 50?
And the Lord said, I'll save me. He said, well, if it's 20,
He said, I'll save me. What if it's 10? There wasn't 10. There
was one righteous man in Sodom. His name was Lot. And the Lord
took him out. And this speaks of the Trinity
here. He saw the Trinity in a body, as suggested with the words of
the six winged beast that we'll later look at, where they cried
holy three times. Holy, holy, holy. Speaking of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. He saw the Messiah. He saw who he was looking for.
Maybe he thought Uzziah was. Now he knows Uzziah wasn't. Because he's seen the Lord, the
Christ. And the title of the Lord here
is not Jehovah. It is Adonai. Adonai. And that suggests reverential
relationship. Adonai is the Lord. It's a term
that someone uses for someone they love and appreciate and
one who has a relationship with them. He saw Christ. Who is Christ? Christ is the image of the invisible
God. Go try to figure out that language.
I've thought about it so many times. How can you even make
that statement? How does that statement make
any sense whatsoever? Christ is the image of the invisible
God. How can you be an image of anything
invisible? It doesn't make sense. But, God's
thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are His ways our ways.
They are higher above our ways and thoughts as the heaven is
above the earth. Thirdly, Isaiah saw the Lord sitting upon the
throne, and this is very important. The phrase declares something.
It declares Christ's finished work of salvation. That's a term
that's used throughout Scripture. First, the Lord is sitting. He's
sitting. This refers to our Lord's office
as High Priest. In the economy of the Old Covenant,
the priests never sat down. There was no furniture in the
tabernacle of the temple that allowed for the rest or repose
of the priesthood. They worked shifts, and even
that they worked certain times of the year. They had two to
four week stints that they worked, and then they were off for a
while before their time came again. It was a tiring job because they
never sat down. They never rested. They had something
to do all the time. The priest work was never done
and that is because all the jobs and functions of the priesthood
really and truly accomplished nothing of eternal duration.
It was all temporal. The lamps were oiled and trimmed
24 hours a day. Morning and evening sacrifices
were made every day. The altar of incense was fed
24 hours a day. The Day of Atonement was repeated yearly because rather
than putting away sin, it only covered sin for one year. There
was no end to this. So you don't see anywhere in
the Old Testament one of the priests sitting. And yet here we have Jesus Christ
on the throne sitting. Sitting. The priest never sat
down, but Isaiah saw the Lord sitting. He's seeing the Lord
sitting. Why? He's sitting because he accomplished
what the priesthood and the sacrifice could only dream of. What the
priest and the sacrifice could only picture. He's sitting because
he finished the work of salvation as Paul clearly sets forth to
the Hebrew people when he wrote the epistle to the Hebrews in
Hebrews chapter 10. It's all about this very subject. In Hebrews chapter 10. He says this, for the law, having
a shadow of good things to come, but not the very image of the
things, can never, with those sacrifices which they continually
offered year by year, make the comers thereunto perfect. That
was the end design, the glorification of God in the perfection of God's
chosen. And none of those sacrifices
could accomplish that. He says, because if then, then
they would not have, would they not have ceased to be offered
if one person and all those sacrifices had actually been perfected?
Wouldn't then the offering stop? Be no need for them if they actually
met the goal. Because that the worshipers once
purged should have no more conscience of sin. But in those sacrifices,
in the sacrifices themselves, there is a remembrance again
made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the
blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin. Wherefore, when
he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice an offering
thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou prepared for me. Psalm
40. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast no pleasure.
What that means, you were not propitiated, you were not satisfied
in those things. Then I said, Lo, I come in the
volume of the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God.
Above, when he said, Sacrifice an offering, burnt offerings,
and offerings for sin, thou wouldst not, neither hast pleasure therein.
which are offered by the law, then said he, Lo, I come to do
thy will, O God. He taketh away the first and
establishes the second. By the which will we are sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once. Words for
all are in italics. We could use it as a colloquialism
that we use, sometimes we say once and for all, so it's done.
But these words, once is important and it fits more with the context
because it's in comparison to the many. The many that were
offered that never took us away sin, the one offering that did
take away sin. And look at verse 11, and every
priest standeth Daily ministering and offering off times the same
sacrifices which can never take away sin but opposition thought
go in the other direction now, but This man the Lord Jesus Christ
the one that said lo I come in the volume of the book It is
written to me to do that will O God, but this man after he offered
one sacrifice for sins Forever that's the only sacrifice he
sat down Verse 11, they stand. Verse 13 or verse 12, he sat
down on the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till
his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering, one, he
hath perfected what the others could not do, perfect somebody. For by one offering, he hath
perfected perfected forever, not temporarily, forever, them
that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is
a witness to us. For after that he said before
in Jeremiah 31, this is the covenant that I will make with them after
those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts
and in their minds will I write them. And their sins and iniquities
will I remember no more. Now where remission of these
is, there is no more offering for sin. Where sins are remitted,
Where the comers thereunto are made perfect, there is no more
offering for sin. No more offering for sin. Our
Lord sat down. He sits. Why? Because He's finished
salvation. And Isaiah saw this. Hundreds
and hundreds of years before, he saw the Lord in this character
as the Savior, the accomplishing Savior. Fourthly, Isaiah saw
that the Lord was sitting on a throne. He was sitting on a
throne. This is essential to understanding
the gospel. The Lord is not on the cross.
Though men seem to want to leave Him there, represented by the
number of folks who adorn their bodies, and their walls, and
their homes, and their churches, or on the end of blessing sticks,
and call them Christ, and say they're called crucifixes, to
understand the gospel is to understand not where Christ was. He was
on earth on the cross and in the grave, but where He is, He
is enthroned at rest because He has successfully saved His
people. He successfully saved His people. Philippians 2 verses 8 through
11 said, ìIn being found in the fashion of man, he humbled himself
and became obedient to the death, even the death of the cross.
Wherefore God also highly exalted him and has given him a name
above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should
bow, of things in heaven and things in earth and things under
the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ
is Lord to the glory of the Father.î This was promised In Psalm 100
it did when David said, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou at
my right hand, till I make all thine enemies thy footstool. And in Romans chapter 10 it says
in verse 14, For to this end Christ both died, rose, and revived,
that He might be the Lord of the living and the dead. What
does that mean? It is the essential message of the Gospel. It is
the beginning of all understanding of who God is and who Christ
is. That is absolute sovereignty
over all things. Lord. He is Lord. And that was
Paul's simple yet profound definition of the gospel. He says Christ
and Him crucified. Christ now enthroned and Him
crucified. What He did to get that throne. What He did to earn that place
in God's economy. And if you meet Christ, you will
not meet Him on the cross. The cross, the crucifixion of
Christ is a past event. You can't call up history and
make it new again. It's a past event. It's something
God did through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and it was
an accomplished thing, and it can't be called up. But I'll
tell you what, if you meet Christ, you're going to meet Him, and
you're going to meet Him where He is, and you're going to meet
Him on the throne. On the throne. This sets forth a plain and profound
truth that is universal that confronts every human being that
resides on this earth and every man and woman and child that
has ever lived or shall live or is now dead. I can say this
without any reservation whatsoever to everyone here tonight and
everyone who would dare to listen to someone say this, Jesus Christ
is your Lord. He has earned that right. He
sits at the right hand of the Father. He owns you, lock, stock,
and barrel. He has claims on every breath
you take and every thought you think. He is Lord over all. Now, I might tell you that God
loves you, but I might be lying to you because He don't love
everybody. He hates the workers of iniquity. Scripture says that. He hates them that do violence.
Scripture says that. Jacob have I loved, and Esau
have I hated. It says that, so I can tell you
God loves you. I may be telling you the truth,
I might not. I can tell you Christ died for you. I might be telling
you the truth, and I might not. I know He died for His sheep,
He died for His church, He died for His bride, He died for His
people. He died for those that God gave Him before the foundation
of the world. He saved their soul and accomplished salvation
for them. But He didn't die for everybody. Scripture never says
that He did. So I might be lying to you, but
here I'm going to tell you the truth. I'm going to tell you
something that's absolute truth. Jesus Christ is your Lord. And you are bound and obligated
to obey Him. And not to obey Him is to disobey
your Lord. He has commanded all men everywhere
to repent. He has commanded all men everywhere
to believe. And if you're in unbelief, you're
not merely setting forth a different view. You are in rebellion against
the Lord, your Lord. That's what Isaiah saw. I saw
him sitting on a throne. On a throne. Fifthly, Isaiah
saw our Lord on the throne high and lifted up. Unlike Uzziah
on his throne that he was forced to vacate in punishment for his
audacious rebellion, unlike the temporal throne of David that
no longer exists and the myriad of thrones that are dotted the
nations throughout history, this throne is not there. It is high
upon the earth. Where is the Lord's throne? It
is in the heavens, Scripture says. Heaven is my throne. The earth is my footstool. It's
high and it's lifted up. What does that mean? It means
it's exalted. This is an exalted throne. Now
what does that mean? It has no rivals and it suffers
no contradiction. It is the throne of glory, inimitable
glory. God's glory, the glory that belongs
to unqualified success and accomplishment, the glory that God is jealous
for and will not share with another. This throne and Him who occupies
is the subject and substance of the final revelation of the
Lord Jesus Christ. The two things that are continually
repeated in the revelation is the Lamb and the throne, and
the Lamb upon the throne, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ.
What does this mean? high and lifted up, exalted. It means He reigns in indisputable
sovereignty. I got an email from a fellow
today, and he said, I was fishing up in Cherokee a while back in
the Big Cove area, and I saw your sign out front with the
word Sovereign Grace on it. He said, Are you a Reformed Baptist? And I wrote him back and I says,
if you mean by reformed that I preach the sovereign grace
of God, the gospel of God's sovereign grace, that our salvation is
Christ only by grace alone, then I will accept that meaning of
reform. I said, if you want to apply
any other meaning of reformed, I do not embrace it, I do not
accept it. He wrote back, good to know.
And I told him, I said, well, the next time you come to Cherokee
to Weddah Hook, drop in and see us. Drop in and see us. God is
infinitely and absolutely sovereign. How do I know? He's on the throne.
He's sitting there. And it's high. And it's lifted
up. There on that throne, high and
lifted up, He reigns in indisputable sovereignty, thinking high thoughts,
executing high ways. Ways that the wisest men could
never think of or do. For he looks at this, and I often
think of this. When I look at something that
just confounds me and throws me for a loop. He said, my thoughts
are not your thoughts. And my ways are not your ways.
And that does not mean that you're close. That does not mean that
we somehow enter into that. That means that whatever we think,
God never thinks. And whatever God thinks, we never
think. Whatever His thoughts are, they're
never our thoughts. And whatever His ways are, they're
never our ways. He's God. He's on the throne. He's absolutely sovereign. Bow
thou down to Him who reigns indisputably on the throne of grace. On that throne, He manipulates
human history for the good of the people and for the glory
of His name's sake. Nothing moves or rise or wriggles upon this
planet, nor in the worlds that occupy the universe. There are
only tools in the Lord's workshop, clay in the potter's wheel, formed
and employed for the protection and salvation of His elect. Everything
works for that. Why? Because God sovereignly
controls it. Sovereignly controls it. Isaiah
chapter 54. Here's the station of God's people.
Here's the station of the universe. Here's what everything serves
and how it works. In Isaiah chapter 54. In verse 13 it says, And all
the children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall
be the peace of thy children. This is what our Lord quoted
in John chapter 6 verse 45. What He says, And it is written,
They shall all be taught of God. And everyone that has heard and
learned of the Father comes to Me. Who's going to be taught
of God? God's children. In verse 14, In righteousness
shalt thou be established. He's talking about you. And thou
shalt be far from oppression. where thou shalt not fear, and
from terror, for it shall not come near thee. Behold, they
shall surely gather together. There will be rebels everywhere,
but not by mean. Whosoever shall gather together
against thee shall fail for thy sake, or fall for thy sake. Now look at verse 16. Here's
everybody in the universe. Behold, I have created the smith,
the artisan, that bloweth the coals in the fire, that bringeth
forth an instrument for his work. And I have created the waster,
and I have created him to destroy him. I've done both of those. And
here's what you can count on, verse 617. No weapon formed against
thee shall prosper, And every tongue that shall rise against
the injudgment, thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants
of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord." I
saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and
lifted up. This throne and Him who sits
upon it is high and lifted up and exalted. And finally, Isaiah
saw the Lord's train fill the temple. That's what it says back
in our text. In the year the king Uzziah died, I saw also
the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and His train
filled the temple. We know what a train is. When
women get married, they're wearing pretty wedding dresses. They
have a train behind them, don't they? Not a choo-choo, a train
that they drag along and some of the little girls, they hold
it up so it won't get dirty. That's a train. But in the Old
Testament thinking, this usually has to do with the king or the
priest. It speaks of the flowing robe
or actually the border or hem of the robe of the king or priest
that hangs down to his feet. And this is metaphorical language
that suggests that all the benefits of the king's power, position,
rank, and accomplishment flows down and encompasses all them
that are in his realm. We are under that protective
robe. His children are. And the realm
here is described as his temple. And we know that this terminology
is employed in the New Testament in two ways. First, it speaks
of the person of Jesus Christ, of His physical body. Turn to John chapter 2, verse 18. Then answered the Jews and said,
What signs showest thou, seeing that thou doest these things?
Now what He's done, He's straightened some things out and they didn't
like it. And Jesus answered and said, �Destroy this temple, and
in three days I will raise it up.� Now they were standing right
there in front of the temple, and that temple had taken a long
time to build, and it was what they counted on. He said, �Destroy
this temple.� And they then said to the Jews, �Forty and six years
was this temple in building. Will thou rear it up in three
days?� Verse 21, �But he spake of the temple of his body.� You kill me, and I'll raise up
from the grave in three days. So the first representation of
this temple is his body. Secondly, this speaks of his
spiritual or mystical body. Turn to Colossians 1. In Colossians chapter 1, verse
18, speaking of Christ, beginning back in verse 15, He says in
verse 18, And He, Christ, is the head of the body, the church,
who is the beginning, the firstborn of the dead, that in all things
He might have preeminence. That's His spiritual body called
the church. And this body of elect, the believers,
is called the fullness of Him that filleth all, back in Ephesians
chapter 1. In verse 22, it says, "...and
put all things under his feet, and gave unto him to be head
over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness
of him that filleth all." I think that's one of the most profound
statements made in all of Scripture. When we think of ourselves and
the riches we are, and our failures, and our sinfulness, and our wicked
thoughts, and how we stumble and fall all the time, and never
do anything right, and never do anything that's not without
some evil present in us, we're called the fullness of Jesus
Christ. What does that mean? That if every one of you ain't
perfect, every one of you ain't saved, He ain't full. That's one of the strongest statements
I've ever read for the particular redemption of Jesus Christ. That
He saved everybody He came to save, because He's full. And
His church, whom He gave His life for, according to Ephesians
5, is the fullness of Him. The church is called the Temple
of the Lord. Look at Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 18. For through Him we both have
access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye are
no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the
saints, and of all the household of God, and are built upon the
foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself
being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the building fitly
framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord, in
whom ye also are built together for inhabitation of God through
the Spirit." The temple. And his train filled the temple. His train filled the temple. What Isaiah saw was that the
church had received all the benefits of the person and the work of
Jesus Christ and their great and mighty benefactor sits on
the throne high and lifted up, guaranteeing that whatever He
has purposed for them shall come to pass. For the Scripture says,
For in Him dwelleth the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in Him. In the year that King Uzziah
died, I saw also the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted
up, and His train filled the temple. Father, bless us to understand
and pray in Christ's name. Amen.

I Saw the Lord

What does the Bible say about God's sovereignty?

Why is understanding God's glory important for Christians?

How do we know that Jesus Christ is Lord?

What is the significance of Christ's completed work of salvation?

Why is it important to see Christ on His throne?

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I Saw the Lord

What does the Bible say about God's sovereignty?

Why is understanding God's glory important for Christians?

How do we know that Jesus Christ is Lord?

What is the significance of Christ's completed work of salvation?

Why is it important to see Christ on His throne?

Sermon Transcript

About Tim James

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