I invite you to turn in the Bibles, your Bibles this morning to Isaiah chapter 6. Isaiah chapter 6, I haven't had the privilege so far to preach this particular text. As we are coming to the table this morning, I thought this would be helpful to see the kind of approach with which we should have when we come to the table of the Lord and that is seen in Isaiah's life in this particular passage but it comes against a backdrop of a lot of bad things that had happened in the nation of Israel that the Lord had to address and I think you'll see how important this is for us today as we consider how the Lord desires we come with believing hearts reverencing and realizing the great sacrifice that was made for us to be able to come this is isaiah 6 7 26 in your pew bibles if you're looking for that in the year that king uzziah died i saw the lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and the train of his robe filled the temple above him stood the seraphim each had six wings with two he covered his face and with two he covered his feet and with two he flew And one called to another and said, Holy, 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 who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said, woe is me, for I'm lost. for i am a man of unclean lips and i dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips for my eyes have seen the king the lord of hosts then one of the seraphim flew to me having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar and he touched my mouth and said behold this has touched your lips your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for and i heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send? And who will go for us? Then I said, here I am, send me. And he said, go and say to this people, keep on hearing, but do not understand. Keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy and blind their eyes, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn and be healed then i said how long oh lord and he said until cities lie waste without inhabitant and houses without people and the land is a desolate waste and the lord removes people far away and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land and though a tenth remain in it it will be burned again like a terebinth or an oak whose stump remains when it is felled the holy seed is its stump and there ends the reading of god's word one of my greatest concerns as a pastor in the ministry is that in the name of preaching the gospel and the claim of preaching the gospel the ministry becomes only about encouragement and affirmation comfort only about comfort and that because the weight of the law is never known that that ministry is confused that ministry is confused for a faithful gospel ministry while all the while the consequence of what it's produced in the life of the people is a disregard of sin and because of that disregard of sin in the life of the congregation there is then built into the people a disregard of God himself they no longer know him they no longer know him grace and forgiveness meaning just very little to the people because they have forgotten something that is extremely important about god something about god that is said all over the scriptures that has no longer been regarded or thought about and that is the holiness of god the holiness of god i think today we when we think of god we've come to the place in american christianity where we think it's just god's job to love us that's what he does and i have a message for you today no it's not no it's not you've been brainwashed Until we understand this, God is really just used in our lives. As if He, because we are generally good and nice people, and hey, we're the ones in church. They're not out there. Look at the multitudes not. He owes us something. He owes us a little something. We've made the sacrifice. We've done it. There really is only one major remedy to this thinking, which is way more prevalent than we're willing to admit, one major remedy to this thinking is a blazing vision of His glory. To think about Him and to see Him revealed in the Scriptures as high and lifted up in His engulfing holiness. I trust you will take this seriously today for He is inviting you to His table this morning and that privilege comes with a great cost that He made, a great cost that he showed us and has taught us about all over the scriptures, the very death of his beloved son. That's what's at stake. Without an understanding of holiness, salvation makes no sense or has no urgency. That's the one great thing that's lost today in proclamation is an urgency to what we're doing. Come now, come today. He is still a consuming fire all over the scripture. it's remarkable because before us, Isaiah, who was the prophet, this is the first time he gets it. He's born again, if you will. He finally sees. The kind of stuff he had been exposed to, he realized was a lie. And once he saw the way that he should, it changed everything i want to look at this with that in mind this morning that is what is presented here is a needed vision for israel with a needed response from israel and a needed answer for israel that's how you'll see this today unfold it's so important to see the needed vision the needed response and the needed answer that the lord provides you have to anytime considering isaiah chapter 6 you have to spend a little bit of time understanding of the context in which the vision comes to us the year is 740 bc you'll notice it says in verse 1 it gives us a time clue that in verse 1 it says in the year that king uzziah died i saw the lord high and lifted up why that contrast why that contrast the opening statement was a a real indicator as to what had happened in israel and and to basically summarize and this is historical realities here that are described all over the old testament to basically summarize what happened to the nation of israel is the worship of the people had completely the worship and the religion of the people had completely apostatized and because of that judgment was impending on the house of israel soon soon they would be carried away you know the story in 722 bc soon they would be carried away by a foreign nation the assyrians and they all stood back and said oh come on we're god's people this was the attitude. It was an awful time in Israel for God had been sending prophet after prophet after prophet who was told to go and say only what the Lord said and the people just weren't listening to it. The people weren't regarding it. Now the saddest thing started to happen in response to these prophets preaching was that Israel started seeking out its own kind of pastors that they wanted pastors who were not sent by god with a message that they could stomach jeremiah constantly was speaking of two competing messages in israel a competing message from the false prophets as opposed to those whom the lord had actually sent and he was constantly exposing this the whole book is is is really a a treatise if you will helping us understand how you know a true prophet from a false prophet and jeremiah would constantly say things like the prophets prophesy lies and they brought the priests rule by their own power and my people love it it wasn't just the pastor's fault the people wanted this what happened to god's people and that's anytime you you're reading the old testament you should ask that what happened they were filled in israel with false messages and jeremiah described it this way they come constantly saying peace peace peace peace when there is no peace paul talks about this phenomenon in the new testament church when he says that there are times coming when people will turn their ears from the truth and instead as he says in second corinthians 11 they're going to replace that with satan's ministers who come as angels of light who preach messages that are not inspired that are not given by the lord that's in the new testament church it's the same phenomenon what do you think the message was what do you think the message was everything was god loves you god will return you god will expand your territory god will never judge god has a plan for you they incessantly quoted jeremiah 29 11 i know the plans that i have for you says the lord plans to prosper you and not to harm you man what a great verse let's put it up everywhere oh wait we do that they never gave a message of repentance of sin so lo and behold the whole nation fell into idolatry israel was full of pastors israel was full of pastors on every corner and they had a message and jeremiah comes along in jeremiah 4 22 if you want to have actual proof of his assessment of things Here's Jeremiah 4.22. My people are foolish. They have not known me. They are silly. They are silly children. And they have no understanding. They're wise to do evil. But to do good, they have no knowledge. Jeremiah 4.22. the church became full of silliness silliness is the word jeremiah chose because of that what do you think happened to worship well the key here that's this is what isaiah is inviting us to consider because the key here is the time reference of in the year that king uzziah died i saw the lord high and lifted up this was the king of israel what happened to the king why did he die well second chronicles 26 tells us that uzziah in his early years did what was outwardly right in the eyes of the lord but as he aged and he got very powerful and of course with age you think you become all the more understanding and wise in the previous generations here's what happened but when verse 16 of second chronicles 26 when he was strong his heart was lifted up to his destruction for he transgressed against the lord his god by entering the temple of the lord to burn incense on the altar of incense the priests panic you can't do that and while he was angry with the priests leprosy broke out on his forehead before the priests in the house of the lord beside the incense altar so so here's what happened the king walked right into the worship of god with no fear with no regard for his holiness with no regard for uh his his commandments and no trembling to come before the lord in his splendid glory he did only what the priests were commanded to do thereby corrupting all the worship in israel and immediately god plagues him with leprosy so that a year later the king dies here it is unclean in front of israel the king is unclean that's the setting of this that's the setting of isaiah 6 and what isaiah becomes is a mini representation of israel at large of exactly what israel needed to see of exactly what it needed to happened to israel of exactly what the answer was for israel but i want everyone to look down at verse nine where after he says i'll go i'll speak i'll preach here's what happens and he said go say to this people keep on hearing but do not understand keep on seeing but do not perceive make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy and blind their eyes lest they see with their ears and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn and be healed did you hear that Jesus applied this to his ministry this is what we're doing with Israel he quotes this particular passage and as I thought about this I thought to myself that the effect of this was that all these years God had been saying something and Israel over a long period of time kept disregarding it and disregarding it so that by the time it got to their impending judgment it was too late and the effect of preaching the message that they should have listened to was instead it had the actual effect of hardening them of making them angry of turning their ears from it all the more that was the final effect of disregarding the word of the Lord all these years so now this becomes then the most meaningful message for the for the new covenant church to consider isn't it consider the ministry and the importance of listening to the word of the Lord because Isaiah becomes representative of exactly what Israel needed and we know this gospel is being taught all over the Bible the good news is being taught all over the scriptures but would they hear well Israel wouldn't Will we? Will we here? In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord on a throne high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. What is this? It's a vision of the Lord. In the year of the unclean king who died in front of our eyes, and we saw the king putrid and smelly and disgusting, and he died in that state, then i saw the lord the king the one we rejected and didn't want his king it's interesting here as we consider begin to consider the vision that's given to us as many have observed that what he is seeing here who he is seeing is the second person of the trinity which is really a christophany and you'll notice the different ways lord is all capitalized and and in some ways it's not. You'll notice there the name Adonai is used, and then the holy name is used, and back and forth. And clearly then, some have made the connection that this is essentially what John saw in Revelation 1 when he saw the blazing glory of Jesus. In the year a king Uzziah died, I saw the king. And the train of his robe filled the temple. He had never seen anything like this. A throne in heaven. And this train of the robe filled the temple. And the language here is that it poured out over and filled the whole space of the temple. Helping us to get an understanding in this vision of the magnitude and majesty and the glory of God. The point is to say, if the train of the robe filled the temple, if it was that magnificent, if just the train of His robe was that magnificent and incalculable, how magnificent is the one on the throne? How awesome is He? How radiant is He? How beautiful is He? How engulfing in fire is He? Something so, this vision so beautiful here that theologians have talked for years about the beatific vision when we no longer have sin, that the greatest gift you'll ever get is to be able for eternity to gaze on Jesus in that majesty. The true king of heaven and earth seated. And Isaiah then begins to describe, not him, you really couldn't do it. He begins to describe everything that's going on around the throne and everything that's happening in the temple. And he says, I looked up and I saw all this activity around the throne. I looked to the throne and above it were the seraphim. These were the beings that the Lord had made, remember, the angelic beings that were made to be around the throne and to do the will of the Lord, to go where he told them to go and to do what he told them to do. But the interesting thing is the details with the wings. If you were to compare this to the Ezekiel passage in chapter 1, there's two more wings that are given there, and those are the two wings we typically think of when we think of seraphim and cherubim. The ones that are outstretched out, remember, around the most holy place, the ones that were outstretched out over the ark. Ezekiel describes those. And he says, when I saw that moving chariot and I saw the wings up, All I saw what looked like were fire torches passing between the wings. In other words, whatever was inside those wings was on fire, engulfing fire. And those wings formed a firewall around the throne because if any of that glory escaped, it would utterly destroy anyone. Boys and girls, you've probably been looking at these pictures maybe of Hawaii and the volcanoes and the one that's about to blow and all of the magna and all this interesting stuff that's been shown to you on the news. It's really magnificent, isn't it? I saw one this week where it looked like a waterfall shooting out of the mountain, blazing red. They say when Mount St. Helens blew, it blew 26 megatons of thermal energy. I don't know what that is. but all I know is I wouldn't want to be near it. 1,600 times the size Mount St. Helens was when it blew of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. 1,600. The fallout could be felt in the ash 2,000 miles away. That is a drop in the bucket before the holiness of God. That is a drop in the bucket. He is on fire. The wings formed a wall so that the glory of God did not break out and consume. But Isaiah wants us to think about what the angels are doing. With two, they covered their faces. And with two, they covered their feet. They thought a lot about how to conduct themselves in the presence of God. That's the message. The angels themselves who are not sinful did not pry into the secret things of God. Deuteronomy 29. They knew their limits. You can't help but to think did the angels have to cover their feet too not being sinful as Moses did in front of the burning bush? As Isaiah is considering all this and seeing this vision of the majesty and sheer brilliance of God is separateness from all that's profane. All of a sudden, one of the voices begins to yell out in the heavens, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory. The superlatives are used here to make the point, the entire heavenly temple begins to shake. Everything begins to be filled with smoke, radiating smoke. Everything begins to shake. I mean, we had a 4.7 the other day at 4.50 in the morning, and I jumped up thinking someone was coming in the house ready to break in, right? That's what you think of in Escondido. But think about that. A 4.7. Everything's shaking. It's off the Richter scale. I'm not doing justice to this. You want to study it, Sproul? This was his life passage. He spent all kinds of time writing and talking about this. I don't know that anyone has done better after him. Why is this vision needed? That's the question. Does God ever have to come through the skies and tell you, I'm love, love, love? Does God ever have to announce in the skies, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good? Those are attributes we love. Those are attributes that are easy to accept. But he does this because this was the attribute that was wholesale abandoned by Israel time and time and time again to tell us, think about this. You just want to make a God of love, you have made your own God and he's not the God of Scripture. combine that with the pastors of israel always saying peace peace love love i've got plans for you to prosper you over and over and over god will never judge the the conclusion was they didn't know him they didn't know him see when this message was preached in israel you know what happened they rolled their eyes here we go again what is our attitude to it i think sometimes we chalk off our convictions in a few ways uh the the the one of the things we say is when we come to something like this is there go those cranky conservatives again i don't like cranky conservatives either that's ugly that's not what this is about or we say there's that reformed thing again well i am reformed because it's biblical and that this is a biblical truth of god but i'll do whatever i can to not have to deal with it this is why it's hard if i if you were to ask me why is it hard to be reformed in america today this this is why it's really hard to be reformed in america today because being biblical and reformed has everything to do with what your view and knowledge of god is and of you and that's going to then inform your worship which is where the battle lies doesn't it when the knowledge of god is gone and the knowledge of us is gone if you if you try to take that seriously today and convey that in an age of what jeremiah said in his day was silliness you're going to be written off but it doesn't change who god is in every time and in every place there has always been a battle in the church to take this seriously right from the first days the priesthood began nadab and abihu tried in worship to do something they shouldn't have done and they just disregarded the commands of the lord and the lord after he had sent his holy fire he let it break out of the wings uh remember what he said i told you moses said i told you when you come near me you better regard me as holy it was right there you better regard me as holy it better be in your thought process when you come to worship what i fear is that like israel i'm not sure and you answer me because i can look at it in myself i'm not sure most worshipers have a clue about this attribute today so we get in discussions about the music i i think all that would be solved if we started talking about the holiness of God what I fear is that we become hardened to this truth like Israel my fear is that we think this is the area we can just it's okay in Christian chapels listen I was a Christian school teacher some of the greatest irreverence of God happened in the Christian school chapel in worship why do we get a pass Christianity today we're told is all about a personal relationship with jesus amen have a personal relationship with jesus and in the process we've created a jesus who will do whatever we want one path one pastor said he jb phillips wrote the book years ago your god is way too small he said our god today is like a half senile grandpa in the sky who says it's okay when you mess up we just want a bunch of encouragement and affirmation from him for on our ways for our lives i know the plans for you says the lord plans to prosper you great so we barge into his worship we don't reflect on our sin we have little thought about the immense sacrifice that it took for you to be here today did you think about it the blood and death of his son oh but talking too much about blood is not encouraging is it? God is a teddy bear to people today, and His grace means nothing. It's just His job for people who have made the sacrifice to be here. One pastor said how we need to come face to face with a white, hot, moral perfection in the presence of which sin cannot even exist. Will boomers and Xers still sit for that? What generation ever has? So will we be like Isaiah or like one of the false prophets? That is a great question in light of this text. The issue is that if the people stay like this in Israel, there's no hope for them in the future. That's the issue. If the people stay like this, there's no hope for them in the future so then the question is how do the unclean become clean that's the question of the text how could this unclean king just died and you have this clean king here but you are just as much like the unclean king with leprosy and god desires to answer that for you today isaiah had an awful moment that day isaiah did not have a good day that day he came to the realization about himself that he had never taken seriously and all of a sudden he begins to fear and tremble and drop and duck and think god sees my life and now i see what i am and he's like that he can't tolerate my sin he doesn't tolerate my sin but without holiness who's going to see him and then the awful realization of what god's people were doing that they had to see what the angels are saying in heaven holy holy holy is the lord of hosts so magnificent so separate from all that sinful all you can do when you begin to realize it is bow which is what worship is by the way in his presence and reverence his name bless the lord oh my soul bless his holy name so much so that the very first petition of the lord's prayer is since i just went through it what hallowed be your name holy is be your name in our lives so definitive was this moment for isaiah he finally learned who god is he finally had a glimpse of it and the understanding of it and what did it immediately produce in him a view of His, a knowledge of who He is. Which are the very first two things that are going to happen if you're going to be saved. So verse 5, So I said, Woe is me, for I am undone. I am lost. This was a good son of Israel in the covenant, Been circumcised. Been a prophet. I'm lost. I'm lost. When John saw Jesus raised, the same thing happened. You can never say, this is the Old Testament. The same thing happened and he dropped and he said, I fell as dead. I didn't move. Isaiah did what he humanly could do to cover, but he's breaking up. and he begins to pronounce woes on himself. I'm a man of unclean lips. My life, my mouth, everything about me is foul. I'm putrid before this king, and I have nothing that I can do about it. His glory is, and he's not even unleashing it right now, and I'm breaking up. He was not saying, oh, how wonderful it is to see you, God. I want to touch your face. he's ducking and covering Moses tried that let me see Moses you're going in a rock he was trembling to the point of death this role makes a big point he lost all self esteem which is what we're trying to tell everyone to have today you start your day dear child you are worthy you are good you are you are you are you are to which you know who's the deal breaker to come along the the depressing guy to come along and say sorry no you're not he's come to the point of despair seeing who he is and then he starts thinking we've been listening to false prophets all these years we've been listening to the single message that god is love we've been listening to people say god will never judge there's no hell well we've never even heard those messages i got a heart problem you have to come here at some point you just do so so what's happened in verse six is that then the most beautiful moment of the whole vision is one of the seraphim flew to me and he had taken from the the altar a coal with tongs he couldn't even touch it it was so high and and he came and he right on my mouth imagery is he cauterized he dealt with my sin and the lord says i have a tone for it all whoa wow what a moment i say i asked for nothing He couldn't. In humility, the filled him, the recognition, what his testimony was, I have nothing. I am nothing. I deserve nothing. I deserve the judgment of God. But now he's testifying God made a way. And here's the gospel. God didn't have to do this. God did not have to do this. But he did. He made a covenant. Redemption and grace. That he would make atonement. Isaiah's on his face, flat and scared, and God comes and rescues him, and God covers him. And that's the question that then comes to us. What has that message done to us? Now you should know love. That's not no cheap message of grace and love. Here we see the immense sacrifice that was made for us to be able to be here today. God put His Son on a cross who shed His blood and suffered in body and soul the wrath of God to release you. And right then and there, Isaiah is justified once and for all. God giving the message on His lips because He was a prophet was a message to go out and proclaim this gospel. I will forgive. Have you come before the Lord ever thinking a lot about His holiness and fearing and trembling, knowing that your life is deserving of hell and that you can't blame anyone else and that you have not taken God very seriously in the course of your life? When that dread comes upon you, isn't this the man beating his chest in the back of the temple saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner, as opposed to the Pharisee who's there with a terrible attitude, rolling his eyes at all of this and pumping and raising up himself? That one went down to his house justified, the man beating his chest. It's not the purpose of God's existence to love you. He decided to do so in the good pleasure of his will. Let that sink in and it'll marvel you for the rest of your life. And when you come to know that love, when you come to see the immense sacrifice that was made, you do die to yourself and you're raised. a whole new man apart from this all your religion even though we're a nice christian community will only be setting up an imaginary god who exists to serve you and make you feel good that's christian hedonism it's not christianity and that's why the lord challenges us in this passage there's two responses to this today it's either a hardening one don't harden your hearts is in the day of the rebellion. Don't do it. Or the Lord promises, as He did here, a tenth will hear. There is a seed. The Lord will always have a remnant. Those who bow down and say, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts who know His holiness, His justice, and then marvel the rest of their lives at the immense sacrifice of Jesus and there love is found. This vision is needed today, isn't it? May we receive from Him today with humble hearts the forgiveness that we need that was just proclaimed to you in His Word and receive in the supper now the very body and blood of the Son of God who came to remedy this. Think of the altar and the angel going and with the tongs grabbing a coal, think of today Jesus, instead of doing that in the New Covenant ministry, handing you bread and wine. When you trust in Him and you believe in Jesus this way, this supper assures you of that love, encourages you in grace, and now makes you the rest of your life say holy holy holy is the lord of hosts and that holy god has brought me into his family that's a marvel let's pray to him heavenly father we are not worthy we've not taken this seriously and give passes to this attribute all the time. Let us not harden our heart. Let's see today as Isaiah saw, anticipating the heavenly day when we will see the Lord face to face, the Lord Jesus, and never be consumed. And that we can have that assurance today by the forgiveness of sins to the precious blood, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Thank you for your gospel. You didn't have to do this, but you decided to according to the good pleasure of your will. That's grace. And today we come with receiving hands, receiving all these blessings, thankful for the love you've shown us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.