May 26, 27, 2018 Isaiah 6:1-8 The Call of Isaiah 1 Isaiah 6:1-8(ESV) 1 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. 2 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. 3 And one called to another and said: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory! 4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said: Woe is me! For I am 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! 6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth and said: Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for. 8 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here am I! Send me. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ. Amen. God spoke directly through his prophets in the Old Testament. The Bible says in Hebrews 1:1(NIV) 1 In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways. God revealed his word to the prophets so the prophets could speak God s word to the people. In confirmation class we learn a prophet is a spokesperson for God. A prophet s oracle would often begin like this, Thus saith the Lord. Out of all the prophets in the Old Testament Isaiah is my personal favorite and Isaiah 6 is my favorite chapter. I so look forward to meeting Isaiah one day. I do believe Isaiah wrote the entire book of Isaiah, all 66 chapters. Every true prophet in the Old Testament was called by God to be a prophet and the prophet had no choice but to accept the call. Jeremiah tried to reject God s call to be a prophet. God told Jeremiah that God had set him apart even while he was in his mother s womb. Quoting Jeremiah 1:4-9(ESV) 4 Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 5 Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations. 6 Then I said, Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth. 7 But the Lord said to me, Do not say, I am only a youth ; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. 8 Do not be afraid of
May 26, 27, 2018 Isaiah 6:1-8 The Call of Isaiah 2 them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord. 9 Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me, Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. God s call on the true prophets was irrevocable and for life. I say this because there were false prophets never called by God speaking as if they were God s choice. The false prophets spoke for Satan, not God, such as the prophets of Baal for example. Today we no longer have prophets. The Word of God is available to all in written form. Yes, we do have teachers of the Word of God as are many of you. Yes there are teachers today who rightly and correctly teach the Bible and are gifted by God to do so. But there are also false teachers who distort the Bible and make a very good living doing so. Please be careful who you listen to as the Bible tells us in the end times many will be deceived by false teachers. The half-brother of Jesus writes this in his book called Jude. For certain individuals have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord (Jude 1:4). This particular church, St Mark, has been blessed these last several years with Biblical, theological, and historical scholars that have been called of God to teach full time in Christian colleges and seminaries. I believe God called them to St Mark and we all benefit from them. What a privilege to be part of a church with world renowned scholars who are our friends. I am in constant awe of God for bringing such persons our way. They are a constant source of encouragement and wisdom straight from God. If we could bring an Old Testament prophet into our church right now I do not think any of us would like the prophet even if it was Isaiah. The prophet would speak directly to us God s Word and tell us exactly where our lives are displeasing God. The prophet may say something like this. The smell of your sin has reached heaven. God is grown tired of your sin. God has grown weary of your rebellious, stiff necked ways. You have sin in your life and God s patience is wearing thin with you. Repent therefore of your many sins. God will forgive you and the
May 26, 27, 2018 Isaiah 6:1-8 The Call of Isaiah 3 blessings of His covenant with you will be yours and your children. If you refuse to repent you will bring judgment on yourself and your families and the curses spoken of in the covenant will not leave you. Choose this day to repent and live. Times of refreshment will come. But if you refuse to repent, watch out for days of woe are coming. The choice is yours. Thus saith the Lord God creator of heaven and earth. Most of the prophets were killed for speaking the truth. The people hated the message and the messenger. Isaiah himself was sawed in two tradition tells us. Speaking for God was dangerous indeed to one s very life. Jesus Himself was a prophet and more than a prophet. Every word Jesus spoke was the word of God for He was God in human form. We all know how his life ended, death by crucifixion. Isaiah came from noble stock and had access to the royal court of his day. He was a recognized statesmen. He spoke to the most powerful people of his time including such Kings as Uzziah, Jothan, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. Isaiah 6:1-8(ESV) 1 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. Isaiah was deeply saddened at the death of his king. He enters the temple and receives this vision from God and is called by God to be God s prophet. This experience can be called an ecstatic experience whereby the Presence and person of God is revealed to the about to be prophet. I personally believe Isaiah got caught up into the very presence of God possibly an out of body experience for the Bible tells us no person can see God and live. Not all will agree with me on my interpretation of this and I can live with that. The point is God gives to Isaiah this wonderful revelation of himself, the Lord God Almighty, King of King s and Lord of Lord s in this uplifting ecstatic experience. I believe Isaiah felt the Presence of God in a way that changed Isaiah for the rest of his life. When Isaiah entered heaven after he was killed I can almost hear him say, Been here, done that.
May 26, 27, 2018 Isaiah 6:1-8 The Call of Isaiah 4 In the very Throne Room of God Isaiah witnesses angels called seraphim and the work that they do. Now I am asking that you do your best to listen to what I am about to say. The seraphim speak outload the very character and maybe the most important attribute of God, Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts. Friends, this may be one of the most important statements about God in all the Bible. The Bible never says that God is love, love, love, or mercy, mercy, mercy, or wrath, wrath wrath. It is the only description of God given in triplicate. In the Hebrew language if they want to emphasize something they repeat it. For example we have terms like hungry, hungrier, and hungriest. The Hebrew language does not have superlatives as such. This is the point. The angels worshipping God continually do cry out the holiness of God. There is no one else like God. God is totally distinct. There is nothing that even compares to God. God is holy other so to speak. Isaiah takes a bath in the holiness of God. It means Isaiah knows with absolute certainly that God is pure, correct, and right in all that God does. God is trustworthy and every word God speaks is absolute truth. Isaiah is immersed in the Presence of God and knows that all of God s judgments, decisions, and way of running the universe are correct and is not to be questioned for it is impossible for God to do anything wrong. God is the Supreme Being. There is no one higher than God. Isaiah sees God for who God is and now has no choice but to speak for God until he can speak no more. Friends experiencing the Presence of God so powerfully is something indescribable. But as high as he was Isaiah sunk into a pit so low that words cannot fully express what he felt. 5 And I said: Woe is me! For I am undone; 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! Immersed in the holiness of God now Isaiah feels the weight of his own sinfulness and does he ever sink. I call it sinking into the pit. Isaiah utters God s judgment on himself. Woe is me! Woe is a prophetic announcement of doom. In Old Testament times a prophet would announce coming doom on a city, a nation, or an individual which often meant judgement and death was near
May 26, 27, 2018 Isaiah 6:1-8 The Call of Isaiah 5 unless the people or person repented. Woe is me. He is calling God s curses on himself, judgment and doom. Friends feeling the weight of one s own sinfulness can be the worst experience any person can have and feel. This is why I like the translation, I am undone instead of I am lost. To be undone is to come apart at the seams, to be unraveled. The psychological term is disintegration. It is to completely fall apart. Isaiah understood and felt how far he fell short from the glory of God, not measuring up to God in any way. To feel the weight of one s sinfulness is to feel unworthy to live. It is not only to feel like a complete failure but to feel like your very being is a mistake, a cosmic accident of some sort. You feel as if you have disappointed everyone and you no longer want to see anyone. You feel embarrassed by your own actions and consumed with your personal shame. You feel unworthy of being loved by anyone including God. Some that sink into such a pit see death as the only way out. This is why God s grace is so necessary and saves our lives. Cut to the quick, God s grace meets you in the pit and gives to you the grace to repent and receive newness of life. Where there is forgiveness of sins there is newness of life. Isaiah cries out to God that he is a man with unclean lips and is surrounded by people with unclean lips. Isaiah feels convicted of his most debilitating sin. He has a dirty mouth. Jesus says this about the mouth. Matthew 15:11(ESV) 11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person. The half-brother of Jesus, James writes this about the tongue. James 3:6-12(NLT) 6 And the tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness, corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire, for it is set on fire by hell itself. 7 People can tame all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and fish, 8 but no one can tame the tongue. It is restless and evil, full of deadly poison. 9 Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it curses those who have been made in the image of God. 10 And so blessing
May 26, 27, 2018 Isaiah 6:1-8 The Call of Isaiah 6 and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right! An angel takes a burning coal and touches the lip of Isaiah. This is an action of cleansing and forgiveness. Isaiah repents. God touches Isaiah through the angel with this live coal. The burning lip is purged. His sins are forgiven. His time in the pit is now over. God s holy power and grace has lifted Isaiah out of the pit. Isaiah is completely forgiven. The blood of Jesus shed on the cross is applied to his life for Jesus death covers the Old Testament believers as much as it covers us. His slate of sin is wiped clean. Isaiah knows his life is changed forever and He will speak for God. 7 And he touched my mouth and said: Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for. 8 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here am I! Send me. I close with these three points. 1. God s holiness means God puts up with no sin. God has never nor will ever put up with sin for God is holy. On the cross Jesus died for all of our sins. All of our sins were placed on Jesus, all of them for God cannot put up with any sin. Sin had to be punished, atoned for, and Jesus bore the punishment that we deserve. God does not put up with sin. Jesus bore it all and met all of God s holy requirements for us. 2. God s ways are always right for God is holy. God is incapable of doing anything wrong or making a mistake for God is holy. 3. If any of you fall into a pit so deep that you see no way out, please come and speak to me or a trusted Christian friend. God s grace will come to you and lift you up, but sometimes we need help from a friend or counselor for that to happen. Now you know the call of Isaiah. Amen and Amen.