”In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, and His robe filled the temple. Seraphim were standing above Him; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; His glory fills the whole earth. The foundations of the doorways shook at the sound of their voices, and the temple was filled with smoke. Then I said: Woe is me for I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips and live among a people of unclean lips, and because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts. Then one of the seraphim flew to me, and in his hand was a glowing coal that he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said: Now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed and your sin is atoned for. Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying: Who should I send? Who will go for Us? I said: Here I am. Send me. And He replied: Go! Say to these people: Keep listening, but do not understand; keep looking, but do not perceive. Dull the minds of these people; deafen their ears and blind their eyes; otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand with their minds, turn back, and be healed. Then I said, “Until when, Lord? ” And He replied: Until cities lie in ruins without inhabitants, houses are without people, the land is ruined and desolate, and the Lord drives the people far away, leaving great emptiness in the land. Though a tenth will remain in the land, it will be burned again. Like the terebinth or the oak that leaves a stump when felled, the holy seed is the stump.“ (Isaiah 6:1-13 HCSB)
Earth’s crammed with heaven. And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries, And daub their natural faces unaware More and more from the first similitude. – from Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Key Verse: ”And one called to another: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; His glory fills the whole earth.“ (Isaiah 6:3 HCSB)
One of the things that age brings with it is a deeper understanding of the things that often elude us when we are younger. We better understand the value of slowing down (walking with a cane does that to you) and actually seeing things (with the help of our glasses), hearing things (with a little help from our hearing aids) and enjoying their beauty.
As I get older, I tend to move a little slower and more cautiously. I now stop to consider whether I should climb up on a chair to reach something or if I should go get a step ladder or even ask my grandson to help or even do it for me. I was talking with someone recently and they mentioned how much they enjoyed roller skating. I told them that I used to enjoy roller skating and was pretty good at it but now it hurts too much when I fall. I no longer go skating and I stop to evaluate things I once took for granted or did without thinking about it.
I think we often do the same with God. When I was young, I often took my knowledge and understanding of God for granted. At least, I sure thought I knew more about Him and understood Him and His Word much better. Now, I think my understanding of God is nothing in comparison to who He actually is. I am beginning to realize that the more I learn about God the more I recognize how little I actually know and understand. Understanding God is a bit like a small child who sits down on the beach and undertakes the task of counting the grains of sand that surround him. You have high hopes and unrealistic expectations.
In this week’s focal passage, Isaiah is confronted by the overwhelming reality of God’s glory and how that will impact him. In the year that King Uzziah died (740 BC), Isaiah enters the temple in Jerusalem for worship and prayer as he normally would, but he exits that place a changed man. Notice, it doesn’t say that he encountered God when he initially entered the temple but rather that while he was in the temple he seems to suddenly be able to see the LORD. It is as though the veil is pulled back, for a moment, and Isaiah sees what is always true but is not usually seen, known or understood by man.
What Isaiah sees overwhelms him and it makes him feel as though he will be crushed by it. He doesn’t see an earthly king, for that king, Uzziah, is either dead or dying. Instead, he sees the King of Glory, the LORD of Hosts seated on His throne. The Lord is so glorious, so lofty and so utterly holy that just a small portion of the hem of His robe fills the entire earthly temple with His glory and presence. Isaiah describes seeing “flaming ones” or Seraphim serving God. Each of the heavenly fiery servants had six wings; with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. This action of covering their faces and feet with their wings and flying with the remaining two seems to emphasize their humility, service and obedience to the LORD.
Then Isaiah not only sees the flaming ones, but he also hears them as they call out to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Hosts; His glory fills the whole earth (or all of creation).” The repeated adjective “holy” is intended to multiply the meaning and focus the emphasis on God’s transcendent holiness or how different and separated He is from His creation. In many ways, we downplay this aspect of God as we emphasize His humanity, His nearness, and His presence among us. A.W. Tozer reminds us:
“We must not think of God as highest in an ascending order of beings, starting with the single cell and going on up from the fish to the bird, to the animal, to man, to angel, to cherub, to God. God is as high above an archangel as above a caterpillar for the gulf that separates the archangel from the caterpillar is but finite, while the gulf between God and the archangel is infinite.” (The Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer)
As I mentioned above, what Isaiah experiences causes him to feel overwhelmed. It is as though he is being crushed under the weight or pulled apart at the core of his being by God’s unimaginable power, majesty, glory and holiness. God is always more than we can imagine and certainly more than we ever bargained for. In our familiarity with the stories of Jesus, we have lost our sense of awe and wonder at who God is and why He even loves us enough to reveal Himself to us through His incarnation.
Perhaps it has never occurred to you, if you’ve ever read or heard this passage before, but the LORD of Hosts that Isaiah encounters in the temple is the same one who formed a whip out of cords and drove out money changers and overturned the tables of merchants in that same temple. The only God we are capable of seeing is the same one who became a man and dwelt among us. ”In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… The Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We observed His glory, the glory as the One and Only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.“ (John 1:1, 14 HCSB)
“It is not the task of Christianity to provide easy answers to every question, but to make us progressively aware of a mystery. God is not so much the object of our knowledge as the cause of our wonder!” (Emphasis mine) – Kallistos Ware
But notice what happens to Isaiah upon his encounter with God, “Woe is me for I am ruined…” You may have wondered why I said that Isaiah was overwhelmed and crushed by his encounter, it is because of this statement. He tells us so. The holiness of God is not something you encounter and walk away from unchanged. There are really only two possible responses to such an encounter with the holiness of God: humility or hardness.
The holiness of God is always a threat to people because it reveals our true nature, consumed by sin. That’s not a truth we like to hear. In fact, it goes against the grain of the perception our modern culture has of itself. Our world sees itself as basically good with just a few unintentional hiccups here and there. Sin? What sin? I’m a pretty good guy. Don’t believe me? Well, just look at so and so. I’m certainly better than they are.
Therein lies the danger of comparison with other people. We can measure up, at least in our own minds, to the average person we know. But how do you measure up when you come face to face with the holiness of God? The magnitude of God’s infinite holiness feels as though it will crush us beneath its purity. That’s why Isaiah cries out: “Woe is me, for I am ruined or I lie in ruins, crushed and destroyed by the holy presence of God and His glory.
Isaiah not only saw himself in light of God’s unparalleled holiness, he also saw others in that light: “I am a man of unclean lips and live among a people of unclean lips, because my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of Hosts.” But why his lips and not his heart? Because the Hebrew word translated as ruined in verse 5 comes from the root word for silent/silence.
But how does being destroyed or ruined come out of the idea of silence? Because you stand speechless or silent in the face of calamity or destruction. In essence, I am utterly speechless before the holiness of God because my sin deserves the full wrath of His anger. I deserve to be destroyed. I have no words of defense. My lips are unclean and unworthy to respond in praise to His holiness.
While we stand fearful and speechless before God’s wrath and holiness, His amazing grace moves into action. One of the seraphim retrieved a live, hot coal from the altar and flew to Isaiah. The seraphim touched Isaiah’s lips with the glowing hot coal and declared that his wickedness was removed and his sin atoned for. Is that surprising to you? When we finally recognize our sinfulness and stand completely silent, overwhelmed and humiliated before this holy God, He has already taken all of the steps necessary to bring us cleansing and atonement.
But God is far from being done with Isaiah. Just when we thought His grace was more than enough, God asks: “Who should I send? Who will go for Us?” While I can’t spend time on it, note the clear Old Testament reference to the triune Godhead. One God, three persons. God seeks someone to go and speak this message to His people. Now that Isaiah’s fear of God’s judgment and silence before His holiness have been addressed, God’s amazing grace elicits a loving, humble response from him, “Here I am. Send me!”
None of us are worthy of His grace and atoning sacrifice. In fact, it’s antithetical if you think about it. Those worthy of it don’t need it, and those who need it are unworthy of it.
But what God says next, ought to cause us to pause, ponder and pray. God tells Isaiah: “Go! Say to these people: keep listening, but do not understand; keep looking, but do not perceive. Dull the minds of these people; deafen their ears and blind their eyes; otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand with their minds, turn back, and be healed.”
While I could point out the chiastic nature of that verse (chiastic: that’s a real word, google it) it is more important to note the message within it. God wants to send Isaiah to proclaim His words, but the results are not what you would expect. God wants Isaiah to preach but the people will not respond. In fact, Isaiah’s preaching will have the opposite effect. Their minds will grow dull, their ears will be deaf and their eyes will be blind to God’s gracious call to repentance and faith.
You should go read and consider: John 12:37-43. Some people think: “If God would just do something – like one of those miracles they say Jesus did – then I’d believe. But without proof, I just can’t.” Notice this: ”Even though He [Jesus] had performed so many signs in their presence, they did not believe in Him.“ (John 12:37 HCSB) Why didn’t they believe? John says it is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy in these very verses we are studying.
You may be shocked to hear that some hearts will harden and refuse to surrender to God’s love and grace and that God expects it and prepares for it. Isaiah asks, “How long? Until when, Lord?” God tells Isaiah to preach until “cities lie in ruin” and everything and everyone is cut down. Nothing but destruction, desolation, and emptiness left in the land. These words are hard for us to hear. Listen to the last verse in our focal passage:
”Though a tenth will remain in the land, it will be burned again. Like the terebinth or the oak that leaves a stump when felled, the holy seed is the stump.“ (Isaiah 6:13 HCSB)
Generally speaking, fire has one of three effects on the things it encounters: destruction, hardening, or purification. The fire of God’s word and His wrath against sin have the same effects. It will either destroy us, harden us against God or purify us because we submit to it. When we are confronted by His holiness, confronted by the authority of His powerful word and His judgment upon our sin, then we will either harden our hearts against Him and be destroyed by His wrath or we will fall humbly repentant before Him and allow Him to purify, cleanse and redeem us.
We need to be shocked into realizing that we’re less Christian (or less good) than we think we are, far more worldly than we think we are, and totally unworthy of God. For that’s when God comes in and, through our humility and repentance, allows us to experience this cleansing through Christ that brings new life. Real life in Him. It is God’s grace alone that awakens us to Himself, quickens us or gives life to our spirit and qualifies us as voices of hope to this generation.
God’s grace doesn’t make us morally good people, better than we were and more worthy of His blessings. No, God’s grace makes dead people alive. And until we see that with our own eyes, understand it in our own hearts and embrace it for ourselves we will remain forever dead in our own self-righteousness. But when we are transformed by His grace, we will kneel before His Holiness and He touches our lips, cleanses our souls and His Holy Spirit births new life within us then… oh then, then we can sing with the Seraphim: Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD God, Almighty. The whole earth is filled with His glory!
Now, who can I tell?
Hilltop Baptist Church - Shawnee, OK 
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