Pastor Michael Talley | August 11th, 2024
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Isaiah 6
Good morning. If you have your Bible, please turn to Isa ch.6. Over the past few months, I have been listening to the book of Isaiah on repeat. The ESV audio Bible has about 7 different authors with the most delightful accents. Michael Reeves reads with a warm, pastoral British accent. Kristin Getty has a thick Irish lilt. Jackie Hill Perry has a punchy, poetic cadence. I have had Isaiah on repeat with these different voices all summer long & it has been delightful. But I discovered that when you listen to the same thing for 20-30 hours, you can begin to pick up subtle nuances. You notice when the reader’s voice gets tired, or when they just drank a cup of coffee. Well, I noticed something very interesting when most of these authors got to chapter 6. It was very subtle, but they all slowed down. They worked into a nice rhythm during the song of the vineyard in ch.5, but when King Uzziah died & Isaiah was transported to the throne of God, they read the story with a sense of gravity. And rightfully so. I think they realized – as most of us in this room do – that Isaiah 6 brings us into holy ground.
I am quite certain that you are familiar with this text. In fact, I would guess that you have heard this sermon preached more than any other passage in the Bible. Since I came on staff in 2012, I know for certain that it has been preached at least 3 times – and I was one of those! I used to preach this every weekend when I was a camp director at TVR. This was the first sermon I preached where I tangibly felt the power of God in both the study & delivery. I was about 26 years old, sitting in the middle of the woods, meditating on Isaiah’s vision of the temple shaking, and I’m not kidding: the earth shook. It was the only earthquake I have ever experienced. I ran to find my friends, and they confirmed that the ground shook. It was a tiny blip on the Richter Scale, but it got my attention.
You’re familiar with this text, & so am I. But I threw out all my old notes this week & went to the throne of God again, and it was so good. It doesn’t get old. My prayer is that you will experience the Lord in a fresh & powerful way this morning. But I also hope this text will take on a deeper significance as we study it in its context. We tend to view Isaiah 6 as an isolated window into heaven, & in many ways it is. We get to see what the worship looks like around the throne of God. But we must not forget that it is also a window into what God was doing in the life of his people in the 8th Century. It was a fascinating time in redemptive history, & God revealed to Isaiah a shocking message of how he planned to save his people.
Isaiah 6 can be divided into two sections. In the first 7 verses, Isaiah will see the Lord. And in the last 6 verses, he will hear the Lord. This is a very easy chapter to outline. But that’s about the only easy thing about it. The vision of God is holy & terrifying, and it puts Isaiah on the floor, fearing for his life. The message that God gives in the 2nd section is one of the hardest texts in the Bible, & it seems to contract what we know about God. But we need to go there, because behind all of this difficulty & confusion is a stunning grace.
Let’s look at the first portion: Isaiah’s vision of God.
[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.”
This vision occurred sometime in the year that king Uzziah died. I told you a little bit about Uzziah last week, so we won’t go into detail here. But he was generally a good king. He put together a nice 52-year run, and his creative innovations led to a lot of prosperity. But despite all of his glowing accomplishments, he left a horrible legacy. As we saw last week, the prosperity had not made the nation stronger. They had become fat & arrogant. They had a lot of money & political alliances, but they were a mess spiritually. Uzziah’s kingdom was not built to withstand the storm clouds that were gathering. God had become a small & insignificant part of their lives.
Isaiah’s ministry began where Uzziah’s ended.
Isaiah’s ministry began where Uzziah’s ended. The people might have been in a good place financially & even politically, but they were a mess spiritually. They were totally unprepared for the storm clouds that were blowing in. Difficult days were ahead, and only faith could sustain them. This is why, I believe, God began Isaiah’s ministry with a terrifying vision of himself. God’s sovereignty & power & holiness & glory needed to be indelibly fused into the prophet’s soul. This is the only thing that would sustain him for his impossible task.
The hem of his robe.
I legitimately thought about doing an entire sermon on this one phrase. We know that to see God is to die. And yet – on rare & gracious occasions – God will descend and make himself seeable. It’s a mystery of grace. This is a downward motion (God descending to Isaiah). And yet – even in this subdued & mysteriously viewable experience of God – the biblical authors cannot describe him. Moses describes the pavement. Isaiah talks about the hem of his robe. Words entirely fail until they can finally get a glimpse of something they know. That’s the floor! I think I saw the hem!
The biblical authors who were caught up have the hardest time bringing back a full report. Paul wouldn’t even speak of himself in the first person when he talked about being caught up into heaven. Be very suspicious of books that can tell you everything there is to tell. This experience of God must be experienced by you. You cannot allow your grandma to go there and expect her to tell you about the Lord.
Woe is me.
Here’s a reason that you probably don’t like to go into God’s presence often. You like your sin. Your sin will be exposed & targeted & judged with all the weight it deserves. You will not be able to minimize it, hide it, excuse it, downplay it, or brush it off. It’s there. It counts. You must settle up, and the wages are death.
(Jeremiah said that the people guarded their hearts. As a well keeps the water fresh, so they keep their sin fresh in their hearts. We preserve our sin because we love it. Going to the throne of God is dangerous.)
I wonder how often we cover sins in our life by simply saying that we’re sinners. But we never really focus on the specific areas of our life that are so offensive to God. Isaiah doesn’t do that. He says that he is a man of unclean lips. We can imagine that the quick witted prophet who was good with words could use that power for evil as well. His lips were targeted. There was no hiding.
As you go to the Lord’s presence, let him convict you of specific sins. He will. This is the role of the Holy Spirit in your life. (Otherwise you are wise in your own eyes).
I heard the Lord
Let’s make sure you know what God commands, because it’s totally unexpected. (It seems totally opposed to the first part… atonement, grace, forgiveness).
(Explain this section… make the heart fat, plaster the eyes). He wants them to go through a complete & total hardening. And this process will happen through the preaching of the word.
I know you probably don’t like this commission. I don’t want to convince anyone to like this. But before you begin to argue with him, or tell him a different way to do it, I might respectfully point you back to the first part of the vision. He shuts the mouth of the most eloquent prophet in the Bible. You can step over the speechless & stunned prophet on your way to make your case if you’d like. But I wouldn’t advise that.
And I would heal them…
They saw with their own eyes, which led to a repentance on their own terms, which meant that their healing was only partial.
False seeing leads to false repentance, and false repentance never saved anyone. Jeremiah said that the people were returning to the Lord, but not with their whole heart; they were returning to him in pretense. They were returning to him because they wanted to keep their sinful lives together. The audacity. Jeremiah also says that the false leaders had healed the wounds of his people, proclaiming peace when there was no peace.
Therefore Isaiah was sent to fatten up their hearts, clog up their ears, and plaster over their eyes. Because if they kept on seeing things with their own eyes, they would be caught up in this horrible cycle. False seeing leads to false repenting, which leads to false healing. They would never leave their way. They cherished their sin too much.
We live by faith & not by sight. Ahaz will fail the test next week because he refuses to live by faith. He insists on making political decisions according to what he sees. In Isaiah 11, the shoot of Jesse will not judge by what his eyes see or ears hear, but with righteousness.
(There is nothing underhanded about this. Isaiah was never accused of withholding the truth. In fact, in chapter 28, he preached so simply that he could have been instructing a kindergarten class. He was not sent to clog up & deform the message. The message was pure. He was sent to clog up their ears. They were not pure.).
Possible conclusion:
Isaiah came into the throne room with an unclean heart. He encountered a holy God, fell on his face, and walked out with a clean heart. But it was also a heavy heart.
Isaiah’s message produced a hardening. And it probably got him killed. Manasseh.
Jesus quoted it the last week of his life, and Paul quoted him in Rome in the last few verses of Acts. They also preached to hardhearted people who refused to listen to their message.