Isaiah 6: 1- 8: Four messages. (the timing, ‘Lo’, ‘Woe’, ‘Go’)
Not one word in the Bible should be taken for granted,
so let’s begin by looking at the words “In the year that King Uzziah died”,
because these are significant
We can read about Azariah, who took the throne name, Uzziah,
when he became King of Judah,
in 2nd Chronicles chapter 26.
He was 16 when he became king in 792BC
and he reigned in Jerusalem for a phenomenal 52 years, dying in 740BC.
The first years of his reign were good years
in that he obeyed God, so God blessed him.
The writer of 2nd Chronicles says:
"He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord".
He feared the Lord and made war against the pagan Philistines.
He built defensive towers in Jerusalem
and fortified the walls of the city and dug cisterns to store water.
But the years of the latter half of his reign have been described as bad years
because he became too powerful and proud;
we would say ‘Too full of himself’.
There are strict rules in Leviticus about the upkeep of the Tabernacle
which represented God’s presence with the Israelites during the Exodus,
and these were reinforced when the Tabernacle, a portable Tent,
was replaced by the Temple in Jerusalem.
Only priests could go into the Holy Place,
and only the High Priest could go into the Most Holy Place,
and then, only one day in the year, the Day of Atonement,
but one day Uzziah went into the part of the Temple reserved for priests
and burned incense on the altar,
and because of this the Lord struck him with leprosy.
This brings to mind Galatians 6 verse 7:
‘God will not be mocked, whatsoever a man sows, so shall he reap!’
Uzziah was forced to live in a separate house for the rest of his life
and his son Jotham was the occupant of the palace and ruler of the kingdom,
and when Uzziah died
Jotham became king at the age of 25 and reigned for 16 years;
and he feared and served the Lord faithfully .
We number years since the birth of Jesus Christ (not BCE/CE).
and very few of us would date an event by saying it happened
in the 60th year of Queen Elizabeth,
but in ancient Israel and Judah
the calendar was calculated by the reign of kings,
so Isaiah was granted a vision of heaven in the year that King Uzziah died,
what we would call 740BC.
Why in that year?
It is not for us to question God's timing of events
but it might have been because people were too afraid to look to God
in the years immediately before 740BC.
They saw what God had done to Uzziah - striking him with leprosy -
because of his casualness or over-familiarity with the things of God,
and long before Paul would write his Letter to the Galatians,
they knew in their hearts that God is not mocked
for whatever we sow, so shall we reap.
So the very dating of the text tells us that we must never take God for granted.
The 1st message from the vision can be summed up in the word ‘LO’.
God is Almighty, holy and worthy of praise
but so many people are guilty of failing to give God the place and the glory,
the honour and the respect to which He is due.
By having his vision in the year that King Uzziah died,
Isaiah would have realised that God is a merciful God;
a God Who desires to bless rather than punish,
and that His anger at Uzziah and his Israelite subjects had ended.
The vision was for Isaiah,
but for him to pass on to the whole Jewish nation, and us,
because God wants everyone to know Him,
and appreciate His omnipotence and majesty.
We pray for revival;
that millions would worship Him in spirit and in truth,
LO! He is high and lifted up and His train fills the temple
and the angels cry ‘Holy, is the Lord’.
Wouldn’t it be great if as well as the angels
more mortals had that sense of ‘Lo’ and the presence of God,
even though there is no way any human can completely understand God.
He is higher than anything mere mortals can imagine,
but over the centuries He has revealed Himself to mankind
in many different ways.
In Exodus He spoke to Moses from a burning bush,
and He went before and behind the Israelites as a Pillar of Fire or Cloud,
and when Jesus was baptised, He came down in the form of a dove,
but in Isaiah's vision God revealed Himself as He wants us to picture Him,
as a mighty King sitting on a throne
in a heavenly Temple filled with smoke;
smoke from incense rather than log or coal fires.
Isaiah’s vision is called an "anthropomorphic" picture,
a way that we can understand,
by which God communicates His divine attributes,
because in reality God has no physical form like us.
He is spirit, so He does not need to sit down,
just as He does not get tired
and so had no physical need to rest on the 7th day
but insofar that we need some picture to hold in our minds about Him,
He gives us this one,
which, if nothing else, reminds us that God is mighty and holy,
and powerful and to be worshipped and glorified;
that is what ‘LO’ means to me.
This picture invites us, commands us, to look up with spiritual eyes,
eyes of faith, and be aware of the power of God, the Almighty ‘I AM’.
This was the first message that came to Isaiah,
before anything else happened or a word was said.
Let’s go on to the 2nd message, which can be summed up in the word ‘WOE’.
Isaiah was a "big man" of his times, a member of a priestly family.
He was an important and influential figure,
with access to the royal courts and the Temple and the leaders of Israel,
but when He saw the holiness and majesty of God, he realised,
he confessed, that he was a miserable sinner, "a man of unclean lips"
who lived among people with a similar "fallen" nature.
And unlike so many people who make excuses for their condition
or blame others,
Isaiah did the honest thing; he admitted his sinfulness and failings,
and as soon as he did so, God forgave him,
symbolised graphically by God sending an angel
with a live, red hot coal, taken from the altar of incense
to burn Isaiah’s sin and guilt away.
God wants to forgive our sins,
He sent His son – not to be slightly burned – but killed on a cross,
to give us the assurance that He will forgive the vilest and wickedest sinner,
but only IF and WHEN that sinner repents.
In 1st John chapter 1 verses 8 and 9
we have the famous words:
"If we claim to be without sin we deceive ourselves
and the truth is not in us, BUT, if we confess our sins,
He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins
and purify us from all unrighteousness".
This means that no one is so bad that God will not forgive them,
and no one is so good that they do not need forgiveness for something.
Isaiah was by no means an evil man, in the world’s sense anyway;
but his conscience was pricked by seeing the holiness of God
and, unlike Adam who blamed Eve,
and unlike Eve who blamed the serpent,
Isaiah did not blame anyone else for his sinfulness, he repented;
and as a result was immediately and totally forgiven.
What is the message for us?
That we are far from perfect
and frequently fail to follow the example and teachings of Jesus;
we do not love God with all of our heart, all of our soul,
all of our mind and all of our strength,
and we do not love our neighbour anywhere near as much
as we love ourselves,
and God knows, because no secret can be hid from Him.
So if we want to get to heaven; if we want a resurrection body,
if we want to know His peace and presence in our lives,
we must admit our sins and ask Him to forgive us,
which He will if we are sincere and ask in the Name of Jesus.
The 2nd message today is that if there is anyone here
who does not have the assurance that God has forgiven your sin;
then He probably hasn’t.
If the Holy Spirit prompts you to feel ‘WOE’, I am not right with God;
then go to Him now, in your heart and soul,
admit your sinfulness, stop making excuses,
and you will receive His cleansing, as Isaiah did.
Transformed from a sinner into a saint,
Isaiah was now in a position to serve God.
He might have tried to do so before having the vision of God's majesty
but could not have done so
without making a frank and full confession of his sins.
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism,
could not preach the Gospel of forgiveness of sins to the Red Indians,
until he had experienced it himself,
not just in his head, as an intellectual concept, but in his heart and soul.
We cannot witness to others about Jesus if we have not been saved by Him,
so the 3rd message from this passage in Isaiah, summed up in the word ‘GO’,
is that God wants us to be His disciples;
people who pass on the message, the Gospel, the good news,
of His presence and His glory, because we have seen it.
He wants us to be witnesses of the availability of forgiveness,
because we have received it.
How can we tell others that God will forgive them,
if we have not been forgiven ourselves?
So. in closing, the message of Isaiah 6 can be summed up in 3 words:
Lo, Woe, and Go.
Lo - we must look up to God and appreciate His holiness and majesty,
and never take His divinity and purity for granted.
Woe - we must look inside ourselves, and be honest, and repent;
admit our imperfections, believing God’s promise that if we do
we will receive His grace and forgiveness.
Then, and only then, can we Go - and serve Him, and witness for Him;
and should it be His will, see His kingdom extended and this church grow.
In Jesus' name and for His sake,
Amen.
