INTRODUCTION
There is a splendid moment in the 1993 movie Jurassic Park, when world-class paleontologist Allen Grant, who has devoted his life to the study of dinosaurs, suddenly comes face-to-face with real, live prehistoric creatures. He falls to the ground, dumbstruck. The reason is obvious. It is one thing to piece together an informed but nonetheless imperfect image of dinosaurs by picking through fossils and bones. But to encounter an actual dinosaur—well, there can be no comparison.
For many people, spirituality amounts to picking through the artifacts of faith that survive from long ago and far away. In that bygone era, humans saw God, heard His voice, and experienced his awesome, at times terrible, power. What might be the effect on you of a close encounter with God? A God who isn’t an illusion or a pipe dream, but who is real enough to see? How would it affect you to see God for who He really is?
Let’s travel back to Israel in 740 BC. Israel is doing well economically. Building projects are happening, business is booming, and people are prospering. Militarily, Israel is strong, but they are also at peace. It was a time of military peace and economic prosperity.
But spiritually, things aren’t so good. There’s a sense of apathy among the people, who have gotten caught up in the materialism that so easily accompanies prosperity. But the prophet Isaiah is working to counter his culture. Every Sabbath you’d see him in the temple, telling people what God has told him to say. And he’s been doing this going on 18 years now. But hearing God and seeing God are very different experiences, as Isaiah would discover this pivotal day in 740 BC.
Isaiah got up one morning, put on his robe, grabbed a bagel, and sat down at his kitchen table. He picked up his tablet of the Jerusalem Times. In big black letters, the headline screamed: “KING UZZIAH HAS DIED.” Isaiah’s mouth hung open in disbelief. He didn’t even know the king was sick, and here he’s dead! King Uzziah had ruled for 52 years over Israel (that’s all our U.S. Presidents back to Lyndon Johnson!) Uzziah was credited with all this economic and military success Israel was enjoying. But now, the king had died.
Isn’t that the way life is, though? Everything is going smoothly, life is good, and then the king up and dies. And suddenly our world is thrown into disarray—we go from calmness to chaos in just a blink:
• You just finished paying off your car, when suddenly …
• You’ve built that retirement savings account up, but suddenly …
• You've just gotten that job you'd been hoping for, then suddenly ...
• You wake up healthy one day, and the next morning, you’re in a hospital bed.
I think Isaiah wants us to understand that sometimes God allows the kings in our life to die, for a couple of reasons: First of all, to remind us that life is unpredictable. Even though we think we’re in control, really we have no control. The best we can do in life is just to manage to get along. Even with the best-laid plans, what can we really control? The second reason God allows the kings in our life to die is to help us see where we’ve put our trust. It’s easy to misplace our trust. We can put our trust in our bank accounts; our government, elected leaders and military; our skills and abilities; a relationship, or a family; our health. But the only security we have in life, the only constant when it comes to life, is the One who gives life, and that is God Himself.
Isaiah is stunned and discouraged. He goes to the temple as usual, but this day would be different. Priests prayed, but Isaiah didn’t hear them. People offered sacrifices, but Isaiah didn’t see them. Because on this day, in the year king Uzziah died, Isaiah "saw the Lord" (1).
WHEN WE SEE GOD FOR WHO HE IS, WE KNOW WHO IS TRULY KING (1-4)
[READ vv. 1-4]
Although a king named Uzziah has died, THE King is still enthroned. Isaiah declares, “I saw the Lord” (1), and while it is true that no one has ever seen God, sometimes He graciously condescends to appear in a vision for the instruction and comfort of His people.
The images and language used to describe God emphasize:
• His majesty (“seated on a throne”)
• His transcendence (“high and exalted,” “the train of His robe filled the temple,” “the temple was filled with smoke”)
• His holiness (“Holy, holy, holy”)
But notice that the Lord Himself is not actually described. I think it’s because Isaiah doesn’t have the words to articulate what he has seen. What the Lord is showing Isaiah is that He is the all-knowing, all-powerful, Almighty God with whom no one can compare!
The seraphim were calling to one another (3), perhaps standing on each side of the throne and responding to each other in antiphonal song. What on earth are these things? These are six-winged angelic beings created by God to serve in His presence. They are arrayed in the position of servants standing and waiting on a seated master, with their two wings folded downwards, two folded over their faces and two raised in flight.
All three verbs, “covered … covered” and “were flying” express continuous action. The scene is one of constant motion at the King’s divine bidding. They covered their eyes, not their ears, for their task was to receive what the Lord would say, not to look on Him. In covering their feet they disavowed any intention to choose their own path; their intent was to go only as the Lord commanded. Their song is continuous and its theme is the holiness of the Lord and His presence in all His glory in every place on the earth.
Ancient Hebrew used repetition to express superlatives or to indicate totality. Only here do we find threefold repetition. Not “mighty, mighty, mighty” or “loving, loving, loving,” but "holy, holy, holy." Holiness is supremely the truth about God, and His holiness is in itself so far beyond human thought that a “super-superlative” has to be invented to express it. God’s name is described by the adjective “holy” in the Old Testament more than all the other descriptors put together.
For more than five hundred years the city of Florence has marked Easter with a wild ceremony called (in English) "the explosion of the cart." Four massive white oxen, crowned with flowers, draw a multi-storied medieval cart into the Piazza del Duomo, preceded by drummers and trumpeters and flag bearers. There, in front of the cathedral doors, the cart is laden with fireworks while the Easter Sunday High Holy Mass begins. At one point a golden dove sails down a guide wire from the high altar of the church, flies out the front door, and collides with the cart, igniting a succession of fuses that set off round after round of spectacular fireworks and explosions.
This goes on for a good fifteen minutes, in a riot of color and light and noise, to the cheers of as many people as can squeeze into the square. And then there is one final series of explosions, the smoke drifts away, and the battered cart retreats over the cobblestones.
Christian writer Andy Crouch, who was watching this spectacular show while in Florence, commented:
Thousands were crammed in to the plaza with barely enough room to breathe—"like sardines," the man behind us said. This being Europe, the crowd was polyglot, stylish, and as secular as can be…. And this being 2015, a sea of smartphones, held aloft on selfie sticks, mediated the moment. A thousand screens bobbed over the heads in front of us. Go to YouTube or Flickr and see for yourself—all of them captured it. But I will tell you this: None of them captured it. Because it was louder, and brighter, and indeed more wonderful and more terrifying, which is to say more real, than anything a device can record or represent.
When God appeared in the Temple, the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke (smoke is a symbol of God’s presence) If you find worship boring, someone’s missing something! If we walk out of a worship service the same as when we walked in, I’m not sure we’ve truly worshipped, because true worship will shake your temple! You’ll know who is truly King.
Many years ago J.B. Phillips wrote an influential little book entitled "Your God is Too Small." The title says it all. Phillips argued that especially evangelicals with our correct stress on the reality of an intimate, personal relationship with God are in danger of creating a god who exists only to serve us. In the decades since that trend has gone even further from the one Phillips was arguing against. We have made God our “good buddy” in the sky, or a blind, half-senile grandfather who says, “Oh, that’s okay, honey,” when we mess up. How much of our worship is about us and the good feelings we get when we imagine how wonderful God thinks we are?
As a result, God’s grace has become horribly cheapened. How we need a vision of the blazing holiness of God. How we need to be undone under the awareness of a Being who is greater than the entire known universe. How we need to come face to face with a white-hot moral perfection in the presence of which sin cannot even exist. Will we be like Isaiah, or will we join the ranks of the false prophets?
What is Isaiah’s reaction to seeing this King, seeing God for who He is? [READ v.5]
Isaiah doesn’t say, “Wow! That’s neat!” He doesn’t say, “I should write a song about this.” Isaiah says, “Uh oh.” If you’ve seen God for who He is, your first response was “uh oh.” For if God is holy, our efforts to be like Him are undone; if God is holy, our trivial idols are revealed to be worth less than nothing; if God is holy, the ground has been yanked out from under our feet and we are left hanging in the air, completely vulnerable.
WHEN WE SEE GOD FOR WHO HE IS, WE SEE OURSELVES FOR WHO WE ARE (5-7)
And then three things happen …
1. We are convicted of our sin.
What's the natural response when you've seen God? You're convicted of sin. "Woe is me, for I am undone." The closer I walk with God, the more quickly I feel my sin and realize how much I need God.
My mom used to have a makeup mirror that my sister and I would play with when we were kids. It's like a huge mirror with bright lights all around it. Maybe some of you have one. When we stand away from the mirror, things look pretty good: clothes look in order; face looks clean; the hair, what's left of it, is combed.
But as you begin to move towards the mirror, things begin to show up in those bright lights. My shirt has a spot on it. I missed a spot shaving. A hair is out of place. The closer we get to the bright light, the more we realize our defects. It's the same way when we get close to God. When we get close to Him, we realize how much we need Him and how far we are from Him. We're convicted of our sin.
Isaiah was completely undone, ruined like Humpty Dumpty. So what does he do? He confesses! That's the second thing that happens:
2. We confess our sin
Isaiah knew he was ruined because he was “a man of unclean lips.” Having just heard the golden tones of the seraphim, Isaiah knows that his lips, having been used to praise himself, to put others down, and generally serve his own ends, could never be used in such holy service. And what’s more, he lived among an entire culture of sinful people with unclean lips. And he saw nothing even remotely unclean about the Lord.
This is a sign that you’ve seen God for who He is. Not only have you said, “uh oh,” but your heart grieves for those around you, people you know who haven’t seen God, and who are immersed in their unclean practices and unclean culture.
Angie was out of town last week and as the week progressed, there was something in our refrigerator that started to smell not quite right. She came home and opened the fridge, pulled out some chicken she’d been thawing and WHOA! Culprit found. I put it in Ziploc and took it out to the garbage can so it wouldn’t stink up our kitchen or our garage. If you don’t rid yourself of spoiled, rotten garbage, it will stink up everything. Stop hiding your garbage and take it out! Confess your sin, and be rid of it.
• James 5:16 “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”
• 1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
And having confessed, Isaiah discovers that this pure & holy God is able to purify & make holy [READ vv. 6-7]
3. We are cleansed of our sin
Isaiah underestimates the grace of God. God has not given him this vision in order to annihilate him, and He does not bring the fire in order to destroy the offending lips. The seraphim places the coal on Isaiah’s unclean lips. God touches Isaiah right at his point of need. But we cannot enjoy God’s cleansing without confession.
The NT equivalent of the coal from the altar is the Cross of Jesus Christ. Those who have been branded by the cross have been touched by the seraphim’s coal. People who come to the cross are people who have seen God. Some have an “uh oh” experience and run away; others run to the cross and cling to Christ, because they knew they were ruined, undone, in need of help. Christ’s cross has cleansed us!
And then and only then, having been convicted, having confessed, and having been cleansed of our sin …
WHEN WE SEE GOD FOR WHO HE IS, WE REALIZE WHAT WE MUST DO (8)
[READ v.8]
I referenced Humpty Dumpty earlier. Isaiah was not Humpty Dumpty. Humpty Dumpty’s fall was tragic because no one in the entire kingdom could be found who had the power to put him together again. Yet he was no more fragile than Isaiah—Isaiah was shattered into as many pieces, but God put him together again.
God was able to take a shattered man and send him into ministry.
God was able to take a sinful man and turn him into a prophet.
God took a man with a dirty mouth and made him His spokesman.
This is the moment, the turning point for Isaiah. From this point forward, he was an unstoppable force for God. His job wasn’t easy—his job was to go to a people whose hearts were hard, who didn’t want to see God or hear what He had to say to them. Yet day after day, year after year, Isaiah hung in with his calling, his mission. Why? Because a vision of God leads to mission for God.
As would be true of Israel, God brings this terrifying vision into the Isaiah’s life in order that, having seen the truth of God and of himself and having received the gracious provision of cleansing fire, he might be delivered into his true vocation/calling/mission.
Isaiah’s experience of God’s divine grace puts him in a position where he wants to be of service to the holy King of the universe. It’s not that we have to serve God, we just want to serve God, because of the salvation and healing He has freely given us.
BIG IDEA: A VISION OF GOD LEADS TO MISSION FOR GOD
Every day FedEx sends over four million packages to valued customers. FedEx’s delivery routes cover every U.S. street and service more than 220 countries. In order to send well, FedEx has over 170,000 employees, 675 aircrafts, 50,000 ground transportation vehicles, and 1,800 office locations. It’s a bit mysterious, but somehow FedEx has figured out a way for customers to ship packages within a one day turnaround. If FedEx knows anything—they know how to send well!
The church may not be in the package delivery business, but we are in the people delivery business. At least that’s what Jesus wanted his church to be about! However, sending people isn’t always the top priority in churches and, if we are being honest, sometimes the church hasn’t done a good job sending out laborers for the Lord’s harvest.
FedEx has a unique way of looking at the world. FedEx operates with a deep conviction that everyone in the world should have the ability to send and receive packages. God may not be all too concerned about packages being delivered on time, but the scriptures make it clear that God desires all people to receive the message of salvation and come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:3-4). God operates with a deep conviction that everyone should have the ability to send and receive eternal hope! What is God’s distribution plan? Simply put—God’s people! It’s us! It's you! It's me! People who are willing to respond to God’s call with “Here I am. Send me!” Across the hall or across the street or around the world, “Lord, send me.”
