Introduction
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Before we look at these verses, let me fill you in on some of the background to the book of Isaiah. The year that King Uzziah died (verse 1) is about 750 years before the birth of Christ. You may know that the nation of the Jews is split into two Kingdoms. The northern kingdom of Israel is in a terrible situation - they’ve abandoned God, and gone after worthless idols.
But Uzziah and Isaiah are in the southern kingdom, in Judah. They can see what is happening in the north, and although Judah is much better, it is still not good. Uzziah had been a good King, but for the last ten years of his reign, he was a king cut off from his people. Because of his pride, God had struck him down with leprosy, and he ended his life cut off from the house of the Lord (2 Chronicles 26). He had started well, but finished very badly. It happens to so many of God’s people, doesn’t it? We must not think that that we are immune. We must guard ourselves against finishing badly.
But just a few hundred miles north if Judah was the huge country of Assyria. It was a situation very much like Western Europe in the late 1930’s. Assyria was feared as a cruel, oppressive military machine, and it was poised to strike. Only Judah stood between Assyria and Egypt, a little mouse trapped between two fighting cats.
It was into this difficult situation that Isaiah found himself brought into God’s service. The signs for the future were not positive, but God had a plan, and God had a purpose for Isaiah. Life was going to be tough, but God was going to be at work.
One of the its main themes of the book is a call to the nation of Judah to trust in God. Too often they had put their trust in men, and too often they had been let down. That’s just what had happened here. Uzziah had been a bit of a stabilising influence in a very difficult time. The people had come to rely on him to protect them from the stronger countries around them. Now however, he is dead. Who is going to help them now?
When a godly leader dies at a difficult time, as it is easy to become hopeless and fear for the future. But our future is not in the hands of our leaders, but in the hand of Him who set the rulers in place! Maybe at this time Isaiah, and the rest of the country, had forgotten the sovereignty of God.
Well, in the short time that we have together this morning, I want to look at four very simple points that I believe will be helpful to us all here.
Firstly, we will look at Isaiah’s big vision of God. Secondly, we will consider his deep awareness of sin, thirdly we will see his profound experience of grace, and finally we will reflect on his overwhelming willingness to serve.
Firstly then,
Isaiah’s Big Vision of God
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The first thing that strikes you about the opening verses of Isaiah chapter six is that Isaiah’s experience was not a normal one! It’s not one we see repeated throughout the Bible. In fact, no-one else had the same experience in the whole of the Bible! This tells us that his vision is not one that all believers have, and not one that we should expect, or even desire. But, that is not to say that we cannot learn anything from it.
The first thing that we read is that Isaiah saw the Lord (verse 1)! Now, as you might know, the Bible is clear that no-one has seen God (John chapter 1). So, is this a contradiction? Of course not.
About a year ago some vandals broke into ten cars parked at the college. In fact there was only one car that wasn’t broken into, and that was mine! Having a battered old Landrover is a help sometimes! Anyway, imagine you were there when the thieves came and you heard the commotion. Probably you would have leapt out of bed, turned on the light, struggled with the curtains, and peered out of the window. By then the vandals realising they had been seen, run for it, but you just catch the glimpse of the back end of a trainer as its owner disappears round the corner of the building. You are a witness to the robbery - it was you who saw what was going on. Yet when the police arrive and ask for a description of the robbers, you will have to answer "I didn’t really see them". You may remember the shoe, you may remember the broken windows, you may remember the car-park, but you won’t be able to describe the robbers, even though they were the central figures in the incident.
That is how it was for Isaiah. God allowed him but a glimpse of His greatness, but Isaiah couldn’t even look. He remembers the throne. He remembers the train filling the temple. He remembers the seraphs and the song they were singing. He remembers the door posts shaking, and the temple filling with smoke, but he cannot describe God. Even the sinless seraphim had to cover their eyes from that awesome sight - how then could Isaiah look on Him and live?
You see what prevented Isaiah from looking upon God was not the smoke in the temple. The seraphs flying around didn’t distract him. What prevented Isaiah looking at God was His holiness.
But how holy is God? Is he quite holy? Very holy? Well, the seraphs sang to one another: ’Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty.’ In Hebrew, when you wish to use a superlative (that is you want to say it’s the best), you often repeat the noun. So, for example in 2 Kings 25:15, ’gold gold’ is translated in our modern versions as pure gold, the finest gold. To simply call God holy, is doing Him an injustice. Even ’Holy, holy’, that is pure holiness or most holiness cannot describe Him fully. The seraphs have to use what Alec Motyer calls a ’super-superlative’ - holy, holy, holy. We don’t find anything else ever being described in this way. God’s holiness exceeds all our expectations, and goes beyond all that we can imagine.
I wonder if you can remember the last time you caught a glimpse of God’s holiness? Can I? Yet God’s holiness is widely referred to in Scripture. He alone is holy (Revelation 15). Why is it that we do not seem to have the knowledge of His holiness that Isaiah and other Biblical characters seemed to have?
Surely the first answer has to be that deep down we don’t want to. If we know the Bible we will be aware of just what can happen when we do see even a little bit of God’s holiness. I wonder if the reason we are not willing for God to reveal Himself to us, is because we are scared of the consequences. Perhaps we have every right to be scared.
Let me give you some biblical illustrations about God’s holiness.
In Leviticus chapter 10, we read about two of Aaron’s sons: Nadab and Abihu. The Bible says that they offered unauthorised fire before God. Because of that, they were consumed by fire from God, yet He described His action as showing his holiness.
Do you remember the story of the ark, the holiest of the Jewish artefacts? The men of Beth-Shemesh, who after their encounter with the ark in 1 Samuel chapter six asked "Who then can stand in the presence of the Lord, this holy God?"
We may well ask a similar question - how can I see the holiness of God, knowing just how terrible and awesome such a thing is? Isaiah himself says in chapter eight: "The LORD Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, he is the one you are to fear, he is the one you are to dread" Should we dread God’s holiness, or should we desire to see it?
I believe in many ways we should desire it. But we should not seek out God’s holiness as an end unto itself.
I wonder if you can remember back to the time before you were courting your spouse. Perhaps some of will have to think back a little further than others, but imagine for the past sixth months you have had your eye on a very attractive and pleasant girl called Alice. She’s the sort of girl that makes you go weak at the knees every time she even glances at you. Apparently, she’s an avid stamp collector, but you that’s not why you like her. Then one day she invites you over to her home for a meal. Wow!
Now you’re not thinking: ’Great! I’ll get a chance to see that stamp collection of hers that everyone talks about’. Of course not - you’re looking forward to being with her - to spending time with her, to talking with her, and sharing with her. It may be the best stamp collection in the world, but you’re not interested in the stamps - you’re interested in her. It’s the same with God’s holiness. It truly is an amazing attribute of God - but it’s not an end to itself. We should want to be with God, to be in his presence, not simply to see his holiness like groupies wanting to catch a glimpse of their hero. If you got to know this girl of your dreams, you can be sure that soon you would get to see the stamp collection in all of it’s glory - and because it’s her stamp collection it will be all the more stunning. So it is with God - as we spend time with him, loving Him, and serving Him as we shall see later, so His holiness will slowly be revealed.
But if we are to come into God’s presence, to see His holiness, we must recognise what the Bible says - God’s holiness is closely linked with our own. I’m sure you all know the verse that Peter quotes from Leviticus: ’Be holy, for I am holy.’ Isaiah makes the link even stronger in chapter 29 verse 23: "When they see among them their children, the work of my hands, they will keep my name holy; they will acknowledge the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob, and will stand in awe of the God of Israel." Can you see that the text is saying? Acknowledging God’s holiness is firmly linked to keeping His name holy. If we would honour God’s name as he commands us to, we would be drawn closer into his presence and see more of his glory, his grace, and yes, his holiness, too.
God’s holiness is an awesome thing, but the reason it holds fear for us is because of our own sinfulness. That was certainly Isaiah’s experience - just as he had a big vision of God we see secondly that he had a
Deep awareness of sin
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As we can imagine Isaiah seeing this vision - not being able to look at God’s holiness, we see him slowly becoming more aware of what is going on. As his eyes slowly move away from the King on the throne, he sees the King’s robe. His eyes move still further from the throne, and he sees the seraphs, and from them to the door posts and lintels that are shaking with their voices. He then looks to the rest of the temple, and he sees it filled with smoke and then his eyes move yet further from God and settle on.… himself.
With a cry, "Woe to me!" he suddenly realises that amongst this magnificence, this holiness, there is something terribly out of place - his sin. He shouldn’t be there.
Now it didn’t enter Isaiah’s mind to simply skulk away - to sneak out of the back door before God notices him. I wonder whether that is our response when God’s holiness reveals our sin. Do we confess as Isaiah did, or do we try to run and hide? Do you see yourself as Isaiah did, or have you managed to persuade yourself that you’re not bad, really.
Instantly Isaiah recognises the implications of his sin. He didn’t have the benefit of Paul’s letter to the Romans, but he would have said a sorrowful ’Amen!’ to Paul’s declaration that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).
It may be that at this time Isaiah already had an ability in public speaking. We can see from the book that bears his name that his literary skills were unsurpassed in his day. He had a flair for language and form that even today few possess. Yet at that moment, as he was later to spell out to the nations in chapter 64, he saw that all his righteous acts were as filthy rags. I wonder whether you have confidence in your ability as a Christian? If you ever feel that what you are about to do will be successful because you’ve worked hard at it? Isaiah realised, and we too must realise, that his lips - his biggest asset - were of no value before God. But more than that. It was not just that they were of no value - they were actually unclean.
I once heard about a man who worked with children who lived in sewers - somewhere in South America I think. He used to go into the sewers himself to try and help the children who were living there. Imagine you had been one of those children - virtually blind through living in the darkness underground. Filthy through living in the waste from thousands of homes. Maybe this man offers you a chance to leave. You jump at the opportunity, but has he leads you out, as your eyes become accustomed to the light at the end of the tunnel, you start to see the state that you are in. You start to see the excrement on your clothes and in your hair. And no matter how hard you try to brush it off, the stains will not go away. And of course, the nearer you get to the light coming in from the entrance of the tunnel, the dirtier you appear. Naturally you would shy away from ever coming out of the sewer until you’re fit to be presented to the outside world. The problem of course, is that you cannot be made clean until you come out of the filth of the sewer, and by coming out it’s inevitable that you will be made aware of your own filth.
If we are to see God’s holiness, it is certain that we will recoil at our own sinfulness. We said earlier that perhaps we are unwilling to see God’s holiness. Maybe it would be truer to say that we are unwilling to see our own sinfulness. It is impossible to see one without the other.
Yet the central message to Isaiah’s testimony is not simply that his lips, his speech was filthy, but the miracle is that it was this very thing that God took and used for His glory and purpose. You see although Isaiah had a big vision of God, and therefore a deep awareness of sin, the story does not finish there. Isaiah isn’t ruined and undone. He is saved from ruin because thirdly we see that he has a
Profound Experience of Grace
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Despite the message of impending doom that appears through Isaiah’s writings, one thing shines through despite the gloom - the grace of God. No matter how dark the cloud, there is always the silver lining.
Whilst Isaiah is in despair as he realises the state he is in, God moves and cleanses the very sin that Isaiah thought had destroyed him. In this chapter we see God showing Himself to Isaiah, and we see God taking the initiative in cleansing Isaiah’s sin. Before Isaiah has even had a chance to ask for forgiveness, God has caused the seraph to apply the live coal, brought of course from the altar. Isaiah does not plead for mercy, nor promise great things if God is gracious. God does not heal Isaiah because of things that he has done, or promises to do. God comes to Isaiah because he chooses to, and because of the great things that God is going to do.
We can only imagine the wonder in Isaiah’s mind as the realisation of what had happened dawned. Isaiah’s sin offended God far more deeply than it offended Isaiah, and yet it was God who had taken the initiative in cleansing his sin! How does this square with His holiness that Isaiah had seen earlier? Doesn’t Isaiah’s sin matter to God? I wonder if Isaiah knew that Christ did not come into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world (John 3:17). God does not reveal Himself to destroy us, but to redeem us.
Look at verse seven - God has judged Isaiah, and He has found him wanting. God isn’t saying "Don’t worry about your sin" - he is saying instead "your sin is atoned for". God has passed judgement, but God has taken the punishment.
As a child, some of my favourite books were the chronicles of Narnia. You may remember that in ’The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe’, when the four children are being told of Aslan for the first time, Lucy asks ’Isn’t he safe?’. Mrs. Beaver replies - "Who said anything about safe! ’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good!". God isn’t safe - he’s not cuddly, and in many ways he’s not even friendly - but he’s good. Throughout this passage, the full mixture of God’s attributes are displayed, his goodness, his holiness, his grace, and of course his judgement.
Now let’s pause for a moment and look at the commission that God gave Isaiah in verses nine and ten. "Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving. Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes." This is effect that Isaiah’s preaching is going to have. I wonder what you would think of a man whose preaching caused that response in people.
But notice that God does not say that Isaiah’s preaching will have no effect. Perhaps that would be our judgement on his ministry. Yet true gospel preaching always has an effect on its hearers. You either warm to God’s Word, or you harden yourself to it. There is no middle ground - you cannot be indifferent. Gospel preaching demands a response. There is a lesson for us here.
I wonder whether we have ever read Scripture or listened to a sermon and felt no response. In the case of a sermon, sometimes its easy to blame the preacher - and sometimes rightly so - but often as the listener, we have to share some of the blame. But this lesson from Isaiah tells us that we must respond - either positively or negatively. Maybe you come to this church week after week, but never respond to the messages you hear. Maybe you read your Bible every day, but never learn anything new. Maybe you pray every night, but never allow yourself to change.
But perhaps there’s something even more frightening than feeling no response. Perhaps sometimes you have felt God challenging you and you’ve deliberately hardened your heart. There may be some of you here who are not Christians. Perhaps some of you have never felt this deep awareness of sin, or profound experience of grace. Perhaps you’ve never met with Jesus Christ. You see Jesus gave his life for us. He lived a sinless life, and then he died in the place of sinners. He has laid the way open for us all. If you want to see the goodness and grace of God displayed in all it’s glory, there’s no better place to go than the cross of Jesus Christ. That was the place where God really showed His holiness. Let’s think about that for a moment - how did God show his holiness at the cross?
To answer that, we need to ask why Christ died. He died because of our sin. Because of God’s holiness - he could not look upon our sin. If we, as sinners, were even to come to him that sin must be taken away, and the penalty paid - atoned for to use Isaiah’s language. Yet the wonder of the Christian gospel is that Jesus Christ took my sin on himself at Calvary. Let me ask you, did he take yours?
Yet there’s another way we can see this. Do you remember those dreadful words that Christ called out from the cross, ’My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’. Jesus prays a lot to God the father in the gospels. Every time, without exception He addresses Him as ’Father’. Yet on the cross, with the weight of my sin of His back, Jesus can only cry out ’My God’. My sin has cut off the Father from the Son. In His Holiness the Father could not look upon the Son. Let me ask you. Is God your Father, or just your god? If He’s not your Father, perhaps your sin needs to be dealt with.
How do you respond when you hear these truths? Is your heart warmed, or is it hardened? Perhaps even today you have felt God moving. If that is the case then I urge you not to resist him. If you reject God again this morning, it may be your last chance - you may never have another opportunity like this again.
Sometimes preachers are fond of asking ’Give in to God’s grace now - you may get run over by a bus tonight’. Well that may be true, but there’s another warning to be heeded. If you harden your heart tonight, in may never again become soft. You may live for another fifty years, but never feel warmed in your heart like you do tonight. Are you prepared to take that risk? Do you still want to put off the decision until tomorrow? Will you still feel like this tomorrow?
If you respond to Christ this morning, or responded twenty years ago, there is nothing more that is needed to save you. There’s a hymn that says in heaven we’ll be ’more happy, but not more secure.’ Once you’re saved from your sin, you’re saved! But even though there is nothing more we have to do, there should be something that we want to do.
We see that following Isaiah’s big vision of God, his deep awareness of sin, and his profound experience of grace, what follows naturally on, fourthly, is
An Overwhelming Willingness to Serve
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Servanthood is a key theme in the book of Isaiah, and it is clear from these verses that Isaiah was called to be a servant of God. It is at this point we realise that Isaiah’s big vision of God, his deep awareness of sin, and his profound experience of grace were not an end unto themselves. We see that he experienced this to allow God to cleanse him and make him a light to the nations for God’s own glory. We are created in Christ Jesus to do good works (Ephesians 2:10). That is the purpose behind God’s work in our lives.
Sometimes it’s easy to become complacent when we know that we are saved and that God is gracious. It’s easy to forget that God has actually given us all a job to do. We may not have had a vision like Isaiah had, but all of us here this morning have seen a little bit of God’s holiness and our own sinfulness, and we have all experienced His grace. So are we willing to serve like Isaiah was?
Scripture does not give us the impression that Isaiah thought about it for a while and then decided he would give it a go. Instead the impression is that for Isaiah there really was no option. Having believed with certainty that he was about to be crushed into non-existence by the very holiness of God and having received an unsought for, unmerited, complete cleansing, what else would he rather do than hurl himself into God’s service?
Is that our response? Are we willing to serve God no matter how hard the task? Have we said to God ’I am willing to go anywhere and do anything for You’? We cannot pray such things on our own, but with His help we can.
If God called you to talk about your faith to a neighbour who you knew would ridicule you, would you go? If he called you to stand firm in the office, on the factory floor, in the home, or in college, would you stand against the tide for him? If he called you to lay down your life, would you do it?
For some of us here, we may not be able to answer ’Yes’ to all those questions. Yet the Bible clearly teaches us that just as Isaiah was willing, we too should be willing to serve. Notice the order in which things occur in this chapter - in particular look at verses eight and nine. God asked for a volunteer, before he told of the task. He didn’t ask who was willing to take a message to the people of Judah. He didn’t ask who was willing to be ordained as a prophet. He didn’t ask for a preacher, or a writer, or a prophet. He asked for a volunteer.
And of course Isaiah’s response was not: ’What do you want?’, as ours often is. Instead he simply said ’Here I am’. If you remember nothing else from this sermon, I want you to reflect upon this question. When God asks us to serve Him, do we ask ’How’, or do we say ’Yes’? The biblical pattern is that we should say ’Yes’ first, and leave the ’How’ until later. I challenge us all today - myself included - are we willing to go to God, and say simply "Here I am"?
Before you answer that question, let me just remind you of one thing. In Scripture there are five men who said ’Here I am’ to God. One was Isaiah. Another was Abraham (Genesis 22). When he offered himself to God, God asked him to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Jacob is another example (Genesis 31 & 46). When he offered himself to God, he first had leave his home at once (and it happened twice!). Moses too offered himself to God in this way (Exodus 3), and was given the ’impossible task’ (as he saw it) of going to Pharaoh and leading the people out of slavery. Finally Samuel (1 Samuel 3) answered "Here I am" he was ordained as a prophet and leader of the people and was rejected by them.
There’s certainly a pattern that unfolds here. Firstly: God takes the initiative - it is He who comes to Isaiah, not Isaiah who comes to Him. Secondly: God does not say what he requires until the man of God agrees to do whatever is needed. Thirdly: The mission when it is given is an ’impossible’ one in many ways. But fourthly: The man who accepts the mission is mightily used by God.
Let me ask you again, if God challenges you - through the reading or preaching of His word - if He challenges you to serve Him, will you simply say ’Here I am’?
Comfort and happiness is what we want, isn’t it? In many ways, it’s easy for us to say to God that we are prepared to go anywhere. It may be easy for you to say that you’ll do anything. But it’s very hard for any of us to say that we’ll be anything for God.
To ask another question: Are you prepared to be insulted, to be ridiculed, by the world and the church? Are you prepared to leave the comfort of the religious cocoon we have built around ourselves? Are you prepared to be wheelchair bound, as Joni was? Are you prepared to be homeless, as Jacob was? To be childless, as Abraham was? To be hated, as Moses was? To be rejected as Samuel was? And perhaps most difficult of all, to be unsuccessful, as Isaiah was?
We all want our encouragements, we all want people saved. We all quote glibly "God honours those who honour Him". Yet Isaiah honoured God, but to his contemporaries, and maybe even to Isaiah himself, it didn’t look as though God was honouring Him. Oh yes, with the benefit of hindsight, we can see the wonders of his ministry, but was that apparent during his lifetime? Are we prepared to go through what Isaiah went through?
Let me close by reminding you and challenging us all what we’ve looked at today. We saw from this passage that Isaiah had an overwhelming willingness to serve - no matter what task God gave him. Perhaps we would like to be that available for God. For Isaiah, his willingness came as a result of his profound experience of grace, following his deep awareness of sin, brought about by his big vision of God.
It’s not enough to simply have a desire to serve. Our motives must be right - and our motives must start with God. If we are to be used, to allow ourselves to be available, we must have that big vision of God that Isaiah had. We must come to him with fear and trembling, and we must respond if we are called. Too often we are challenged from the Scriptures, and manage to brush off the challenge. We cannot do that if we are to be used as Isaiah was.
We shouldn’t want the quiet life, the nice family, or the successful job, we should want to be servants. Our motive and our perspective must start with God. The Christian life is not an easy one, and I believe we should be aware of the difficulties as well as the encouragements. That’s why I have tried to spell out some of the consequences that might result if we step out on this path.
But remember, we don’t worship a small God. We worship a God whose glory filled the earth. He does not set us tasks that will break us, and we know deep down that we can only have that abundant life in Him.
The question again I put to you is: when God asks us to serve Him, do we ask ’How’, or do we say ’Yes’? If you have been challenged and know that you are not yet willing to say ’Here I am’, then I urge you instead to pray a different prayer. "Lord, I am not willing, but I am willing to be made willing". Did you get that? Let me say it again, "Lord, I am not willing, but I am willing to be made willing". As we close, I challenge you to come before God, and lay yourself open to whatever he commands you.
