The Lord’s Glory Fills All Things
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. The Word of God through which the Holy Spirit guides our hearts and minds today is recorded in Isaiah 6:1-8:
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two wings they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”
Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
“Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” (Isaiah 6:1-8 NIV) – This is the word of the Lord.
Dear friends in Christ Jesus, our Lord,
A movie currently in theaters tries to cast God. Yet it does not honor God with the glory and majesty due to him. From what I’ve read and seen in advertisements, the basic story line is this: The character, Bruce Nolan, complains that god is not doing a good job. So god leaves his phone number on Bruce’s pager, when they finally get together, god makes a deal with him. He will gives Bruce his divine power and Bruce is challenged to do a better job in running the world. The name of the movie is Bruce Almighty. Even the title dishonors and blasphemes God. Only the true God is the Almighty, and he does not give his power or glory to another.
But the problem is not just this movie. Our entire culture fails to honor and glorify God. More often than not he is simply ignored. When his name is mentioned, it’s usually misused. He becomes the butt of jokes that refer to the “big guy upstairs.” Our modern American society, which is filled with disrespect for anyone in authority, shows the greatest disrespect toward the One who is the greatest authority.
Our thinking as well is corrupted by all these influences. Often we ourselves invite these negative influences into our minds and lives by our choices of movies, music, and entertainment. We find ourselves being made insensitive so that it becomes easy to dismiss dishonoring God as no big deal and to label those who object as “too religious.” Our sinful flesh loves to bring God down to our own level so we can deal with him on our own terms. We fail to stand in holy fear and trembling awe before his throne. We need the Holy Spirit to be constantly correcting us through God’s Word, so that more and more we grow to honor and glorify our God in everything.
Through the words recorded in Isaiah 6, may the Holy Spirit lead us to stand in awe that God is glorious, despite what the world around us says, and to be completely amazed that the his glory fills all things. That’s the theme to day: The Lord’s Glory Fills All Things. First of all we see that 1) his glory is holiness, and then we see that 2) his glory is forgiveness.
1) His glory is holiness
The Lord God is holy. He is completely set apart from sin. He is completely separate from evil. He transcends all creation. He is light inaccessible.
What Isaiah saw and heard clearly teaches this truth. He saw the Lord, not as an ordinary human being, but seated on a throne, high and exalted, removed from the lowly, the mundane, the sinful. This happened not in just any building, but in the temple, the one place on earth that the true God had placed his name until the promised Savior came.
Angels called seraphs surrounded the throne. Yet event these holy angels, covered their faces and their feet in reverence before the holy God. They were filled with reverent awe, and holy fear, for God’s holiness far surpasses any creature’s holiness. They praised the Lord calling to each other: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:3 NIV).
Isaiah felt the the doorposts and thresholds of the temple shake. He saw, smelt, and maybe even could taste the smoke that filled the air. In every way possible by sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell, the Lord taught Isaiah the truth of his holiness. Compared to the truth, Hollywood’s renditions of god don’t fit in with the true God at all. In fact, Hollywood’s ideas look more like the superhuman, false gods of ancient mythology.
Take to heart the striking holiness of your God, the true God. Don’t let the world dull your honor to him. Remember that not only the Father is holy, but Jesus, the Son, is holy and the Spirit is holy. For they are one God. Bow before the Father, bow before Jesus, bow before the Holy Spirit with holy fear and reverent awe. They are the one, true God. His glory is his holiness. His glory fills all things.
This truth had a profound effect on Isaiah. “Woe to me!” he cries out. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty” (Isaiah 6:5 NIV). Isaiah released that sinners can not live in the presence of the holy God. Just as light destroys darkness, so God’s holiness rightly destroys all that is sinful. “Woe to me!”
When you and I view God’s holiness, it has the same effect on us. Like Isaiah, we, too, are sinners. We have unclean lips. We don’t even release how often we sin with our lips. We have lips that thoughtlessly use God’s name or use it to curse and swear, lips that complain, lips that speak hateful and hurtful words, lips that repeat gossip and tear others down. We have lips that fail to call upon our God in every trouble, lips that fail to give him thanks at all times and in all circumstances, lips that fail to praise and confess him before others by telling of the good things he has done for us, lips that fail to defend our neighbor’s good name and offer the comfort and encouragement to them in Christ Jesus.
With Isaiah we, too, call out “Woe to me!” In our sin we can not stand before the thrice-holy God. In our sin, pain and death and hell are our just reward. In our sin we have no escape, no hope. Woe to me, to you!
This is why we don’t like to come to grips with the truth that God is holy. If we could make God less holy and more like us, as the world around us tries to do, then our sin wouldn’t be so bad. Then maybe we could have some hope in ourselves. Such self-delusion blind us to the one and only hope we have. If we fail to see how completely holy God is and how utterly sinful and hopeless we are before him, we will be lost for ever. Only after the Holy Spirit brings us to give up on our own effort to be right with God, only then does he create us anew. Then he reveals to us not only God’s holy glory but God’s forgiving glory as well.
2) His glory is forgiveness
When Isaiah realized is complete helplessness, the Lord shows him the glory of his forgiveness. One of the seraphs took a coal from the altar. He touched Isaiah’s lips with it and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for” (Isaiah 6:7 NIV).
The Lord forgave Isaiah’s sin. How can the holy God forgive guilty sinners and still remain holy? Because a sacrifice had been made to pay for Isaiah’s sin. The coal from the altar reminds us of the sacrifice. What sacrifice could pay for Isaiah’s sin? Not the sacrifice of animals, no matter how many. Not the sacrifice of another sinful, human being. But only a holy, divine sacrifice. Only the sacrifice of the life of God the Son could pay for Isaiah’s sins and satisfy God’s holy justice.
Only the sacrifice of the life of God the Son can pay for your sins and mine. Praise be to our Triune God that the Father sent his Son to be the all-sufficient sacrifice. Praise be to our Triune God that the Son, as the God-man, willingly offered himself on the cross in our place to pay the full price for all our sins. Praise be to our Triune God that the Holy Spirit has given us faith through baptism and the Word so that we trust God’s promise: “Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
Remember that when you realize how unclean your lips are. Remember that when the guilt of your sin weighs you done. Then listen to what the Lord promise to you through his word, through Baptism, and through the Lord’s Supper. Let his glory fill you. Listen to his word that promises : Your guilt that you inherited and were born with has been removed once and for all as far as the east is from the west. Each day your sins that fail to meet the mark of God’s perfect Law are covered again and again with the blood of Jesus sacrificed for you once and for all on the cross. Listen to the promise the Lord made to you at your Baptism: You’re sins are washed away. You have been purified, cleanses, washed clean. Listen to the promise that he makes to you as you eat his body and drink his blood in the Lord’s Supper: My Holy Supper purifies your unclean lips. For the sacrifice of my body and blood was completed once and for all for you. God’s great glory works forgiveness for us through Jesus Christ.
What joy and gladness God’s glorious forgiveness brings to us! Instead of “Woe to me!” we, like Isaiah, call out, “Send me! Send me!” We want to spread the Good News. We want the Lord to use us, to send us. Maybe he wants to send you out as a pastor, missionary, or teacher in a Christian school. Think about it or encourage a young person to prepare himself/herself. Maybe the Lord has brought people into your life (an acquaintance, co-worker, neighbor) that need to hear about God’s holiness and God’s forgiveness. Tell them. In all that you do at work, at school, at home, in all the choices you make concerning your life, your family, your recreation, your entertainment, let all that you choose and do be done in holy fear that stands in awe of the Lord’s holiness and in thankful joy that praises his forgiveness. In this way the Lord uses you and me to fill the whole earth with his glory. Amen.
