{"id":18664,"date":"2017-09-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-09-17T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/isaiah-6-session-001-the-holiness-of-god\/"},"modified":"2022-02-01T20:03:09","modified_gmt":"2022-02-02T02:03:09","slug":"isaiah-6-session-001-the-holiness-of-god","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/isaiah-6-session-001-the-holiness-of-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Isaiah 6 – Session 001: The Holiness of God"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[68],"series_event":[532],"sermon_service_type":[473],"speaker":[482],"class_list":["post-18664","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-isaiah","series_event-isaiah-6","sermon_service_type-sunday-school","speaker-alex-garcia","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"Isaiah 6 - Session 001: The Holiness of God","sermon_date":"20170917","sermon_month":"09","sermon_year":"2017","sermon_notes":"","sermon_slides":4942,"sermon_mp3":4935,"sermon_id":"9171711042","series_or_event":532,"service_type":[473],"speaker":482,"books_of_the_bible":68,"chapter_and_verse":"6:1-7","sermon_transcript":"Alex Garcia\r\n\r\nThe Holiness of God, Isaiah 6:1-7\r\n\r\n9-17-17\r\n\r\nGood morning.\u00a0 The passage this morning is Isaiah 6:1-7.\u00a0 That\u2019s our Bible study this morning in our Sunday School.\u00a0 And in this passage Isaiah is brought up into a vision of heaven and God discloses a glimpse of His holiness to Isaiah and Isaiah is terrified\u2026terrified because he\u2019s in the presence of perfect holiness, terrified because he\u2019s in the presence of God.\u00a0 And so Isaiah acknowledges his sinfulness and submits to God and then God in His grace gives Isaiah a solution to his sin, forgives Isaiah for his sin.\u00a0 And the principle that I\u2019m going to ask you all to take away from this passage this morning is that we must submit to God because He is absolutely in control.\u00a0 He has absolute authority over His creation which includes you and me.\r\n\r\nNow let me just spend a couple of minutes on background with respect to Isaiah and the book.\u00a0 Isaiah\u2019s ministry began in the mid\u00a0 700\u2019s B.C. and lasted, we think, the record is not perfectly clear but we think until the 680\u2019s B.C.\u00a0 So if you look that up at a kind of bigger time schedule, King David lived around 1000 B.C. so about 250 years later is when Isaiah\u2019s ministry started.\u00a0 He lived in Jerusalem and at this time the land of the Jews had been divided into two kingdoms.\u00a0 There was the northern kingdom called Israel and the southern kingdom called Judah and the capital of the southern kingdom was Jerusalem.\u00a0 And that\u2019s where the prophet Isaiah lived.\u00a0 He had access to many kings, Josiah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, and Jewish tradition said that the reason that he had\u2026 when I said Jewish tradition it\u2019s not found in the Bible so we can\u2019t say definitively but there is some indication that the reason Isaiah had all this access to all these kings is that he was part of the royal family; he was a cousin of one of the kings, King Uzziah, and we\u2019re going to see Uzziah here in a moment, verse 1.\r\n\r\nHe was sophisticated and an eloquent writer and\u00a0 you see that in the Book of Isaiah because the language of Isaiah is very eloquent in its Hebrew.\u00a0 And often his book, the Book of Isaiah, is called the fifth gospel; you know, you\u2019ve got the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John but often Isaiah is called the fifth gospel because it\u2019s so rich in references to the Messiah, like the other four gospels.\r\n\r\nNow there are basically three sections to the Book of Isaiah.\u00a0 Sometimes people divide it into two or three, I think three is the better division, and so there\u2019s the first 39 chapters of the Book of Isaiah and what those chapters are saying is judgment is coming.\u00a0 Those chapters are directed to the people who are alive at the time Isaiah was writing and\u00a0 you know that is kind of a novel concept right?\u00a0 I mean, the preacher is actually preaching to people who are alive when he\u2019s alive, well, that\u2019s what these first 39 chapters are doing.\u00a0 And what Isaiah is saying is look, you\u2019ve been rejecting God, you\u2019ve been rebelling against God so judgment is coming; there\u2019s going to be blessing ultimately but first judgment is coming and the judgment is going to be swift and brutal actually.\r\n\r\nThen we have the next division in the book and that\u2019s chapters 40-55, and that\u2019s directed not to the people who are alive at the time of Isaiah but it\u2019s directed to a future generation, 150 to 200 years later.\u00a0 This is a generation of the children of Israel who will be under the boot of the Babylonians.\u00a0 They will be slaves to the Babylonians and they will be in exile in this foreign, pagan land.\u00a0 They won\u2019t be able to worship God in the way that God prescribed in the Old Testament, in Law, because they\u2019ll be slaves to these pagan peoples there in Babylon.\u00a0 And the message of this part of the book is comfort and hope.\u00a0 The message is God has not forgotten you, you\u2019re being abused by these foreign powers, or this foreign power in Babylon\u2014God has not forgotten you!\u00a0 Have hope because God controls human history and God knows exactly what\u2019s going on and God has a plan for your life.\u00a0 That\u2019s the message of this second section of Isaiah.\r\n\r\nThe third and final section of Isaiah is chapters 56-66.\u00a0 And that\u2019s not directed to the generation that\u2019s alive when Isaiah was living; that\u2019s not directed to the generation, he\u2019s in exile in Babylon, that\u2019s directed to the Jews who are returning from Babylon to the land of Canaan, to their land.\u00a0 And the message there is follow the Law, don\u2019t abandon God\u2019s mandates that He\u2019s given to you, like your earlier forefathers did and that\u2019s why they got exiled, so turn to Me, follow the Law, the Mosaic Law because that was the Law that they were told to follow by God\u2026AND look forward to the coming Messiah because He\u2019s coming, look forward to Him.\r\n\r\nNow let me talk about one more technical point before we jump into our passage and this is a technical point about the actual Book of Isaiah, the writing of Isaiah.\u00a0 For thousands of years folks understood the Book of Isaiah to be written by Isaiah, right, as the son of Amos.\u00a0 That\u2019s his name, Isaiah, son of Amoz.\u00a0 [Isaiah 1:1, \u201cThe vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz concerning Judah and Jerusalem\u2026.\u201d] His father was\u00a0 named Amoz.\u00a0 And starting in the late 1700\u2019s and into the 1800\u2019s a new view caught on and the view was that there were, because of the different divisions in the book, these different sections of the book, there must have been multiple authors is what the view says.\u00a0 And what the view\u2026 if I say \u201cview\u201d too many times you\u2019ll think of that television show, right?\u00a0 [laughs]\u00a0 But they\u2019re both wrong, but perhaps that\u2019s a topic for another day.\r\n\r\nThis particular view of the Book of Isaiah said that one or two unnamed, unknown authors came along and wrote prophecies and that they were slapped to the back of what Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah had written, and then that\u2019s how we have our Book of Isaiah, all 66 chapters.\u00a0 This newfound view caught on right after the Enlightenment and you know, the Enlightenment was this age of rational\u00adism where folks said God, You have Your place but it\u2019s over here on the side; it\u2019s not in the forefront of our minds, it\u2019s over here on the side and we\u2019ll consult you from time to time but we\u2019re not going to believe everything that\u2019s in Your Word.\r\n\r\nAnd so in this age of rationalism the supernatural was viewed as unlikely and viewed as something that folks just wouldn\u2019t accept.\u00a0 Well, there are a number of problems with this view that there were multiple authors for the Book of Isaiah.\u00a0 One of their main arguments is that there was no way that Isaiah could have written the things that are in Isaiah, in the Book of Isaiah because he writes things that are not known for 150 or 200 years after he lived, because he lived in the 740\u2019s, he writes about events that happened in the 540\u2019s, 200 years later.\r\n\r\nHe specifically names the liberator of the Jews, this Persian general who would come and conquer the Babylonians and free the Jews and send them home, because that was the will of God.\u00a0 And so what Isaiah does is he named this liberator, who was a Persian king named Cyrus, and what the folks that don\u2019t believe that all of this was written by Isaiah, what they say is look, Isaiah couldn\u2019t have known that, he lived 200 years before, how could he know the name of someone who would liberate and free the Jews 200 years later.\u00a0 And they\u2019re right, Isaiah, in his own finite human capacity could not have known that.\r\n\r\nThat\u2019s where the Holy Spirit comes in; the Holy Spirit could, and did, disclose to Isaiah the name of the person, this general who would free the Jews and send them home and He did that for a reason.\u00a0 The reason the Holy Spirit had Isaiah record this specific piece of information was so that those Jews who were in captivity, who were under the boot of the Babylonians, who were suffering, who were being abused, who thought all is lost, so that they would know, wait a second, there was one of our prophets 200 years earlier wrote about this and he actually wrote of the name of the man who would come and free us and send us back to our homeland, so God is in control, that\u2019s a source of comfort for us, God is in control.\u00a0 So the Holy Spirit did reveal it to Isaiah and that\u2019s why he wrote it down.\r\n\r\nThe second reason why I submit that this view that there are multiple authors to Isaiah is false is because who believes a prophet that you don\u2019t know?\u00a0 Who believes a prophet that you don\u2019t know his name, you don\u2019t know anything about him?\u00a0 How can you have one or two unnamed men who came along and gave these amazing prophecies about the Messiah and no one knows boo about them\u2014nothing!\u00a0 We don\u2019t know their names, we don\u2019t know where they\u2019re from, we don\u2019t know their lineage, \u201cIsaiah, son of Amos\u201d we don\u2019t know who their father was, we don\u2019t know anything about them.\r\n\r\nThat\u2019s just not how Jewish tradition worked when it came to prophets because for prophets in the Old Testament there was serious accountability for a prophet because if a prophet prophesied about something and it turned out that what he said was false and it didn\u2019t happen, well, it was his head, he was stoned to death and that\u2019s laid out as part of the Law.\u00a0 God tells them you do this, you execute that prophet and that\u2019s laid out in Deuteronomy 18.\u00a0 So the idea that you had these one or two unnamed prophets that give all these prophecies like Isaiah 53, suffering servant, and no one knows anything about them, that\u2019s just not Jewish written tradition and the way Jews treated the prophets in the Old Testament.\u00a0 That\u2019s not just how it operated!\r\n\r\nFinally, the New Testament supports only one author to the Book of Isaiah and no more.\u00a0 The New Testament writers, when they cite Isaiah, when they site Isaiah many times they\u2019ll cite a verse in the first section of Isaiah and it\u2019ll say, in the New Testament it\u2019ll say \u201cthe prophet Isaiah said\u2026.\u201d\u00a0 They\u2019ll cite a verse in the second division of Isaiah and they\u2019ll say (in the New Testament) \u201cthe prophet Isaiah said\u201d X.\u00a0 They\u2019ll cite a verse in the third section of Isaiah and they\u2019ll say \u201cthe prophet Isaiah said Z. \u00a0It won\u2019t say multiple writers, or the people of Isaiah, it\u2019s real clear that the prophet Isaiah wrote these different verses in the whole Book of Isaiah and there\u2019s no distinction that the ne gives as to some unknown unnamed authors.\r\n\r\nSo I submit that there was one author to the Book of Isaiah and that\u2019s Isaiah.\u00a0 With that background let\u2019s get into our passage.\u00a0 What we\u2019re going to see is that God\u2019s authority is absolute because He is perfect holiness.\r\n\r\nVerse 1, \u201cIn the year of King Uzziah\u2019s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple.\u201d\u00a0 Uzziah is the king of the Southern Kingdom there in Jerusalem and he died in the year 740 B.C.\u00a0 So we\u2019re able to date this vision very precisely to that year.\u00a0 And notice that there\u2019s a throne in this temple.\u00a0 Look midway through the verse, \u201cI saw the Lord sitting on a throne,\u201d and the verse ends with \u201cHis robe filling the temple.\u201d\u00a0 Well, what\u2019s curious here is that the temple in Jerusalem didn\u2019t have a throne in it; the throne was over in the king\u2019s palace, it\u2019s all in his palace where the political power was, with the soldiers with their shields and armor and swords and spears.\u00a0 The temple was for spiritual worship, it\u2019s for worship and spiritual power.\u00a0 But in heaven those two are combined; political power and spiritual power are combined in God because all power emanates from God.\u00a0 And this should be as source of comfort for us because when Jesus returns and rules the world for a thousand\u00a0 years He will exhibit His absolute authority like He exhibits it now in heaven, and that should be a source of comfort for us because we are aligned with Jesus.\r\n\r\nVerse 2, \u201cSeraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.\u201d\u00a0 These are earthly words describing a heavenly scene.\u00a0 These angels are hovering above the throne of God so God is on His throne, lofty and exalted with the train of His robe filling the temple.\u00a0 And then these Seraphim are hovering over the throne of God.\u00a0 This is totally foreign to our eyes and our ears and our earthly words and that\u2019s because this is a heavenly scene.\u00a0 With two wings the seraphim hovers, almost like a bee would hover; with two wings he covers his face because not even these sinless creatures will look on the presence and holiness of God. With two wings they cover their feet, presumably their feet are the least honorable portion of their body and they\u2019re showing respect by covering that.\r\n\r\nNow let me talk a minute about angels.\u00a0 They\u2019re immortal, they are not eternal because there was a time when they were created; they are created beings just like we are but they are immortal, they don\u2019t die.\u00a0 They\u2019re immaterial so they\u2019re not made up of flesh and blood, physical atoms like we are but they can exhibit themselves as physical beings, as men, as they did in Sodom.\u00a0 In fact, they looked so real that the wicked men of Sodom wanted to do what they wanted to do to them.\u00a0 So they can exhibit themselves with a physical appearance.\u00a0 They also have what I\u2019m going to call super powers.\u00a0 Now to them they\u2019re not super powers, they are just their powers, but in relation to us they are super powers.\r\n\r\nFor example, they can travel billions if not trillions of quadrillions of light years from the third heaven to earth; the third heaven is the abode of God, the second heaven is the universe and the first heaven is from earth to the atmosphere.\u00a0 And so they can travel these very long distances quickly.\u00a0 You know, we\u2019re doing good to get to the moon but not them; they have incredible strength as the one angel who the Scripture tells us appeared like lightening to remove the stone that was in front of the tomb of Jesus and he just sat on the stone as if to say it\u2019s nothing to me.\u00a0 They have the power to make people blind, as the angels did to the men of Sodom to protect themselves from those men.\u00a0 They have the power to make men mute as the one angel made the father of John the Baptist mute in his moment of disbelief.\u00a0 God, on occasion, gives them power over weather as we see in Revelation 8 where some of the angels are given, at least on that occasion, power over earthquakes and hail and storms and power to destroy a third of the earth\u2019s freshwater supply, which is going to be a cataclysmic event when it happens.\r\n\r\nNow there are different classes of angels, the two I\u2019m going to talk about are cherubim and seraphim.\u00a0 The cherubs, or cherubim if it\u2019s plural, we believe, are the highest class of angels.\u00a0 The Bible doesn\u2019t have a listing that says boom, boom, boom, here\u2019s the priority of the classes of angels and so you have to look at the different Scripture and kind of get a sense of ranking and priority.\u00a0 And the reason why I say that cherubim are probably the highest class of angels is because Satan himself, before he fell, he was highest of angels before he fell, before he rebelled, was a cherub.\u00a0 Ezekiel 28 describes him as \u201cthe anointed cherub.\u201d\u00a0 And the other reason why there\u2019s a strong argument that cherubs are the highest class of angels is because when God gave instructions to the Israelites to build the ark of the covenant this box overlaid with gold, part of the instructions were to build these two angels, and they were cherubs, and over the angels resided the Shekinah glory, the special presence of God.\u00a0 Now God, of course, is omnipresent, He\u2019s not limited to any particular space but He would have His special presence there with the Israelites and He resided, special presence, Shekinah glory, resided over the cherubs.\u00a0 And those are these two\u2026\u00a0 you know, the wings outstretched as if they\u2019re guarding the presence of God.\u00a0 Now God doesn\u2019t need a guard because He\u2019s God but it\u2019s representative of their high rank.\r\n\r\nThe other type of angel that I\u2019m going to talk about are the seraphs, those are the ones in our passage and they\u2019re mentioned nowhere else in the Bible.\u00a0 This is the only spot in the Bible that mentions the Seraphs.\u00a0 They have a high rank because they are associated with God\u2019s glory.\u00a0 And seraph in Hebrew means burning one; they\u2019re afire in devotion towards God.\u00a0 They appear to survey priestly function in the favor of what? the holiness of God.\u00a0 There are two types of angels, fallen and elect; the fallen are the ones who rebelled against God and the elect are the ones who remain faithful to God.\r\n\r\nNow what\u2019s fascinating is that angels, God directs angels to help us, to help believers.\u00a0 And we see that in Hebrews 1:14 where we\u2019re told that they\u2019re ministering spirits to aid believers, \u201cAre they not all ministering spirits, sent out to render service\u201d that\u2019s help or aid, \u201cfor the sake of those who will inherit salvation?\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s you and me, that\u2019s the folks who have trusted Christ for the forgiveness of their sins.\r\n\r\nHuman reaction to angels is fear because they\u2019re so much more powerful than us; they\u2019re so much beyond us and that\u2019s why we see in Luke 2, when the angel came to the shepherds and announced the birth of the Savior we\u2019re told that the shepherds were terrified; they were greatly afraid.\u00a0 All these things about the angels are very impressive and that\u2019s why they invoke fear when someone sees them in Scripture.\u00a0 But we have to remember they\u2019re created beings and we should never worship angels.\u00a0 The world often loves to really focus on angels because they don\u2019t want to focus on God, they feel like I can avoid accountability if I focus on a created being as opposed to the Creator.\r\n\r\nSo let\u2019s focus on the angel-maker, God Himself, and we\u2019ll see what these angels describe about the angel-maker here in verse 3.\u00a0 \u201cAnd one called out to another and said, \u2018Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 In Hebrew that \u201cHoly\u201d is Kadosh (\u05e7\u05d3\u05d5\u05e9) so this angel says Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, and the angel is saying this three times, holy, three times is designed to show the absolute unapproachable holiness of God.\u00a0 The angel is saying it three times also fits the three person nature of the Trinity, the Father, Son and Spirit.\r\n\r\nNow the doctrine of the Trinity is not fully unpacked for us until the New Testament so we just see glimpses of it in the Old Testament.\u00a0 But here is one of those glimpses.\u00a0 This word \u201choly\u201d is real interesting.\u00a0 It means set apart to God when it describes a person or a group of people or some place.\u00a0 But here\u2019s it not being used to describe people or places; it\u2019s being used to describe God Himself.\u00a0 So when the Scripture, when \u201choly\u201d is used to describe God it means He is totally other, totally separate and distinct from His creation.\u00a0 He is totally above, transcendent of His creation.\u00a0 That\u2019s the theological term transcendent.\u00a0 And that\u2019s why God says in Isaiah 55, [8] \u201cFor My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways, declares the LORD, [56] For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.\u201d\r\n\r\nGod transcends His creation and He needs nothing outside of Himself.\u00a0 He is His own source of existence.\u00a0 We, on the other hand, have all kinds of needs; we need air to breathe, we need food to eat, we need to sleep, we need love.\u00a0 He IS love, you know, we say \u201cI love you,\u201d well for God, He IS love, He loves, He has an object of His love but He Himself IS love.\r\n\r\nSo here we see the absolute holiness of God, and that\u2019s not only in the Old Testament but it\u2019s in the New Testament as well.\u00a0 And that\u2019s why we see in Revelation the four living creatures around the throne of God saying continuously \u201cHOLY, HOLY, HOLY,\u201d you see the three-fold repetition there as well, He \u201cis THE LORD GOD, THE ALMIGHTY, WHO WAS AND WHO IS AND WHO IS TO COME.\u201d [Revelation 4:8]\u00a0 God is the same yesterday, today and forever; He is holy.\r\n\r\nBut getting back to verse 3 here, we see this phrase \u201cLORD of hosts,\u201d right, and one called out and said, \u201cHOLY, HOLY, HOLY is THE LORD of hosts.\u201d\u00a0 Well, when I hear the word \u201chost\u201d\u00a0 I think of some\u00adbody at the Olive Garden greeting me and taking me to a table and giving me a menu.\u00a0\u00a0 That\u2019s not what \u201chost\u201d means here.\u00a0 It\u2019s an old English word for armies and the Hebrew word here is Sabaoth, it means armies.\u00a0 This is the word that Martin Luther used in his hymn, A Mighty Fortress is our God, Lord Sabaoth is His name, from age to age the same.\u201d\u00a0 Here it means God\u2019s extreme military power and authority.\u00a0 He\u2019s the commander and chief of the armies.\r\n\r\nAnd you say well what armies are we talking about; are we talking about an army of men from the 101st<\/sup> Airborne?\u00a0 From the Marine Corps or how about Navy Seal Team six who took out Osama Bin Laden?\u00a0 No, those are impressive warriors, America\u2019s soldiers, impressive but they don\u2019t hold a candle to the warriors in this army because the warriors in this army are these angelic super powered beings. That\u2019s the army that we\u2019re talking about.\u00a0 The Lord is the King of the angelic warriors, the angelic armies.\r\n\r\nBut then\u00a0 you see this beautiful balance in verse 3, we see a first \u201cHoly, Holy, Holy\u201d His transcendence, His otherness, He\u2019s above His creation.\u00a0 But then He\u2019s also engaged in it; He loves it, He sacrifices for His creation, He provides for His creation.\u00a0 So we see this balance of transcendence and then the theological term of Him providing and being involved in His creation is imminence, and that\u2019s the phrase at the end of verse 3, \u201cThe whole earth is full of His glory.\u201d\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t just wind the clock up, the watch up and say there you go earth, there you go people, there you go creation.\u00a0 No!\u00a0 He\u2019s engaged in it because he loves His creation.\u00a0 [Isaiah 6:3, \u201cAnd one called out to another and said, \"Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.\u201d]\r\n\r\nSo this word \u201cglory,\u201d it\u2019s the Hebrew word qadosh<\/em> and it means heavy, not like putting something on a scale heavy, it means something that is weighty, that is substantial, significant.\u00a0 Only God is worthy of glory, no one else.\u00a0 And that\u2019s why the Lord says in Isaiah 42:8, \u201cI am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, [Nor My praise to graven images].\u00a0 Because He alone is worthy of glory.\r\n\r\nVerse 4, \u201cAnd the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke.\u201d\u00a0 The Seraph\u2019s voice is so loud that the foundation of the temple quakes.\u00a0 This temple\/throne room, the foundation quakes and that\u2019s because the Lord\u2019s presence is always overwhelming.\u00a0 Here we see quaking and smoke and this is reminiscent of when the Israelites were introduced to God at Mount Sinai in Exodus 19, and there, when Moses introduced the Israelites to God the mountain and the ground quaked and trembled and smoke billowed out.\r\n\r\nThe same idea here, Isaiah is being introduced to the King of the universe and smoke and quaking happened here too.\r\n\r\nSometimes we get too comfortable with God; He\u2019s not our buddy, He\u2019s not our pal; it\u2019s true that \u00a0we are told in Genesis 15 that we are the friends of God, that\u2019s true, but we shouldn\u2019t take our relationship with God casually or flippantly.\u00a0 He is the King of the Universe, who is holy, holy, holy.\u00a0 He is the King of the angelic warriors who is holy, holy, holy and He is omnipotent, all powerful.\u00a0 And so the fact that He would even let us speak His name should inspire awe in us.\u00a0 The fact that He even revealed Himself to us should inspire wonder in us.\u00a0 This is the God who we worship.\r\n\r\nWe\u2019re now going to see that God\u2019s holiness demands that we acknowledge our sin and submit to Him, verse 5. [Isaiah 6:5] \u00a0\u201cThen I said, \u2018Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of\u201d can I say armies? \u201cthe LORD of \u00a0hosts,\u2019\u201d the LORD of the armies, [can't understand word] is the Hebrew word here and it sounds like something bad has happened.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 And that\u2019s what\u2019s translated here, \u201cWoe is me,\u201d but we don\u2019t really use \u201cWoe is me\u201d any more, I mean, those are kind of old English words, when your house fills with water, storm water five feet high and you haven\u2019t been able to get to your house in two weeks and the sheetrock is growing mold you don\u2019t walk up and say, \u201cWoe is me,\u201d in Hebrew you\u2019d say [can't understand word], something horrible has happened.\r\n\r\nBut we have to ask ourselves why is Isaiah, ISAIAH, this great prophet of God, this great man of God, why is he freaking out in front of God?\u00a0 What is troubling him?\u00a0 What\u2019s troubling him is that he is standing in the presence of perfect absolute holiness and even the slightest of sins is magnified in the presence of perfect holiness.\u00a0 He\u2019s standing before the King of the universe and he is terrified because of his sin.\u00a0 Isaiah\u2019s humbled because of his inferiority to God because he\u2019s a sinner.\u00a0 And he recognizes his need for God.\u00a0 And that\u2019s what makes him so great; that\u2019s why God can say I can use you because you\u2019re submitting to Me in your humility.\u00a0 You recognize your need for Me, God says.\r\n\r\nThis is like the Apostle Paul in Romans 7:24, when Paul, when considering his sinful conditions says, \u201cO wretched man that I am,\u201d Paul\u2026 you\u2019re the apostle Paul, what are you talking about, you\u2019re \u201cthe man.\u201d\u00a0 NO, Paul, when considering his sinful condition says \u201cwretched man that I am.\u201d\u00a0 Isaiah, when standing in the presence of God says, \u201cWoe is me.\u201d\u00a0 [Isaiah 6:5, \u201cThen I said, \u2018Woe is me\u2026.\u201d]\u00a0 What they both are doing is recognizing their sinfulness and being humbled about it.\u00a0 They recognize their inferiority to God, or you could say their total depravity.\u00a0 Total depravity is this theological term, it doesn\u2019t mean that we\u2019re as bad as we can be; you know, everybody is not committing every sort of sin, everybody is not murdering everybody, everybody is not stealing from everybody.\u00a0 Everybody is not as bad as they can be, that\u2019s not what total depravity means.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Total depravity means we are incapable, totally incapable of achieving God\u2019s holiness\u2026 TOTALLY INCAPABLE!\u00a0 God\u2019s holiness and righteous are absolute and our righteous is kind of like relative righteousness.\u00a0 I say I\u2019m better than that guy and I feel good about myself and then the next guy says well, I\u2019m better than\u00a0 you and he feels good about himself.\u00a0 And then that guy says I\u2019m better than you and he feels good about himself.\u00a0 So we kind of have relative righteous, or we think like this sometimes, I\u2019m better than that guy and then I feel good about myself.\r\n\r\nWell, God says no, everybody has missed the standard, everybody misses the mark; I\u2019m the mark, I\u2019m the standard of righteousness and NO ONE attains My standard of righteousness.\u00a0 This is our condition, this is why we need a Savior.\u00a0 This is why we need God to transfer to us or impute to us His righteousness, and that\u2019s what happens at salvation, by grace, not by our merit, not by our works but by grace.\u00a0 All of humanity is condemned for three reasons: (1) they\u2019re born with a sin nature; (2) Adam and Eve\u2019s sin is transferred or imputed to them, Adam\u2019s original rebellion against God.\u00a0 And (3) we commit our own acts of personal sin, either in thought or in deed.\r\n\r\nNow some say look, wait a second, wait a second,!\u00a0 Those first two, I wasn\u2019t there when Adam sinned, so why should Adam\u2019s sin be imputed to me?\u00a0 And why should I be born with a sin nature?\u00a0 Well, the problem there is number 3, we all commit our own acts of personal sin and that confirms, that validates number 1 and number 2.\u00a0 Plus, if you want to talk about fairness, was it fair for the Father to take our sins and impute them or transfer them to Christ when He was on the cross?\u00a0 Was that fair?\u00a0 It was just an act of grace that God did for us.\u00a0 No one objects to that imputation because we\u2019re happy to benefit from it.\u00a0 Salvation means that at the moment of faith in Christ God imputes, transfers, His righteous to us.\u00a0 That\u2019s the free gift of salvation.\r\n\r\nSo the point here is we have to understand the significance of sin; it\u2019s a BIG deal to God.\u00a0 It separates us from God and Paul and Isaiah recognize this and are humbled because of their sins when they consider God and the holiness of God.\u00a0 Isaiah understands that God has the moral authority to set the standard by which we should and shouldn\u2019t live, and he recognizes that he and his people have violated God\u2019s holy standard.\u00a0 Isaiah is not even qualified to speak to God.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The instruments of speech and praise are his lips and his lips are unclean because he\u2019s a sinner, like all of us.\r\n\r\nSo the Lord, in His matchless grace, provides a solution.\u00a0 That\u2019s verses 6 and 7.\u00a0 \u201cThen one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. [7] He touched my mouth with it<\/em> and said, \u2018Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven.\u201d\u2019\r\n\r\nThis is similar to the temple in Jerusalem where there was an altar of incense and burning coals.\u00a0 And so the angel\u2019s act of touching hot coals to the lips of Isaiah was a representative sign that Isaiah\u2019s sins were forgiven by grace.\u00a0 And that\u2019s the same for us, right?\u00a0 By grace our sins are forgiven if we trust in Christ for our salvation.\u00a0 Now we don\u2019t need an angel to put a burning coal to our lips; all we need to do is trust that Christ has paid for our sins and we\u2019re forgiven.\u00a0 Or after we are saved if we sin then we rely on 1 John 1:9, \u201cIf we confess our sins then He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins\u2026.\u201d\u00a0 So this act by the seraph is a sign that Isaiah, who was already saved, had his sins forgiven and he\u2019s now ready to have a conversation with the King of the angelic warriors.\r\n\r\nThat\u2019s verses 1-7 and what they tell us is that God is holy; He is the King of the universe, the King of the angelic armies, and God has absolute power and authority, including over His creation which is us.\u00a0 Our sin puts us in rebellion against God and we have to accept God\u2019s solution to our condition, which is faith in Christ that saves us and then after salvation confessing our sins to God if we sin.\u00a0 The point here is that we must submit to God because He is God and we are not.\r\n\r\nI\u2019m going to go over the remaining verses in Isaiah 6, verses 8-13 in the Wednesday night Bible class on October 4th<\/sup> and so that concludes our study this morning and I\u2019m happy to try and answer any questions if anybody has any.","series_sermon_number":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t