ISAIAH'S CALL
God's Holiness is Beyond Description!
However...Try to Imagine What the Throne Room is like.
Now describe what you picture in your mind and spirit.
The description is...”Beyond Comprehension.”
Isaiah 6:1-8, Isaiah’s Commission:
Isaiah 6:1-8, 1“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” 4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. 5 “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.” 6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” 8 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 is called to God’s Work!
Who is Isaiah?
- Isaiah was born in the 8th century BC to a man named Amos (Isaiah 1:1).
- He married a woman known as "the prophetess" (8:3). Why she was called this is not certain. Some believe she may have carried out a prophetic ministry in her own right, like Deborah (Judges 4:4) and Huldah (2 Kings 22:14-20). Others maintain, however, that it was simply because she was the wife of "the prophet" (38:1), and not because she was herself endowed with the prophetic gift.
- Isaiah had two sons by her.
- Isaiah was called by God...and he responded to God's call.
- Isaiah preached and prophesied according to what the Lord declared to him.
Isaiah has a vision. GOD'S GREATNESS revealed.
Details of Isaiah's vision:
- God was on the throne. Uzziah may have died,...Just as you will die...but God was and is still on the throne.
- The throne was high and exalted which means that it is greater and exceeded all other thrones.
True worship begins when we stop and gasp at the wonder, power, and Holiness of God. Worship begins when we catch of glimpse of Holiness.
Of all the attributes of God...holiness is the one that seems to take center stage.
In the Hebrew language to repeat a word is to emphasize it.
In Isaiah 6 and in Revelation 4 the angelic beings declare that God is "holy, holy, holy". This is the only attribute of God that is emphasized in this way. God is never called "Love, love, love," or "mercy, mercy, mercy". Therefore, if we want to know God we must understand the idea of God's holiness.
Probably, your first child's prayer was: “God is Great, God is Good...Let us thank Him for our food!”
This prayer ties into two ideas to holiness.
- The idea of greatness. One of the meanings of holiness is the idea of being "set apart". God is apart from us...He is in a class by Himself. "There is a profound difference between Him and those He has created. When the Bible speaks of holy objects or holy people or holy time, it refers to things that have been set apart, consecrated, or made different by the touch of God upon them. It was the nearness of the divine that made the ordinary suddenly extraordinary and the common, uncommon. Holiness means that God is transcendent (or unique and superior) in His greatness.
- The idea of purity. God is good. He does what is right and never does what is wrong. God is unstained by, and uncompromising with sin. God does not "bend a little" when it comes to wrong-doing. God always acts in a righteous manner because His nature is holiness. He is both great and good.
GOD'S GOODNESS AND MAN'S UNWORTHINESS. Isaiah's response is “Woe to me! 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.”
- The first response of an unholy person to the holiness of God is an acute awareness of personal sin. When the unholy confronts the holy we become very conscious of our own sinfulness. It is like we live most of our lives with some of the lights off . . . we are able to hide some of our wickedness in the dark. But when we come into the presence of God the darkness is gone. All the hidden is exposed.
- When we compare ourselves to the standard of holiness...look out. At that time the walls of delusion come crumbling down.
- Personal Observation: I believe that a person who has no sense of their own sinfulness has really never had a true sense of the nature of God. The person who believes that they did the right things to get saved has no awareness of how deeply stained they really are. We must be undone before we can be remade. The Holy Spirit has to awaken us to our sinfulness before we can be summoned to His grace.
- Note Isaiah's conviction. He was most conscious of His unclean lips. Isaiah was a spokesman for God. His lips should have been the one thing that fared well in the light of God's holiness...but it was His lips He saw as sinful. Even in his greatest strength he was undone when it was compared to God's holiness.
GOD'S PROVISION. Once Isaiah realizes his sin, notice what happens, 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.”
God cauterizes Isaiah's lips. He eliminates the impurity.
Isaiah's guilt is taken away but it is not shrugged off. God doesn't say, "Aw, let's just forget it!" Instead he tells Isaiah that his sin "is atoned for". In other words, it was paid for.
How? It was paid for in Jesus. How can that be, you ask? Isaiah lived many hundreds of years before Jesus. But the promise had been made. The plan was in place. God forgave Isaiah on the basis of what Christ was going to do hundreds of years later. Just like He is willing to forgive you and I on the basis of what He has done many hundreds of years before us.
When Jesus (the sinless Son of God) died on the cross, He paid for our sin. God's justice is satisfied (sin is punished) and He is also able to extend mercy (on the basis of Christ's substitution).
The reason we are called children of God is not because we are good...but because we are forgiven. We are forgiven not because we were among the best of the class but because Christ died for our sin.
Isaiah...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!”
GOD'S SUMMONS. The Lord is now looking for a messenger. Isaiah, who has been transformed by grace and made alive by the mercy of God, volunteers for service. Isaiah doesn't say, "Here I am"...that would be to identify his position. Instead he says, "Here am I". He offers Himself as a "living sacrifice" (Rom. 12:1).
- Isaiah is now willing to serve not out of obligation but out of gratitude and out of a desire to exalt God's glory. Isaiah wants the world to know the greatness of God.
You were called for service:
- Called to be born
- Called to salvation
- Called to be a messenger of God
- Called to serve a Holy and Righteous God
- Called to Be a Friend of God
- Will Be Called Home when it is time for your meeting in glory!
God is not the one that misses...He never makes a mistake.
Are you ready to meet God...either with your service, your worship, or your life?
Key Verse:
“Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker” (Psalm 95:6)
