Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / January 13, 2019 | Can I Help? - Awed By The Holiness Of God

Transcript

January 13, 2019 | Can I Help? - Awed By The Holiness Of God · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:02
  unknown: Hey, Jim.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Hi.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I feel like I'm in a golf course.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: You go, girl.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Good to see you today.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: If this is your first Sunday this year, then you need to know that we started something called the Isaiah Challenge last week.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Title of this three-month series is going to be Can I Help?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: You look like you need it.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it's all about the greatest book in the Old Testament, the Mount Everest, basically, of the Old Testament.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's the book of Isaiah.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's just this astounding book that is put first among all the prophetic books because it's the greatest of them, just as Romans in the New Testament is put first of all the epistles because it's the greatest of them.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Isaiah is much like Romans.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I came along and last week I said to you, I'd like for you to take the Isaiah challenge, like some of you took the Ezekiel challenge last year, some of you took the New Testament challenge the year before.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: So what this means is I would like you to join me in reading about five chapters a week of this book, exactly five for a while.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then we'll finish before Easter, the 66 chapters of this book, which is a miniature Bible, 66 chapters like the 66 books, divided into 39, primarily judgment, like the Old Testament, 39 books, followed by 27 books of grace and compassion.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: In the New Testament, like Isaiah 40 through 66.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, how many of you, by the way, have been reading Isaiah 1, 2, 3, 4, 5?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is great.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I want to see your hands over in the College Avenue building.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: So this week will be chapters 6 through 10.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to preach, pretty much, I'll be preaching a sermon from the block of chapters that we'll be reading the following week.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so last week I preached chapter 1.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Today I'm going to preach chapter 6.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm writing daily devotionals and I'm working hard on those.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And is anybody doing those besides me?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, great, both of you.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm kidding.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: So these are these will, for your quiet time, these will be really helpful.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And if you'll do them by the end of the series, this will be your favorite book of the Bible.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Take the Isaiah challenge, please.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: I would rather you do that than come listen to me.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: So we have Isaiah the Mount Everest of the Bible.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And let's just get started right away.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go to Isaiah chapter 6, verse 1.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible, if you want an NIV, I'm using the New International.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: There's one in the pew bottom right in front of you.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is probably a passage your Bible flops open to.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's the best-known passage, most often preached passage, sort of in the latter half of the Old Testament.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really famous, all right?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought I'd preached it a number of times before.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And someone told me this morning they're sure I preached it here at the church.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: I saw that I'd used to, that I'd spoken on it at KU and K-State at some of the Christian uh challenges and stuff like that.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I couldn't find any sermon I'd ever preached on it here.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: So here we go.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm nervous, okay?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I better pray.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because listen, here's the way I feel about certain passages in the Bible.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like Genesis 1, Psalm 23, John 3.16, so forth.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: If there's a great passage in the Bible, I feel this incredible burden.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like if I if I mess up and make common and boring, one of the great passages of the Bible, that there's going to be a lightning bolt that zaps me out of heaven and says, I made this passage to be great and you've just ruined it.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: So let's pray for me.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, I really pray that I can express this in a genuine way and reflect what it is you're trying to say in this amazing story here in this passage, this experience of the great prophet Isaiah.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I pray for the listeners, the readers of your word here, that they would be really moved and really driven to want to see you.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: So last night, uh about 1 a.m., I was upstairs in the garage where I was studying.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: I was looking out, and Melody drove in the driveway.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: She had been at the uh uh there's a there's a high school formal, a winter formal, and she had been at that uh as the head of the school.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so she was driving, so she's driving up about one, and so and she, when she got out of car and came and she came upstairs, to give me a back rub, it's our tradition, and she just she was shocked, she was shaken, she was she was just shaking.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: I said, What's up?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: She says, 500 feet from our drive where our driveway starts here just a moment ago, I nearly got in terrible wreck.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: She says this uh, you know, slick streets last night, she says a big deer just ran right out in front of the car.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: I only missed it by inches.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: I jamped on the brake and I'm skidding to a stop, and four more large deer ran right out right in front of me.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And she says, I sat there shaken.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then she says, I was just overcome by the sense of beauty that I was looking at.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the beauty of the snow and the beauty of these happy deer, you know, at 1 a.m.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: in the morning.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought driving in to church this morning that that's a good and that's a good picture of what Isaiah felt and what I'd like you to feel this morning.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: That is this combination of something that's shocking and startling followed by an experience of beauty.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: What happened is that Isaiah saw the Lord and it completely undid and unraveled him.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: He's positive he was going to be crushed and destroyed in that moment.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, it became an experience that was life-changing for him because of an ex-it was an experience of the beauty of God, the beauty of his holiness.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's my desire for you this morning.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing else happens, that you would relive the experience of Isaiah, that you too would have sort of this shopping, shocking, startling experience with the person and the holiness of God.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do, I think I can promise you that it will be in the end an experience of great joy and beauty.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we read 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.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: People wonder why this is such a sublime passage.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you begin?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Who cares that it was the year King Uzziah died?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think it actually is really an important line.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because Uzziah was a really unique person.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: He was a he was the best king that Israel had had since the days of King Solomon, over 200 years before.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: And he'd been king since he was 16 years old, and now he was 68.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: For 52 years, Uzziah had been king, brought prosperity to the land of Israel, which had been economically strapped, brought spiritual stability as well in a world where, you know, they were in a really dangerous place, but he was strong.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: He had built up the country's defenses, he'd built up their economy, he had built up their them spiritually.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: This guy was an amazing guy, and he was a personal friend of Isaiah.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, they found his tombstone on the Mount of Olives, so he's a real guy on his tombstone.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Carved these words.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: This is before the time of Jesus.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: The last line is don't open.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Do not.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think maybe one reason for that is that he died of leprosy, and they thought, well, if you open it, maybe you'll get leprosy.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: But but anyway, uh, for what it's worth, I want you to see he was a real genuine guy.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: He was a king, and he is about to die of leprosy, and he's 68, or maybe he's just died.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: And this is his tombstone.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: And he ruled from 791 to 739.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a really turning point era in the history of the Middle East, because a nation is rising, which is going to be the most cruel, strong, it's going to be the first great military power in the history of the world.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Assyria is its name.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: And here it's getting strong, and we know that it's going to sweep down, it's going to sweep from the northeast part of the world, and it's going to sweep down, and in 722, it's going to completely destroy the northern ten tribes, the northern kingdom of Israel.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to raise Samaria to the ground and it's going to take them captive.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then Sennacherib's going to come on down and surround Jerusalem.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: And uh Jerusalem's going to survive just barely in 701.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the problem: is that the one king who Israel and Isaiah trust to be able to handle something like this is dying.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: And they look at his son who's going to succeed him.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: His name is Jotham, J-O-T-H-A-M.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And he's sickly, and he's weak and he's not spiritual.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then they look at the grandson who already is old enough to rule, and his name is Ahaz, and Ahaz is really evil, and he has absolutely no trust in God, and he's an idol worshiper, and Isaiah being a godly man, and the nation of Israel.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Isaiah brokenhearted because his friend is dying.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: He's about to lose him, but even more brokenhearted because the whole nation is a terrible risk.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it is in this kind of a situation, you see, that the presence of God is most needed and oftentimes comes the quickest.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: I just think this is a significant point that we should make, that when you're at the end of yourself, when you come to a place where you are desperate, perhaps where you are lonely, where you feel like you're in the middle of a dry desert, where you're losing a loved one, where the doctor has told you you have a particularly dangerous form of cancer.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: When you come to a place like this, have you noticed what happens?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Is that those things that just a year or so ago seemed to be so important to you become far less important, don't they?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the things that were unimportant to you, say spiritually, somehow become far more important.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's at that kind of a time that God can show himself to you, and you are at the most open to seeing him.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: A number of years ago, one of the best friends I've ever had in my life was diagnosed with cancer, particularly bad form of cancer.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we fought it.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we fought it, meaning we prayed and we agonized, we talked, he got chemo, and so forth.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: But it became apparent after a while that the doctor was right, that he had mere months to live.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I grieved, he grieved, his family grieved, and so forth.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I was absolutely surprised one day as we were just hanging out when he said to me, You know, Jim, I wouldn't trade this cancer for anything.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Come again?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I wouldn't trade this cancer for anything.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: This has been the greatest thing that's ever happened to me.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Nearly slugged him.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: No, I didn't, but I mean, I thought, well, what are you talking about?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: He said, because it's as though I have this uh, because I know that I only have months to live, it's as though somehow God is showing himself to me in a whole new way, and every single day is sweeter than any other day I've ever lived, just because I'm living it in the presence of God and feel as though I'm getting so close to him.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Al did die not long after that, but it gave me great comfort to know that those last days had been some of the sweetest days of his life.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because what happens is when you're in a crisis like that, and over the years I've gone to hospice many times, and you see someone in the last month of their life, and sometimes their uh child or grandchild comes in and oh, I know, I know grandpa, he loves this show, and they turn a show on television.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: I've never, never seen someone who's within weeks of dying care a bit about a show that they loved previously, they just don't care about it.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody came up to me today and told me, you know, they had a friend.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: He was a prominent Topekan.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: He had loads of friends, he was very wealthy, he had a business, a couple businesses, and and very popular man in town, and he died not long ago, and he was over at hospice in the whole city, you know, traiped down there and lined up to see him.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And this person who talked to me was his best friend, and I was in the room and he said, It's just just funny.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: He told me to ask all of those people to go away.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I don't care about popularity anymore, I don't care about all that stuff.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: I do care about heaven.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: I care about where I'm about to go.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And what happens is all of those things that seem to matter so much no longer matter, and all of a sudden it's you're so ready for a new experience with God.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: So it was in the year that King Isiach died, and here you have these four two two words in Hebrew, but four words, I saw the Lord.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: How would that be great?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord loves it.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to see him, beat it.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I saw the Lord.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, notice L-O-R-D with a small O, small R, small, small D, just an FYI.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: In your Bible, the Bible that you hold, if you see the four capital letters, the Bible does that, your Bible to let you know that that's the Hebrew name Yahweh, which is the personal name of God.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Back in the old days, a hundred years ago, there was a translation that used the word Jehovah, which was similar close, but everybody freaked out at that.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't like it.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was kind of weird, so you don't see translations do that.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: I miss having that word in the Bible sometimes.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: One of the reasons I like the Christian standard Bible, because at least it uses it about 50 times in the Old Testament when it really fits.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, that's the personal name for God.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: That is not the word that's used in this text.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: No, instead in Isaiah 6, the word we find a couple times is small o, small r, small d.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Have you heard the Hebrew word Adonai?
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Ever heard that word?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we use that in songs sometimes, and that means the Lord, master, or sovereign.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Sovereign, as in king, as in the numerouno king, as in the king of kings.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so we read in Isaiah chapter 6, verse 1.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna read that he sees the sovereign, Lord, the King of Kings, who's over the whole earth.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, after he sees the Lord, he's gonna see himself.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the seven verses we're gonna preach today.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I've changed the words here until I saw the sovereign, high and exalted, for that's where he is.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: He is high and lifted up and over all other kings and authorities, completely authoritative, and does on earth, said Daniel chapter 4, whatever he pleases, for he is the king, and he's seated on a throne.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: He's seated on a throne.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Have you noticed that you never read about God uh pacing, never read about God running, never read about God hurrying, never read about God unloading a truck or mowing a lawn or any.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: God's always seated because that's what kings do if they feel at peace, if they feel in control.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody else is running around.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: But God is in utter control.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: He's sitting, literally, he's sitting on his throne right now.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Interestingly, by the way, we're told in the New Testament that this is Jesus, actually, that Isaiah is seeing in his glory, sort of like the transfiguration.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then we read that the train of his robe filled the temple, which is interesting.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you think of a train, you think of a bridal gown, don't you?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: But in the Middle East, in the ancient Near East, they didn't have bridal grounds with trains.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, they had no robes with trains that we know of, and the better translation is probably the hem of his garment or the skirt of his garment.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean, really?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, who cares?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, who cares about his robe?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Why would you put that in there?
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying, as I read sermons and read commentaries, I'm surprised that people go into this, like, here, the robe this and the robe that and so forth.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, if you think about the other passages in the Bible where God shows himself to someone, you know, you're when you see God, you're supposed to fry immediately, you're supposed to die, worse than Medusa type thing.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: But God still shows himself to Moses and to the elders of Israel at the Mount Sinai, and here and there at times, and he protects them, and so they don't die.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, when you when when Ezekiel or when the elders of Israel, when they saw God, none of them describe God.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: The elders come down from the top of Mount Sinai, 70 of them.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: The Israelites go, what was it like seeing God?
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: And they say, Well, the pavement underneath his feet was a beautiful blue.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's sapphire.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: It was sapphire-colored.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Who cares?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when you're in front of a king, though, you you you don't stare at the king.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, your eyes are down low, and so they they focus on the pavement.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel, you know, sees God and so forth.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: What do we come away from Ezekiel chapter 1 with?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Wheels within wheels, the wheels that are carrying the thing around.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's a lot more like that woman who had an issue of blood in the New Testament who crawls to Jesus and she never gets higher than the hem of his garment.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: She grasps onto the hem because that's what you do when you're before the most holy God.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're not up there in his face staring at him.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Not even the angels that surround him are looking at them.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: With their wings, they're gonna cover their eyes.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: You have your eyes down low.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we're supposed to see here is man, if even the hymn or the skirt of his robe is filling the temple, what must he be like?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: He certainly is the one who fills the temple.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, he fills the whole earth.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: What a great God.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: And above him were seraphim, each with six wings.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: With two they were flying.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: First time, the only time in the Bible we hear about this category of angel.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: The only time we have cherubim oftentimes, especially in Revelation.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Says they were above them, but that's really not what it means in Hebrew.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: It means really they're standing around them.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: They were standing, he's sitting, so you know they're sort of above him in that way.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how many, doesn't tell us how many there were.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: There may have been two long lines because they're calling back and forth to each other, or there may have been dozens of them, or maybe just a few.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: And they're called seraphs, or in Hebrew, the S in Hebrew is I M, so it's seraphim.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: And uh seraphim is really uh an interesting creature.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: If I can get to it, uh, because I asked one to come and let me photograph him.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: So they are literally this they literally seraph means a burning one, seraphs means fiery ones or burning ones.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: These are fire angels, really.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I like to think of what Tolkien Lewis in their stories they describe beings of fire, and you couldn't really focus on them.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's like looking in the fireplace, and the fire is always moving, but they're fearsome, fearsome creatures.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Every king has his attendants, people who help him stand around him.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: The great God of the universe has really freaky attendants, people that would scare us to death were we to see them or get close to them.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: And there's any number of these around him, these seraphs in English or seraphim in Hebrew, and they're standing around him, and it says, each with six wings.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: With two wings they covered their faces, like we said, you don't pry into or stare at God.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: And with two they cover their feet, probably out of a kind of humility, covering themselves.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Get this.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you and I saw one of these creatures, we would collapse on the ground, right?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we would be full of terror, and yet these creatures clearly are in terror of the God that they serve.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine how fearsome he is.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's two-thirds of the of their wings are taken with that, and the other third is taken with flying, with the serving of God.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: If I can get to that.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, so they're flying with uh with those two wings right there, I just decided, and then the other, the others are like covering and so forth.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: So um, and they're calling to one another holy, holy, holy.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: So each one is calling back and forth, I think probably in delight.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: They're loving to do this.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: The whole earth is full of his glory.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And they're doing this over and over again.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: This morning we did some worship singing, and we actually repeated some phrases and lines.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: I know how people don't like that.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Some people don't like that.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Somehow the angels get away with it.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: And they did it back then, and they just kept doing it.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: And apparently they're gonna keep doing it because in Revelation, this is the one literal quotation of the Old Testament in the entire book of Revelation, and the angels in heaven are crying back and forth, holy, holy, holy.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, if God can hear that ten trillion times just like that, I'm figuring he's not bothered when we repeat a phrase in a worship song three or four times.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make any sense?
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: I know it may bug you.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry about that.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Holy, holy, holy.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, the only time an attribute of God is repeated more than twice, this is three times, not mercy, mercy, mercy, not love, love, love.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: We focus on the man-centered, the things that he does for us.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: But the only one repeated like this is the most important attribute of God.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: This attribute of God, holy, is used more in the Old Testament than every other attribute combined.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it is a little bit of a problem because actually the word holy comes from words that mean to be set apart.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm set apart or distinct from you, I'm sort of unapproachable.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: I am a cut above you, and the word has to do with cutting apart, setting apart, and it usually means being set apart to a deity, which doesn't make sense because God is the deity.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: How could he be set apart to another deity?
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: But to be separate or distinct.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, it's not a religious or pious word in and of itself.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: We use it that way.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: When we say someone's holy, we usually mean they're really pure or they're really pious, right?
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Or they're righteous or something.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: But the root of the word is really kind of secular, because this word kadosh, and you hear it kadosh, kadosh, kadosh.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: Jews use it, Israelites use it all the time.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: But this word was used of prostitutes at this time.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: In the Canaanite religion, they'd have these prostitutes that would serve in these pagan temples, and and and they were set apart to the Canaanite gods doing the prostitution work for them or whatever, and they were called Kedishim.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: They were called the Holy One.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: So this really just basically means set apart to God.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, so how can God be set apart to God?
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he, of course, is just set apart in and of himself, just because he is completely and utterly distinct from you and from me and from all of his creation and from everything else that's ever existed.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: He's utterly and totally what?
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: He's utterly and totally God.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: So for God to be holy just simply means God is God.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: He's completely different.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: He's completely wholly other.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing like you or I can imagine.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Fire angels are going to seem tame compared with what we find out that God is like.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, God is separated from us morally, and so that's where we get the fact that he's pure and righteous and those moral attributes.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that's very important when he says, be ye holy as I am holy.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't mean be omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't give us the list of attributes which make him completely set apart and distinct, for the word holy is basically the sum of all the other attributes.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: No, what he means is you be holy morally as I am holy morally.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: Don't lie, don't steal, don't be afflicted with greed, but be morally set apart to me.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what it means, and that's why Isaiah and the rest of his book chose his favorite title for God, a title you won't find hardly anywhere else in the Bible.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Isaiah's favorite title for God is Kadosh Yishrael, the holy one of Israel, the one who is distinct and set apart.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: We use that word holy in so many ways, right?
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Holy cow and holy Toledo and holy moly, whatever that means.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: You like that?
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: So but the word holy is a word that is basically a synonym for God in the Old Testament.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Holy is his name, we are told several times.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: And all these other things are holy.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silent before him, as Isaiah fell silent, because anything that's associated with God, a holy ground or a holy bush, or a holy man, or a holy woman, a holy hand, a holy offering, all of these things are holy because they're set apart to God.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you're holy and that you're set apart to God.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: That you are away from everything else that cries out for your allegiance, and you run to find your home in Him.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: So He is holy, and they cry out to each other: holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: The whole earth is full of His, you expect it to say holiness, but you remember holiness is not something that everybody sees.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Holiness is basically the internal attribute of who God is.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: But when that's taken public, when that goes out on the airwaves, when God's holiness is seen, the Bible says that that, what we see it as, is we see it as glory.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: And glory is what we ascribe to God when we know that He is holy and completely and amazing above us.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: He is transcendent.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, how encouraging is this to know that even though God is totally different from us, he cares enough to come down to a temple and reveal himself.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know whether it's the earthly temple or a heavenly temple, and don't know if Isaiah was there or not.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: Isaiah doesn't tell us whether he was actually there in the temple or it was just a vision.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: But God cares enough to come down and want to reveal himself to Isaiah and to you and to me and to the whole earth.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so he says, you know what?
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: The whole earth is full of my glory.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: I would really like for you to participate in this.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: I would like for you to see me as I am, to want to see me as I am, at the end of your extremity, when everything else in your life is falling apart, when you've lost the love of your life and bereavement or whatever, I would like that to be the moment that you cry out to me, and I will come to you and I will show you myself and all of my transcendence, because I'm also wanting to be imminent and intimate with each and every one of you.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: And verse 4 concludes the revelation of God to us when it says, at the sound of their voices, that is the voices of the seraphim, the doorposts and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: We have what we often have when God shows up.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: We have earthquake and we have smoke.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I take it that Isaiah is prostrate, that he's groveling at the threshold, which is why he mentions it.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Just as he mentions the hem of his garment, because that's what he's looking at.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think the whole temple was shaking.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think the whole of Mount Zion was shaking, and it was all filled with smoke.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: And once you've seen God, then finally you see yourself.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: We live in a day when many courses at public school on self-image, but mainly what they teach is for you to look in the mirror and see yourself.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: But a biblical self-image is found not by looking in the mirror.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: A biblical self-image is found by looking and seeing God and finding your self-image flowing from that.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so in verses five through seven, Isaiah's response as he sees God is he finally sees himself.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why all of a sudden you have me and I, and I am running, and I am a man, and I live, and so forth, and my eyes, because when you've come face to face with God, then you finally see yourself.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: And here's a guy, a prophet, who's been saying in chapters one through five to everybody else in the country woe to you women who obsess about handbags and perfume and earrings, woe to you men who obsess about getting more money and adding field to field and getting rich.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: And woe to you, it just goes down the list.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: Woe to everyone else.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: Primarily his woes in chapters one through five are about social injustice.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Woe to you for taking advantage of the helpless, for dragging people into court who can't hire an attorney, for stealing from people, for tromping on orphans and widows.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, in just an instant, something changes.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: Isaiah number one, Isaiah goes, I've been saying woe to you, but it's woe to me.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: I myself am a sinner.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: I've been telling you how bad you are, but I now see myself.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: If you're occupied with how much worse everyone around you is than you yourself, then you need a vision of God.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing that Isaiah clearly sees is all of a sudden the standard of right and wrong gets more personal.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: Up till now it's been the law, it's been social justice, it's been treating people right.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: But all of a sudden he realizes that social justice is important to God, but sin is sin, not because it's sin against injustice or sin against the law.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: Sin is sin because it's a profanation, it's a betrayal, it's a rebellion against a person, the very person of holy God Himself.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so he says, Woe to me, I am ruined, or I prefer I am doomed, I'm I'm dead.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: He's not begging for forgiveness.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't even think about that.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: He expects right now to be tromped down by this God, to be destroyed, to lose his life.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, For I'm a man of unclean lips.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Why does he talk about his lips?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: I expect him to say, I'm a man of an unclean heart, an unclean life.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so unholy.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it may be because he's a prophet.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's been using his mouth is how he gets around.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he's been saying things, and he feels now like he's a hypocrite.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it means that he's guilty of profanity or that he tells dirty jokes.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: He's the most righteous man in all of Israel.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think he realizes that out of the heart the mouth speaketh.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I think as he hears the antiphonal choir going back and forth, these fiery angels going, holy, holy, holy, contrasts himself.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: And my eyes have seen the king.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord Almighty.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: Some of your translations, I think, are better here because instead of the Lord Almighty, the word, the phrase actually is my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: A host is an army.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen the warrior king, the general of the angel armies.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: These scary angels, these fiery angels.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: And a warrior of armies would have no problem destroying someone like me who's been a rebel against him.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: When Isaiah sees God for who he is, he sees himself for who he is, and he's overcome with the fact he has a dirty mouth and he has a dirty heart and he has a dirty life.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: Though he does not plead for God's grace or God's compassion, he finds it, for then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: I found myself wondering, how did that seraphim know?
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I figure God maybe, you know, in his mind, just communicate, hey, George, go get a coal.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the seraphim just flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he'd taken with tongs from the altar.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: I assume maybe it was the altar from right outside the altar of burnt offering where they offered the sin offerings and the peace offerings.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: I would like to think that maybe that coal that the seraphim picked was maybe the coal, the charred remains of the bone of a sacrificial lamb.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: Someone had brought to the temple to make sacrifice for sin.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: A lamb that would represent, of course, later Jesus Christ who sacrificed for our sin.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: But this frightening angel comes as he's lying prone on the ground, and with it he touched my mouth.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine there, tssss, you know, the pain.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it is painful when you confess your sin, when you look at yourself for who you really are, and God cleanses you.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a pleasant experience.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: And the angel finally speaks and he says, This has touched your lips.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine how Isaiah felt at that moment.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: I can't believe this.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: I can't believe the graciousness of God.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: Let me leave you with five lessons, can't I, uh, from this text?
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: The first lesson is this a time of heartache and loss is the perfect time for God to reveal Himself to us in a life-changing way.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've shared this already.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: It happened when Isaiah lost his close friend and the hope of his country.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh when Colson, you know, uh actually, uh let me tell that story right now.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh Colson didn't just have heartache and loss.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh let me tell you the story of Chuck Colson, and it fits in with lesson number two that even the best Christian needs a life-changing encounter with Holy God.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: So Isaiah's the best Christian in all of Israel, the best we'd call him a Christian, but he needs something more.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: He needs an encounter with the Holy God.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mentioned Colson because in 1973, Chuck Colson was an unbeliever and he was an arrogant, whatever you call it.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: And Watergate was going on.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: And in the midst of this, Chuck Colson was invited to a friend's house.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: Tom Phillips was his name.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: He was a multimillionaire owner of a business.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: And Tom Phillips shared with the men that night that uh that that God had moved into his life and he had received or accepted Christ as his savior and had changed his life.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: And Colson didn't understand that at all.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: But as he went back out to his car, he he he was struck by the fact that Tom, his friend, had a kind of peace that he didn't have.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, I got in my car and I tried to put the key in the ignition, but I couldn't.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: I started crying so hard.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: I knew he had something I wanted.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I realized that I was full of sin.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't just Watergate sin, it wasn't just lying and all that.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: He said, there was a deeper kind of sin.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: He said, You know what I'm talking about.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: We all feel this deep-seated evil inside us, and I was absolutely overcome and overwhelmed with the kind of a person I was, and I cried out to God, and in that moment he said, I felt as though the arms of God enfolded me.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that night I became born again.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: That night I trusted Jesus as my Savior.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: But then something happened, and this is why I want to say this, because now Colson's traveling around the country and he's he's you know, prison, started this prison ministry, and he's become famous and he's a leading Christian, but he says, I went through a went through a dry desert in my life.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: I just felt at the end of myself it was horrible.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, I asked a friend about it, and he said, you know, I think you ought to watch this video series on the holiness of God.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: So he said, I decided to do it.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: By the time I got to lesson number six, he said, I found myself on my knees on the floor, and I was weeping, utterly overcome with God's holiness and the fact that I was just dirty.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: And he said uh that transformed me for the rest of my life.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: He said, uh, it ended my spiritual draught, but he said it started this hunger for the glory and majesty and holiness of God that has never left me.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: And my point was this: my point is even the best Christian, no matter who you are, Isaiah or Chuck Coulson or Job, Job's called by God in chapter one, the most righteous man on the face of the whole earth.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then he comes, of course, to the end of himself because everybody dies.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: He's an incredible pain and he's an incredible ministry.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: He's like that hopeless person that I told you about, who has cancer.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: And Job is at the end of himself, and then he starts speaking, he starts complaining and so forth, and then God reveals himself to him as Job cries out, I want to see you.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: And after seeing God, Job is absolutely devastated, and he says, I grovel in the dust before you, in dust and ashes, because I see myself as simply a sinner.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's when God forgave him, and that's when God restored him.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see?
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: My point here is whoever you are, this is an experience that you need, and an experience that you can have.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, I promise that once you catch a glimpse of God in his holiness, you, like Isaiah, like Job, like Chuck Colson, will be changed forever.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a sort of uh, this is a sort of pattern that you have to go through.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope you're not stuck in just number one.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's when you feel desperate.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's when something's happened to give you heartache, something's happened to give you pain, something's happened that's left you at the end of yourself, and as a result, you cry out for God, and then he shows you himself, and as a result, you become broken in the dust before him, and then he reaches out, even if you don't ask for it, and he gives you forgiveness and he gives you grace and compassion, and as a result, you outflow with praise and glory and service.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's the pattern.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you in that pattern?
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, five, I urge you to cry out, God, I want to see you.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: Show me your holiness.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: I had a life-transforming experience with the holiness of God when I was uh just before I hit 20 years old.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was a junior at college, and a number of a lot of us got together, and and it was just gonna be a regular meeting, but then a guy that we all knew and all admired as a leader at college stood up and wept, and he confessed that he had a problem with pornography.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: He confessed he's not the person that we all thought he was.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody else got up right after that, another guy, and he shared his sin, and then a girl guy, and and these were some people we all knew and we all admired, and they were being so vulnerable and they were being so open, and all of a sudden the spirit seemed to fall on us, and for 24 hours through the night without stopping, we'd go up front and we'd share our sins.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was quite secular at that time.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'd grown up Christian, but I wandered away.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was planning to be a math teacher or something, and then something happened that night that utterly changed the direction of my life.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: Utterly broke me.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not something that should happen just once in your life, though that one time will change the rest of your life as it did mine.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: Isaiah's Job's Chuck Colson's.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think you need to seek it again and again.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's one reason every year I go away, try to go for away for a week.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: My brother Rob.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: Try to find a place on a beach.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: We just walk up and down the beach all day long, talk to God, and usually it takes several days, and I get to the end of myself and the end of my ability to pray, and something breaks, and see God for who he is, and and I have in a small way that kind of experience again where I feel like I see God for who he is, and all of the pride, the self-sufficiency breaks down.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of saying, Whoa, are other people, I start saying, woe is me, and God in his grace comes and does an incredible thing in your life when you get to that place.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I I I beg you to cry out and expect God to answer.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that's our message on the holiness of God.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: We'll sing about that in just a minute.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: Would you bow your head in a word of prayer with me?
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: And Father, we thank you for this reminder that when you see your you for who you are, that then we see ourselves for who we are.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: And everything can change.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: We adore and admire you for being who you are, for being holy.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: Holy, holy.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: In the name of Jesus we pray.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.