God is Holy Isaiah 6:1–7; Exodus 15:11

INTRODUCTION “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” That of course is one of the most well known sentences from A. W. Tozer’s book, The Knowledge of the Holy. He went on to say, “Were we able to extract from any man a complete answer to the question, ‘What comes into your mind when you think about God?’ we might predict with certainty the spiritual future of that man.”

How you think about God in the depth of your heart, is an indicator of where your spiritual future lies. If you think of God only full of wrath and vengeance, you will likely miss out on grace. If you think of God only as loving and forgiving, then it’s likely you will not show much concern for righteousness. If you think of God primarily as one who affirms everyone, then you’ll likely feel affirmed even in the midst of your sin. Our vision of God matters because our conception of God never remains in the abstract or theoretical. Rather, it profoundly shapes the way in which we live.

My hope is that a sense of urgency will fall on you this morning. An urgency to know God. An urgency to have a vision of God that is not shaped by your imagination, your presuppositions, your upbringing, or your experience. But shaped by what God has revealed about himself. Because if we do not think rightly about God - if we fail to grasp the essence of his nature - our very future is at stake. Understand this: your life will forever be shaped by your vision of God.

Thankfully, when the people of God lose their vision of God, God has a way of breaking in and communicating his majesty. One such instance occurs in the book of Isaiah. You can begin making your way to the sixth chapter of that book. One of the great Old Testament prophets, Isaiah’s ministry spanned over four different kings - at least 60 years. Our text this morning takes place at the end of that first kingship. The year is 740 B.C. Uzziah had sat on the throne longer than anyone else. Longer than David. Longer than Solomon. Starting at age 16, he reigned in Jerusalem for 52 years.

The Bible says he started out well. In fact, 2 Chronicles 26:4 says he did was right in the eyes of the Lord. God made him prosper in everything he did. He won battles over nations. He built towers and walls in Jerusalem. There was remarkable prosperity. The strengthening of defenses. Increases in military technology. He expanded the nation’s agriculture. For the majority of his kingship he did everything well. But when he grew strong, he became proud and unfaithful. And he then made a very costly mistake. One day he went into the temple and did what God only allowed the priests to do. They tried to stop him, but they couldn’t. And Uzziah had to live the rest of his life with leprosy.

Now, Uzziah wasn’t the only one whose confidence became a stumbling block. Because they enjoyed so many years of peace and prosperity, God’s people as a whole became casual about the things of God. In the midst of their success, God seemed to carry little weight. Whereas they had once trusted in the promises of God, they no longer believed. The first five chapters describe in detail their failures as a nation. And perhaps it is 1:4 that best summarizes their situation: "They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged.”

Perhaps another way to think about it: Their vision of God had diminished so much that their lives no longer rejected the reality of his presence. And therefore, their lives were not in the

slightest bit distinguishable from those around them. What they thought about God - what you think about God - paves the way for the future of your spiritual life. Fortunate for them, God commissioned a man named Isaiah to bring a message - a majestic vision of God.

READ Isaiah 6:1–7….

A Great King Dies, And Another Lives (1–4) It was an experience that left Isaiah a changed man. “I saw the Lord,” he says. It seems most likely that this vision was similar to the one John had in the New Testament where he saw the risen Christ. And remember, Isaiah had been preaching and involved in ministry. And now there is an encounter with God himself that will shape and sustain him for a lifetime of ministry. “I saw the Lord.”

When Isaiah enters the temple, he sees something he’s never seen before. He sees, not the King who just died, but THE KING. He sees the Lord. And I want you to notice in your Bible that its Lord with a capital “L” and lowercase “ord.” But later in the passage you see Lord in all caps. That’s not a typo. There are two Hebrew words for Lord. When you see the word LORD, that’s the Hebrew word Yaweh. Yaweh is the sacred name for God in the Bible. It’s the name that’s unspeakable. It is God’s holy name. But, when you see the word Lord in the Bible it is the Hebrew word Adoni. Adoni is not the name of God. It’s a title. It means sovereign. Think about it. King Uzziah is dead. There’s a crisis of sovereignty in Judah. And Isaiah says, I’ve seen the sovereign one. He’s sitting upon the throne.

And what exactly did Isaiah see? He saw the “Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.” It’s interesting you find something similar in every occasion when the glory of God is revealed. Exodus 24:10 for example, Moses and Aaron are with the seventy elders of Israel and it says the saw the God of Israel. And here’s how He is described: “There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness.” It’s as if in seeing God they can’t bear to look directly on the brightness of his glory. So they look down. Moses can only describe what is beneath his feet. And likewise, Isaiah can only describe the train of his robe as it filled the temple.

Or think of John in the New Testament. Remember when he saw the rise Christ in Revelation and he described his face as shinning like the sun. Well, you know as well as I do that you can’t really look directly at the sun. You can grasp his glory, but you can’t look directly at it. And here, the great temple in Jerusalem can hardly contain the hem of his garment.

Not only was Isaiah there, the seraphim were there. Now the seraphim are angelic beings. They’re not humans like you and I. But they are creatures. They’re part of the heavenly hosts. And nowhere else in the Bible is there a description of Angles quite like this. Verse 2 and 3: “Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!’”

They have have six wings. Why six? Well the two needed to fly is completely understandable. Everyone knows that angels fly. But then there’s two to cover their face. And that also makes sense, because they’re in the presence of God. They need something to protect their eyes against the direct gaze on the face of God. They’re in awe of their creator.

So those two make sense. But why two wings to cover their feet? Well the text doesn’t say. But I think it’s similar to something that we see in Exodus 3. Do you remember what happens in

Exodus 3? God appears to Moses in a burning bush. The bush is engulfed in flames, but doesn’t burn. And God tells Moses to take off his sandals, because he’s standing on holy ground. Even the angels have to recognize, that they are created beings. And God is the creator.

But that’s not the only thing they did to acknowledge God. They then call out to one another in song saying, “Holy Holy Holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory!” At first, this might not stand out to you. But this is the very centerpiece of Isaiah’s vision. Three times he repeats the word Holy. This is a Hebrew way of emphasizing something. When you want to emphasize something in writing, what do you do? You underline, italicize, or place exclamation points. Perhaps if you texting someone you include an emoji. But in Hebrew, you use repetition. In fact, Jesus himself would often do this. He would say things twice. “Truly, truly, I say to you.” And that was Jesus’ way of saying this is truth! And even though there are some instances in the Bible where something is repeated three times, this is the only place an attribute of God is elevated to the third degree. God’s holiness, distinguishes him from everyone else. The Bible talks about the splendor of his holiness in Psalm 29:2. It talks about the majesty of his holiness in Exodus 15:11. It talks about the incomparability of his holiness in Isaiah 40:25. God is distinct. He is separate. It’s not that God is just bigger than us. He is in a different category. He is Holy.

We have to conclude that the holiness of God is so foundational to his nature, that if we don’t grasp his holiness, we don’t know who He is. Fail to grasp the holiness of God, and you fail to understand who he is. The holiness of God has been described as the beauty of all his attributes. Now, I don’t think we should necessarily elevate one attribute of God over the other. But perhaps no other attribute has garnered more attention than his holiness. After all, the seraphim didn’t cry, “love, love, love” or “grace, grace, grace.” Not because he isn’t the definition of those attributes, but because holiness but sums up his attributes. Take away the holiness of God and his wisdom is not the same, his justice is not the same, his sovereignty not the same.”

God is holy. But how do we go about defining his holiness. Stephen Charnock, the puritan, put it like this: “perfect and unpolluted freedom from all evil.” Absolute, moral purity. He is holy in his nature. He is the pattern of holiness. He is the cause of all holiness that we might see in others. And he possesses a moral perfection that we do not. And do you know what the implication is? It means that God hates sin. Everything that is contrary to his holiness - to him, he must abhor. If that were not true, it would mean that God approves of sin and would deny himself. But that is simply impossible.

And God, who is Holy, is filling the earth with his glory. God is not just out there, somewhere. He is here. The goodness, and the glory of God is spilling over into the world he created. It’s possible that in your daily routine you simply don’t feel the presence of God. After all, it’s easy to get absorbed in our own ambitions and desires. But the truth is, God is not restricted to a temple. God’s not locked in a heavenly throne room. In fact, it’s God’s purpose to someday make all the earth into an extension of his throne room.

As the seraphim cry out, “holy, holy, holy,” something else happens. The foundations of the thresholds shook. If anything, this should shake from your head the image of a chubby, baby- like angles. These angles are something else. As they cry out, proclaiming God’s holiness – everything within this temple is shaking. Why? Because a true and accurate picture of God, should make us shake in the very place we stand.

When you think about God, does his holiness fill your mind? When you think about God do you feel as if you would fall down in worship? If you were to picture God himself coming down would envision this entire building shaking? Is this the God you know, the way Isaiah describes him?

Let me ask a bit of a different question. Do you find God boring? Do you find that the thought of Him does not move you? Is your experience that you give him little attention, and when you do you walk away, always unchanged? If that is true, then I want to suggest to you that you do not know God. And until you grasp the beauty of his holiness, you never will. In fact, it’s ironic when you think about the situation in Isaiah 6. God gives a vision of himself to Isaiah so that the very people who claim to know him - but don’t - would be awakened to the majesty of his holiness. And I want you to consider that He is doing very much the same this morning.

A Response of Despair (5) Now, if you look at the text, the doorposts and thresholds were not the only thing shaking. Isaiah was shaking. Isaiah sees the living God. He sees the King. He sees the one who is Holy. He beholds the majesty of God. And he cries out, “Woe is me!” Does anyone talk like that? After all, it sounds a bit archaic. Rarely do you hear anyone say in a serious tone, “woe is me.” But in the Bible, that phrase, “woe is me,” is not a phrase to be taken lightly. You see in the Bible, we have what is called prophetic speech. And prophetic speech can be positioned postitively as well as negatively. When it’s done positively it usually sounds like, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, or blessed are those who mourn.” This was a typical formula. But when used negatively, it sounds like, “woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites.” To say “woe” is to pronounce God’s judgment and ultimately the destruction of who its directed towards. But if Isaiah the prophet is saying, “woe is me,” then who is he pronouncing God’s judgment upon? Himself.

Isaiah says goes on to say that he’s lost. He’s ruined. He’s undone. And Isaiah’s the kind of guy that you would think has it all together. He’s a prophet, he’s got integrity, people probably thought he was a person of virtue. He’s the type you look at in society and say, “hey not a bad person to model your life after.” So then why does he curse himself? He does so, because for the first time, he sees who God really is, and he sees himself for who he really is. For the first time Isaiah understood who God was, and for the first time Isaiah understood Isaiah.

So when you and I go through periods where it feels like we are wandering through a spiritual wasteland. When we lose that sense of awe, when we don’t desire the things of God, when we don’t feel his presence – maybe the problem is that you have too small a view of God. And maybe too big a view of yourself. When Isaiah saw the Lord, he saw the sovereign king, the Holy one, the distinct and separate one. He saw perfection. And when he looked at God, he couldn’t help but see himself. And he found out that he was like every other sinful person in Judah. He couldn’t elevate himself above anyone else, and he certainly couldn’t elevate himself about God. He saw his sin. And when he saw his sin, he knew that he deserved death.

But look again at how he describes his problem in verse 5. I think it’s very significant that he says, “for I am a man of unclean lips.” You know why? Because he was a preacher, and perhaps one of the greatest! He was gifted. But in the presence of God he felt that his greatest strength - his greatest gift - was still marred by sin. He recognized this: If he was going to be used by God, even his greatest gift needed the cleansing touch of God. Do you realize that? The best part about you still needs the redeeming work of God.

Tozer says, “unless the weight of the burden is felt the gospel can mean nothing to the man; and until he sees a vision of God high and lifted up, there will be no woe and no burden.” In some sense I believe the burden of this passage rests here: You will never experience the

presence and the power of God, the joy of God, and the knowledge of God until you have first stood in his presence and recognized that you need to be cleansed.

The Cleansing of His Holiness (6–7) Have you been in that place, where you’ve stood before the Lord, and said “woe is me! I am lost?” What Isaiah realizes in that moment is that he stands before the Lord condemned. Did you notice that after the thresholds shake the temple is filled with smoke. Isaiah is enveloped in darkness. He’s aware of the activity of God. He’s aware of the angles, but he stuck in darkness. Could there not be a clearer picture of what it means to be dead in our trespasses? With no ability to save ourselves?

But look at what happens next. “The one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atone for.”

When we see God, we cannot help but realize how wretched we are. We cannot help but see how much we deserve the judgment of God. But when we realize that. We can also see something about God. In this passage there’s another attribute of God we see. It’s his mercy. Isaiah is probably on his knees. He’s trembling. He’s probably praying that somehow, someway, he can get out from the holy gaze of God. He is enduring the anguish that comes when we truly see how sinful and corrupt we really are. The crushing weight of his guilt is upon him.

But God is also a God of grace. He has one of the seraphim break from his flying path around the throne. He comes flying straight towards Isaiah, and in his hands are a set of tongs holding a burning coal from the altar. Some say the seraph needed tongs because the coal was simply that hot, too hot for an angel. Others say, that the burning coal was a holy thing. Either way, it’s important we realize that it belongs to the place of sacrifice and atonement and forgiveness. The altar was the place in which sacrifices were made so that sinners might be brought into a right relationship with God.

And the seraph takes this coal and touches Isaiah’s dirty mouth. And you would think that it would have burned him. The lips are one of the most sensitive parts of human flesh. But instead, it healed him. And Isaiah experienced a cleansing that went for beyond the purification of his lips. The seraph says, “behold, your guilt has been taken away and your sins atoned for.”

Now, don’t misunderstand. This isn’t some sort of cheap grace. Isaiah didn’t just say he’s sorry. His sin was exposed. There was a deep conviction, so intense that it caused him to repent. Now we have to look at this story in the context of the whole Bible, it leads us straight to the person of Jesus Christ. You simply can’t read this account without turning forward in the New Testament to John 12. In John 12:40, the disciple quotes a portion of Isaiah 6. And then in verse 41, this is what he says, “Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him.”

Wait?! Did you catch that? Whose the “him?” In the Old Testament were told he saw the glory of the God, but in the New Testament were told he saw the glory of the Son. But the Father has been sharing his glory with the Son since before the world began. And time and time again what we see is that the glory of God is being made known, through the Son. The Son is the image of the invisible God, the exact imprint of his nature, the radiance of his glory.

Christ went to the place of sacrifice. And it wasn’t for any sin of his own. Pure and holy, he gave he sacrificed himself in our place, for our sins. And when we see ourselves for who we are, (God for who he is), and we repent of our sins, place our faith in Christ, then we can be made holy. And God the Father says, “your sins have been atoned for, your guilt taken away.”

You see the holiness of God was no more beautifully displayed than in the ugliness of Christ’s death on the cross. We’re told in Psalm 22:1-3 that the holiness of the Father demanded that he forsake his son on the cross. God became a man, he bled to death, all so that the justice of his divine holiness would be satisfied.

CONCLUSION If we’ve encountered the holiness of God and experienced his cleansing, will we…. - Will I have a serious concern about sin and the need for obedience? - Will I grieve over our sin instead of indulge in it? - Will I see his grace as the motivation for my own holiness?