Isaiah, Chapter 6
Isaiah 6:1-8 · Vern Peterman · Feb 5, 2006
Isaiah, No. 09
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4826234333214

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. We're moving into the sixth chapter of Isaiah. We're going to do the quick warm-up here on it. We're going to look at it this way. The first eight verses here, we're going to study in more detail. We're going to make a visit to heaven's throne room.

At the end of it, the Lord commissions Isaiah to speak to the people of Judah. Then the next couple of verses, verses 9 and 10, gives a heart condition assessment. Describes the heart disease that the people of Judah have Then the next verses 11 through 13 Describe okay, that's the heart disease, but here's what it looks like on the outside And here's what it's going to look like so Isaiah has some tough things To convey to these people and the Lord is telling him rather succinctly, but very directly Here's what it looks like in their hearts and in their land Now, we're going to be asking some questions as we step through it.

What does Isaiah 6, 1-8 tell us about how Isaiah sees God's character? What is revealed about God's character? One of the things we pointed out early on, even though the Lord deals differently with different people groups, God's character remains the same. We're going to see things about God's character in the passage that are as valid during the time when Christ was on the earth as they will be in the eons to come. We're also going to look at it and say, what does Isaiah 6, 1 through 8 tell us about how Isaiah sees himself? He sees God's character. He sees what's on the heavenly scene. What does that tell him about how Isaiah views himself?

Next, how does Isaiah's description of this heavenly temple that he spells out for people there and his response compare with what's revealed in the New Testament in the epistles in the book of Revelation. How does it compare with where we stand, who are in the Church, and not in Judah, and not in Jerusalem, 2700 years ago?

Okay, so looking at this passage here, we're going to be breaking it up into these parts, one byte at a time. When we started off, we had an outline, we called it the Isaiah Echo. Isaiah, as you look at it, breaks into two parts that have a lot in common. almost as if it's a repeated pattern. And what we're doing here is, starting in chapter 6, we're looking into this second category that will go on from 6 through 8. Sometimes it's called, this section, the Book of Emmanuel, as we'll see as we proceed through it, why.

Now, in the year of Uzziah's death, he dates it, he gives a specific date, but it's not only just a specific date, it's a special kind of time. It's a special time because Uzziah had been the most powerful king ruling out of Jerusalem since the time of Solomon. The time of Solomon was great. The northern and southern kingdoms were not divided at that point in time, but one kingdom under Solomon. Uzziah, now a couple centuries later, had a reign and a rule that was lengthy and showed great power and influence.

He was a powerful king and he was a righteous king in great part. But I'm afraid to tell you a good news, bad news story. There's good news to tell you and that's that he had reigned long and he had reigned well. The bad news, the end of it was not good. What happened was this.

He died a leper in the last part of his life because his kingship and the power that he had went to his head and he went charging into the temple and attempted to be a priest. He was of the line of David. He is, if you'll look in the book of Matthew, in the lineage of Jesus Christ. He is indeed among the house of David, but he's not a Levite. It was not proper for him to go do that. So his consequence was that he was a leper for his last year. Now, there's something else we brought out some weeks back.

There's a burial plaque on the Mount of Olives. That's the mount just across from the valley that separates the Temple Mount and the Mount of Olives. And it reads this way. Here the bones of Uzziah, king of Judah, were brought. Do not open. He was laid there amongst a number of other kings. Here's Isaiah, he has given the date and the time, a difficult time, and think of it this way. Here is the Lord giving Isaiah a vision of the heavenly scene at a time that's rather dismal. A time that is going to be pivotal for him.

Ever had the Lord do that with you? You're in kind of a tough time and the Lord says, hey, I want you to take a very important time out. I want you to take a perspective adjustment. in this dismal time. Ever had that happen? Has the Lord ever done that? Where He's taken you and put you in a place where He says, look, I know this time's tough, I know this is difficult, but I want your attention.

And He did it in a very dramatic way with Isaiah here. I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with a train of His robe filling the temple. Now, this is certainly a vision that the Lord has given Isaiah. Isaiah called the whole book that, but this is certainly something specific. The Lord wanted him to convey something to the people of Judah, very specific. Now, here is the Lord. He is sitting on the throne. He had authority, unparalleled majesty. He didn't say, I happened to glance and the Lord was there. Isn't that nice? He instead says, no, I saw the Lord sitting on the throne lofty and exalted.

Some years ago, there was a climber from Europe who had been climbing the Alps, and there are some challenging mountains in the Alps, I understand, for climbing. He came for the first time to the Himalayas. He asked one of the locals there, he said, what do you call these mountains here? Because he was looking up and up and up and up. And the local said, we don't have a name for those, they're too small. Those are just the foothills.

Here's Isaiah, and you can imagine him just kind of looking at the Lord, lofty and exalted, and continually amazed as he looks at the immensity of the Lord's glory. Now, in Isaiah's day, and this is something we need to understand, why is this train, or actually it's also the word used in the Hebrew for hem, why is it filled the whole temple?

Well, in Isaiah's day, and this carried into the New Testament times, Having a long robe meant importance. It meant, if you were a priest, it meant holiness. If you were part of a line of royalty, it meant great power and majesty. It meant prestige and position. If you had long tassels or something of that sort, you know, hanging from the hem, that was an extension of that hem or that train of the robe, and that communicated great power. In Mark 12, 38 and 39, we find an instance. Here is Jesus, as He was teaching, He said, beware of the scribes who like to walk around in what? Long robes.

Why? Because they look important. Were they important? No, but they thought so. And they like everybody else to think so. And that's His point for bringing it up. Even by the New Testament era, the same idea applied. Then, in Isaiah's day, one of the things we find is there was frequently purple fabric or bells attached. And we find one example in the design of the high priest's robe. Here, bells were attached. See, the robe is long all the way down to the floor. And that goes along with this jeweled and golden breastplate that the high priest wore.

It was all to communicate his place of great holiness and standing before the Lord. The other thing is the purple fabric communicated expensive. One ounce of the dye used to make the purple fabric took thousands of shells. And you can imagine the handwork and collecting those and grinding them up.

So to have a train or hem of the Lord's robe so long and so large as to fill the temple was to convey the Lord's ultimate holiness. He isn't just a little bit holy. It doesn't just kind of hang down some. It fills the whole temple. The Lord is the ultimate in holiness. The Lord has overwhelming power. Now, what about this heavenly temple idea?

We studied through Revelation a few years back now. We saw that there were about 150 verses in the heavenly scene, and as we looked at it, there was frequent reference to the Lord's seating on the throne in the heavenly temple. there was frequent reference to the temple and even the altar in the temple.

And as we go through this Isaiah 6, 3 and 4 and throughout the book of Revelation, we see that the voices were really loud. I don't want to do like I did in Revelation because there I really did go loud and I've got a few kids in the audience. Both Isaiah 6 and in Revelation, the angels served the Lord in the temple. By the way, when I did that really, really loud, that apparently was a problem because they had the speakers in the nursery. Oh boy, did it start an uproar. Anyway, so I won't do that.

Alright, the seraphim stood above him, each having six wings. With two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. This is the only clear description we have naming seraphim in the whole Bible. There are other places where similar kinds of creatures are described. But the word seraphim only shows up here with a description. Now, the im ending, the i-m ending, as we would put it in English, is like the English s. It conveys the plural. So a single one would be a seraph, one seraphim.

Then it says, and one called to another and said, now, something really good to see. What we see in the rest of verses three and four The description of what comes out is from one seraph speaking to another. And we get that from verse four. What's interesting is one, what the seraph said, and two, what indicators there were of the power with which he said it.

Did he whisper, holy, holy, holy, or what happened? Let's take a look. This is the only place in the Old Testament where we find the words holy, holy, holy, the words we sang kind of a theme song to this morning. In the New Testament, there's only one place where it shows up, and that goes along with our study of Revelation.

In 4.8, the Apostle John is given a vision of the heavenly scene and also sees holy, holy, holy.

Revelation 4.8, and the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within.

And day and night, they do not cease to say, holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come. The Lord of Hosts, this is a name that interestingly enough doesn't show up in the first books of the Bible. All the books of Moses, Joshua, doesn't show up. It begins showing up after that and shows up mostly in the writings of the prophets. One of the things that the prophets were trying to get across to the people as they were talking to them They were trying to say, look, this is the Lord you're talking about here.

This is the Lord we're trying to convey to you. He is the Lord of hosts. He is the Lord of thousands of thousands. He is the Lord of a great many. He is a Lord of great power. We're not talking about one who has one small bit of influence. This is the Lord of hosts that we're talking about. He is the creator of heaven, the angels, the great innumerable angels, the angels that do His bidding on earth. When He commands it, it is done. Now, how many is a host? How many? Isaiah and other prophets used the name the Lord of Hosts, as we mentioned. Largely the prophets who used it. But how many angels qualify as a host? Another word that's used to describe the angels is myriads.

Now that may not mean a whole lot to you. The kids, teenagers especially, eat myriads of food, you know, huge amounts. Well, this word is used here in Daniel, Hebrews, and Revelation as we saw. It is to convey from a Greek word meaning 10,000, a large number. So what John wrote in Revelation, myriads of myriads. Myriads of myriads, and that's not enough, and thousands of thousands on top of that.

A great, huge number. Notice 10,000s of 10,000s, and add to that thousands and thousands. A massive number. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain. When the voice comes out from these 10,000s of 10,000s and thousands of thousands, it is massive. It is huge.

Now, the whole earth is full of His glory. This line is consistent with what we have said is God's eternal purpose, to declare and reveal and to share His glory and so to be glorified forever and ever. The earth will be full of His glory, the earth is full of His glory, and the intent in bringing the Messiah to reign on the earth for a thousand years will be to fill the earth with His glory. It will all be consistent with His eternal purpose. Now about this next one in verse 4, the foundations of the thresholds.

King James has the posts of the door. The truth is we don't have anything quite like that in the way we construct doors. So let me explain. The city gates, which of course in the larger cities they wanted to defend the city, they wanted to keep any attacking enemies out. The city gates were often huge and very thick and substantial and they would try to often put metal on the front of the gate. Furthermore, they didn't want the gate to be something rocked easily out of its pivot points. So what they would do is they would have large stones and they would put a hole down into the stone and then put the gate post down into that stone.

And so you can imagine you have a large stone with this hole in it and a post. Frequently, the posts were locked into that pivot point. because they wanted the whole thing to be solid. So with that as the background, we get the idea. Here is the solid, large rocks that have the gate posts that are massive locked into them.

And what he's saying is the whole thing shakes. And you know what it shakes from? One serif. This isn't a great multitude. This isn't a bunch. It's not even a half dozen. One in the place rocks. One in the place shakes, one in the place trembles. That's potent. And the temple was filled with smoke. Hmm, what's that all about?

Well, we saw in Exodus 40, 34 and 35, the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And we see the depictions and the artist's renderings from the biblical description of great clouds over the tabernacle. visible at night as a column of fire and day as a column of smoke. And we get this insight from Revelation, and here again is the heavenly temple. The temple was filled with smoke from what?

From the glory of the Lord and from His power. The glory of the Lord and from His power. If you start putting this together, the glory of the Lord and His power and His majesty, His holiness, here is this temple and the Lord's robe fills the temple, his massive holiness, his immense power, his power and his glory are so intense that the temple is filled with it.

One of the things I think for us here and now to keep in mind as we go through situations in life, some of them can be really, really crazy. Some of them can be really tough. Some of them are tough for a short time, some of them are tough for a long time.

But whatever that time is, important to remember, it is this One whose holiness and power and glory are massive. Just one of His created seraphs rocks the whole place. That Lord is the One in whom we are. That Lord is the One with whom we are seated. Not will be, are now. when we're going through those wild and crazy and tough and difficult times, that's really good to know. We are in Him, inextricably, irreversibly in Him, in that infinitely powerful and glorious and holy Lord.

Now, woe is me, for I am ruined. Remember, this is a woe and not a woe, okay? Now, He's written six woes for the people. We looked at those last week. Here we have the six woes, and we looked at particularly two of them. As we get to this one here, it is a seventh woe. The others were the first six that he wrote, that we looked at last week. Those were for Israel. These, woe is me. Woe is me. Here is Isaiah, the mouthpiece for the Lord, and he's saying, I'm undone. I'm ruined. King James has undone. The word in Hebrew means to cut off or destroy.

Isaiah is looking at this. He sees the intensity of one seraph saying, holy, holy, holy, rocking the place. He sees the smoke billowing out. He sees the immensity of the Lord's robe which communicates the Lord's massive and infinite holiness and His glory and power. He looks at that.

And he says, I'm in terminal trouble. He says, I have unclean lips. Yeah, I've said all these things, and the Lord had me say them, but I live among people of unclean lips, and I have not been perfect with this. So what do you mean by unclean lips? You've got to ask that question.

One of the things we find, and here's Job 15.6, the lips are seen. This is the place where it all comes out. This is the place where the heart expresses itself.

So he says, what I've got here, it's not holy. It may have said some good things, I may have been a mouthpiece for the Lord even, but I'm not perfect. Up till now, and as we go through the book of Isaiah, he didn't talk about himself a lot. Here he does talk about himself, and he does it with great distress. So how does he see himself when placed in the presence of God? He says, I've got unclean lips. He says, I live among people of unclean lips. I have seen the king of everything. I'm in trouble. We could say it in modern vernacular, I'm toast. Okay? I'm toast. Now, compare that.

Here's how Paul describes the believer in the church. Paul tells the believers of the church at Ephesus, they are seated. Seated, enthroned with Christ, who is himself seated at the right hand of the Father. Can you imagine that? Isaiah walks in and he's shaken. He says, I'm in trouble. Paul walks in and says, you're seated with Him. Paul walks in and says, you see that place where the train fills the whole temple?

You're with Him. You're in Him. That's amazing. That's amazing. He tells the believers they have confident access. Was that the confidence that Isaiah showed? No. He even says that the believers can approach God as Abba. In our modern way of saying it, we might say Papa, Daddy. Approach God like that? Isaiah is really figuring he's done. And this message here says, run to Him. Run to Him.

And then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs." We point out here that the word seraph means a burning one. It's like this is a seraph's assignment. And he is there about the throne. He has direct and immediate access to the heavenly altar, taking the burning coal with what? In his hand. How about that? She had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said, Behold, this has touched your lips."

Here is this seraph, and he's taking this coal. The Jews, based on the sacrificial system that the Lord had laid out and the way the Lord had dealt with the Jews, fire was looked at as a means of purification. Fire was looked at as a means of executing God's judgment. So as we look at this here, Here this seraph is carrying this out.

He touched my mouth with it and said, Behold, this has touched your lips. Your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven. All the Old Testament sacrifices, and even up to this point, is all pointing towards Jesus Christ. The fire is the wrath of the Lord. And the wrath of the Lord was placed upon whom? Upon Jesus Christ. This is like the rest of the sacrificial system all pointing forward to Jesus Christ and his taking the wrath upon him.

So the seraph has done something here that points to God's judgment upon sin on the cross, even in what he's done very briefly and quickly in this scene. So the seraph could say, your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven. What we've done here is pointing towards this event that in earth time was yet to come. where the Messiah would take the wrath of God, the fire of judgment, if you will. Verse 8, Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here I am, send me. Interesting change, isn't it? Before that, he's saying, Woe is me. Now he's saying, Send me. Big difference.

But we need to answer a question about God's question. We see various places in scripture, particularly in the Old Testament, and even early on, where we see God asking questions. Does God ask questions because God is ignorant? Does God ask questions because He's wondering, Heaven's sake! Of course, He's in heaven, right? Heaven's sake! Who am I going to send?

What this is, is as many of the questions that we find, especially in the Old Testament, where the question is asked, not because God is ignorant, but to assist man in recognizing and understanding what's happening. When the Lord came to the garden after Adam had sinned and said, where are you? It's not because the Lord had no idea where he was. It is instead the Lord asking to get them to recognize, you're lost.

And the same thing here. He's asking Isaiah this question. I don't get the idea that Isaiah was there with a big throng of people from Judah. You get the idea it's just Isaiah. But the Lord is asking it so that Isaiah will understand. So that Isaiah will interact with this. And isn't this something interesting?

I think this is maybe part of the insight on prayer. Ever wonder, you know, God knows everything and He can do everything. Why does He ask me to pray? The Lord desires that we interact with Him. It is the fellowship aspect in our interaction with Him that He longs for. Yeah, He could do it all. He could just make it all happen and ignore or not even ask that we pray. Instead, what does He do? He interacts by asking questions, not out of ignorance on His part, but for interaction and thought and recognition and acknowledgement on our part. That's His reason. Now, as we look at this, there's also some implication.

It is implied that there is a triunity of God, or as some more simply put it, a trinity. And I would only say implied, because this doesn't teach it directly. But one of the things, you have different names for the Lord. You've got holy, holy, holy three times. You've even got the expression, who will go for us? And by the way, this word us is used similarly in Genesis chapter 1. Let us create man. The triunity is implied and there are names for God. Multiple names. The Lord Adonai, Lord or Master. There is Lord Yahweh and the Lord of hosts. There is the reference to us rather than just me. Additionally, the Holy, Holy, Holy. Now, these don't prove it or teach it directly, but certainly imply it several times over.

Now, Isaiah was sent by God. So are we in the church sent in the same way that God sent Isaiah? Isaiah was sent by God from the heavenly scene, but Isaiah's place was among the people. Now, sometimes, and I've seen this at missionary gatherings and things of that sort, where they'll say, see this? Here am I, send me. That's a great representation. The truth is, however, we are sent too, but the Lord has granted us a different ministry. Isaiah was given a ministry. If you're a believer here this morning, you have a ministry. You are in the ministry, but not as Isaiah. He went back to Judah. He went back to Jerusalem. Isaiah was not in Christ. We don't see that he was placed in Christ.

However, it's clear, we saw repeatedly in the book of Ephesians and in Colossians as well, we are in him. Isaiah was truly concerned that he might die. We already have. Isaiah said, woe is me. The believer, having been identified with Christ, has already passed that point. Isaiah was not seated in the heavenlies. We are. See, Isaiah was sent from there to go back. The Lord says, stay. In fact, you're here to stay.

You're seated in the heavenlies. Isaiah was sent back to live among his people of Judah. We're to remain seated with Christ while He lives among the people. Isaiah went back as a human being sent by God. The Lord says, stay here seated with me. I'll go live down there through you. Isaiah was a citizen of Jerusalem. If you want, you can take a look at Psalm 87. That shows the privileges of the one who is a citizen of Jerusalem expressly for the Jew.

In the church, we're called to live as heavenly citizens, Philippians 3.20. because we have that heavenly citizenship. We're seated there in the heavenlies, Ephesians 2, 6, with Christ, where we have every spiritual blessing, Ephesians 1, 3. Isaiah would tell multiple times about a Savior who was to come. We've seen that, and we'll continue to see some more of it.

That Savior was to come, as we now have the perspective, seven centuries later. So Isaiah anticipated His coming. He took Passover, in anticipation of that coming, about at the midpoint from the time of the institution of Passover until the Lord's coming. But once that Savior came, He told us to do this in remembrance. Isaiah looked ahead to it.

We look back at it. Do this in remembrance until He comes. Anticipating that day because we're already in Him. Let's pray. Lord, as we look this morning to the table that You have set before us, And as we look at Isaiah and his visit to the heavenly scene, we thank you, Lord, that you have seated us there. We count upon that. And in you, we share your glory and your holiness and your power, so graphically demonstrated to Isaiah, so meaningfully demonstrated to us. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.