Isaiah 6
Entering the Presence of The Lord
Seated on a Throne vs. 1
Our Worship vs. 2-4
Our Unworthiness vs. 5-7
Intro:
What a joy it is to be here
Very honored that David asked me to teach
He is in South Africa ministering the a group of pastors down there
Sometimes you don’t know the impact your church is having outside these doors but your church is reaching the nations with the Gospel
Your church has impacted ours
We have had multiple people attend the Bible College
Our youth dept has attended camps with yours
Beyond that Andrea has led worship and Pastor Keith has come and taught
Thank you
Isaiah 6 is one of the most famous chapters in the whole Bible
Why? Because Isaiah has a vision of God in the throne room
Just reading it should move you
Isaiah sees God seated on the Throne of Heaven
The experience of having a glimpse of the majesty of God’s glory dramatically impacted him and caused him to understand God’s purpose for his life in a new way.
The same can happen for us. We experience the presence of the Lord and it changes us
Today we are going to look at Entering the Presence of the Lord
While we may not see a vision of God physically we can enter the holy of holies
As soon as the veil was torn in the temple access to God was granted
The question we need to ask ourselves is do we want to enter?
Read Isaiah 6:1-7
Transition: King Uzziah
King Uzziah was on the throne when Isaiah began his ministry
He began his reign when he was only 16 years old, and he reigned 52 years.
Overall, he was a good king, and 2 Kings 15:3 says, he did what was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father Amaziah had done.
He brought stability and prosperity to Israel and his death was a great loss
Isaiah felt the loss of this great king to the country
Not only did the country lose a great king but it is believed that Isaiah’s dad Amoz was brothers with Amaziah, Uzziah’s dad… so it was a personal lost
At one of Isaiah and Israel’s lowest moments God reveals himself
It is amazing how we can be at our lowest points and God makes himself known
It is often at those moments he ushers us into his presence
But we don’t need to be down in the dumps to experience His presence
I want to show you how to enter in
Seated on the Throne vs. 1
The first step in entering the presence of God is to realize He is seated on the Throne
vs. 1 I saw the LORD sitting on a throne:
Where was the LORD when Uzziah died? The LORD was sitting on a throne!
God was still enthroned in heaven, and was still in charge of Israel
There is a throne in heaven, and the LORD God sits upon it as the sovereign ruler of the universe!
This is central fact of heaven; that there is an occupied throne in heaven.
Sovereign kings sit on thrones. Judges sit on thrones.
Those with proper authority and sovereignty sit on thrones.
God is high and lifted up, we don’t lift him up, he already is
For us to experience God we have to realize that he is above our problems and this earth
He is in complete control and nothing surprises him
There is a quote from the Chuck Smith devotional Wisdom for Today
“The next time you find yourself shackled by worry or confusion or pain, look up. Take your eyes off of your problems and place them on God. Sing to your creator and watch your dark prison change into a house of praise.”
Many times we don’t experience God because our eyes aren’t looking too him
We are focused on all the other things besides looking up to heaven
Praise and worship aren’t on our lips, WE mutter and complain or fret and worry
But God is high and lifted up above all of that and we have to picture Him seated on the Throne
For us to experience God we have to see God seated on throne high above our problems
This is a trust issue
We often don’t want to trust God with our lives because we want to keep control of what goes on
That is a false sense of reality… you are not in control
High, not in unreachable, but in authority
He wants us to look to him and recognize his power and authority
How powerful is he?
Finally we see the train of his robe filling the temple
Back in the day the length of your robe showed how prosperous you were as a ruler
Long trains made it difficult to work and if you had a long train it meant you didn’t have to
God is so prosperous that the train of his regal robes fill the whole temple
This gives us a complete and vivid picture of an almighty God who is in heaven
Our Worship vs. 2-4
The 2nd part of entering His presence is that we must truly worship Him above everything else
Jewish Temple
Stay at the wailing wall
Keep making sacrifices
Or enter the holy of holies
To experience God we have to worship him
vs. 2 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. 3 And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”
When the Disciples asked Jesus how to pray in the Lord’s prayer Jesus started with worship
Our Father which art in heaven hallowed be your name, Your kingdom come
All of those phrases are adoration or worship of God
Worship is what brings us into the presence of God
It is what takes our eyes off of ourselves and focuses them on the Greatness of God
Ps 18:3 I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies.
Acts 13:2 As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said,
We see this type of Worship modeled by the Seraphim
Surrounding the throne of God are angels known here as seraphim.
In many other passages, these angels are known as cherubim or as the living creatures of Revelation 4:6-11.
This is the only chapter in the Bible where these creatures are named seraphim
The name seraphim means, “burning ones.”
Ezekiel 1:13 describes cherubim this way: their appearance was like burning coals of fire, like the appearance of torches going back and forth among the living creatures.
Revelation explains their primary purpose
Rev 4:8 And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”
If you don’t know where to start when it comes to worshipping God start with this
They need the six wings, so each can cover his face (to show they are too lowly to look upon the LORD), so each can cover his feet (to hide this “humble” area of the body, so nothing even possibly deficient is seen in the LORD’s presence), and so each can fly.
The seraphim used four of their wings to express their humility, and used two of their wings to express their willingness and ability to serve God.
This is the proper balance that we can mimic: Humility and willingness
Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts:
Why do they repeat “holy” three times?
They say it three times because there are Three Persons in the One God.
In the Hebrew language, intensity is communicated by repetition.
To say Holy is the LORD says something. To say, holy, holy, holy is the LORD is to declare His holiness in the highest possible degree.
The presence of God is actually referred to as the Holy of Holies
Holiness, at its root, has the idea of apartness.
It describes someone, or something, which is set apart from other people or things.
An object can be holy if it is set apart for sacred service.
A person is holy if they are set apart for God’s will and purpose.
We worship to gain access to the holy of holies and enter the presence of God
Look what happens when they worship God
The foundations shook and the house was filled with smoke as their unified voices of worship
Do you know that when we are untied in worshipping God it shakes the foundations of the Spiritual world?
Satan will try to interrupt our worship more than anything
Why do you think it is so hard for you to pray?
Spiritual Attack
Jen & I Fasting
Insurance rejected claim
IRS called to say I owed $5000
Reverse traced number… scam
The smoke here represents the presence of the Lord
Our Unworthiness vs. 5-7
The next step to enter His presence is to express our unworthiness
vs. 5 Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips
NKJV says I am undone
Isaiah is expressing his unworthiness to be in the presence of the Lord
He shows himself to be utterly ruined
The presence of the Lord convicts him of how unclean he is
Unclean is a general OT term for everything unfit to be in God’s presence
Isaiah cannot worship as the Seraphim do because he is unfit to be in God’s presence
We cannot enter the throne room of God without humbling ourselves
Every great revival that has ever taken place is always marked first by conviction of sin and true brokenness
For us to truly experience God we must get to the place of unworthiness
Every great person in the Bible operated
John the Baptist
Luke 3:16 John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire
The Apostle Paul
1 Cor 15:9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
To get to the point of unworthiness we need to confess our sin
Once we do He will cleanse us and we are worthy to enter in
Vs. 6-7 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”
The Seraphim take a coal from the altar and touch his lips
Lips are a symbol of the battleground of our sin
Jesus tells us that it’s not what goes in that corrupts but what comes out
The lips reveal the heart
But if we confess our sins with our mouths Jesus is faithful and just to forgive our sins
Our guilt is taken away and our sins atoned for
We are now ready to enter in
Worship gets us through the muck, confession opens the door, but are you willing to walk in?
Closing:
