REFORMED CHURCH BELLVILLE SUNDAY 22
AUGUST 2004, MORNING SERVICE
Sing: Hymn 7-2 : 1, 2
Our help is in the Name of the Lord who made heaven and earth.
Beloved, grace and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ, through the mighty working of God the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Psalm of Praise: 98 : 1, 4
Confession of faith: Nicene Creed
Law
Psalm 16 : 4
Prayer
Psalm 142 : 1, 6
Scripture reading: ISAIAH
6
Text:
ISAIAH 6 : 3, 5
And
they were calling to one another: Holy, holy holy is the Lord
Almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory.
“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am
ruined! For I am a man of
unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes
have seen the King, the Lord Almighty”.
The text raises two issues which directly impact upon the personal
worship of each one of us. Let us look at them:
- Isaiah sees the Lord!
- The seraphs also see the Lord!
But see the contrast, the effect is different.
- The seraphs call to one another: Holy, holy,
holy is the Lord Almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory.
- Isaiah cannot say this – his knowledge of his
sinfulness overpowers him. All he can say is: Woe to me! I am
ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips…
In this sermon we consider the following:
1. Firstly, we consider what man
experiences when he sees God.
2. Then we consider how God
deals with it.
1. Man’s experience when he sees
God
At the moment many claims are made by people who say that they have
been brought to repentance by leaders who say that they have seen God
or that God has spoken to them or that they have received a special
revelation from God. This also applies to people who say that
they have discovered new meaning in the Scriptures or who rewrite God’s
revelation because they have a better revelation!
All these leaders and their churches have something in common:
- They arrogantly claim that only they know the truth
- and though they may try to conceal their arrogance
with a veil of humility, their meassage to us is clear: we have
the truth and we know, you poor benighted believers!
That is why it is so extremely important that we consider this passage
carefully so that we may know the truth of somebody who is seen by God
or who sees God.
Isaiah sees God in his glory – but he also sees God in his
holiness. He sees a holy God.
- This is a quality that is foreign to all other
religions on earth.
- Holiness is a quality that only the Tri-une God has.
- Those who wish to belong to this God must also
become holy.
- That is a difficult process.
- It is also a process accompanied by much suffering
and pain.
- It is difficult and does not happen easily.
- There is only one way out of God’s judgement: This
sanctification is only to be found in the saving and liberating mercy
of
God.
Because he sees the holiness of God, Isaiah becomes terrified by his
sins. Unlike the modern theologians he does not become
selfsatisfied because he saw God. Is this perhaps not the test to
establish the truth of whether a person truly saw God and truly made
contact with God?
Isaiah says that he saw God. Can man really see God? What
does the Bible tell us of this? We read of God speaking to Moses
and saying the following:
“But”,
he said, “you cannot see my face, for no-one may see Me and
live”. (Exodus 33 : 20)
The New Testament confirms this for God’s revelation is consistent:
No one
has ever seen God, but God the One and Only (in other
manuscripts – but the only begotten Son -) who is at the Father’s side,
has made him known. (John 1 : 18)
The apostle Paul writes in similar vein to Timothy:
I
charge you to keep this command without spot or blame until the
appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which God will bring about in his
own time – God the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord
of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in
unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To
Him be honour and might for ever. Amen. (1 Timothy 6 : 14
– 16)
Yet there is a way in which certain people are able to see God.
Jesus Christ said plainly:
Blessed
are the pure in heart for they will see
God. (Matthew 5 : 8)
The fact is that no physical eye can see God because God is a Spiritual
Being. He is the eternal unseen God.
- To see God therefore means to see Him in and
through his revelation.
- He reveals Himself in his Word and through his
Spirit. In this way we shall all be able to see God.
Whom did the prophet Isaiah see? In our Bible it is written that
he saw the Lord Almighty but we know that in the Hebrew Scriptures the
Lord has different names and that each of them reveals something else
of God’s Being and who He is.
- The name of God used here is the name which means
that God has the power to execute all that He wants to.
- In His sovereignty He can harden the heart of man
but He can also sanctify those who repent and confess their sins.
In his hands are the times of all and everybody that exist – He creates
and He destroys according to His providence.
- Isaiah sees God on his throne. This means
that the Lord is King and Judge of all that exists. He is the
eternal King who is sitting in judgement on all that exists.
God’s throne is surrounded by seraphs. This is the only place in the
Old Testament where they are mentioned.
- Literally their name means “the flaming ones” or
“they who are of fire”.
- They are creatures who are depicted as people –
they have faces and hands and speak like people. They have six
wings – six flaming wings!
These seraphs do something extraordinary: they continuously praise
God’s holiness. They continue to call to one another: Holy,
holy, holy is the Lord Almighty.
- Here another Name of God is used: His Name of
the Covenant in combination. He is God who is eternal and who
eternally rules over the hosts of angels and saved people before his
throne.
What is the meaning of the word “holy”?
The word means “separated
from”. It means that there is something that separates God in His
perfection from his creation. Something that makes Him totally
different from the creatures: He is holy. He cannot
sin. He does not err. He does not do anything wrong or bad.
This reveals that the Lord makes a demand from us:
- We too must remove ourselves from sin and all that
is bad.
- We must seek this quality of God and make it our
own.
- We must be holy. With our lives we must
continously call it to God.
To worship God’s holiness requires more than to call it out three
times. Isaiah knew this immediately.
- When the seraphs had finished calling: Holy, holy,
holy is the Lord Almighty, it was Isaiah’s turn to worship.
- He could not. The Lord tells us who may
appear before Him:
But
who can endure the day of His coming? Who can stand when He
appears? For He will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s
soap. (Malachi 3 : 12)
Who
may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy
place? He who has clean hands and a pure
heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is
false. (Psalm 24 : 3, 4)
Isaiah immediately looks into himself and he sees himself as God sees
him: he is broken because of all his sins. He cannot call
out that God is holy because his own life has none of the burning
holiness that the seraphs’ have. His confession is one of being
doomed to eternal death:
Woe to
me, I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips
and I live among a people of unclean lips and my
eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.
What a terrible evaluation of himself: I am so sinful that I
cannot praise God!
Which of us is there already? For in our confession we confess
clearly that we can only acquire the salvation in the Lord Jesus
Christ. After we have come to the knowledge of the greatness of
our sin and misery – that we are lost (Heidelberg Catechism: Lords’s
Day 1, 2).
2. How does God deal with it?
Isaiah cannot praise God until he has purified his heart and his lips.
He must become free from his sin that keeps him away from God.
God does not reject Isaiah. He purifies him.
- We know that through the working of the Holy Spirit
God works in people. That is how Isaiah comes to know his
sinfulness. That is where God starts in each person to purify his
heart and lips.
The Lord reveals His grace.
- No one has the right to praise God. It is a
right God in His grace extends to only certain people.
- It is not the whole people who see God. Only
Isaiah sees God. Not all people are purified in order to worship
the Lord. Isaiah is purified. Thus works the Lords electing
grace.
God lets a seraph touch Isaiah’s mouth with a live coal.
- The purification is not a simple matter. This
coal is so hot that the seraph needs to take it from the altar with
tongs.
- We may take it that Isaiah’s lips must have burned
terribly on being touched by the coal – although the Bible does not say
so explicitly, the rest of the setting makes it plain.
- Isaiah undergoes a painful process of purification
and sanctification – only after this can the Lord use Isaiah in his
service. Only then is Isaiah really fit and willing to truly work
for the Lord.
- Isaiah went through terrible suffering to arrive at
the point where he was truly worthy to work for the Lord and to serve
the Lord.
This did not mean that Isaiah could now become presumptious. He must
still (and now particularly) be careful in his conduct.
- The proof lies in the conduct of the seraphs.
Though they are burning with holiness, they must still cover their feet
with two wings and their eyes with two wings because they are unworthy
of seeing God. They would die instantly should they see Him or
appear before Him disrespectfully.
- The principle is clear – God uses people who have
struggled through the terror of their sins.
Isaiah accordingly accepted a calling that was a calling to be
fulfilled with pain and suffering.
He
said: “Go and tell this people: ‘Be ever hearing but
never understanding; be ever seeing but never perceiving.
Make their ears dull and close their eyes otherwise
they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with
their hearts and turn and be healed’. Then I
said ‘For how long, o Lord?’ and He answered, ‘Until the cities lie
ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left deserted and
the fields ruined and ravaged, until the Lord has sent everyone far
away and the land is utterly forsaken’.
(Isaiah 6 : 9 – 12)
In this way our calling and our salvation is brought about in the
reality of life.
- Often the Lord allows us to see his holiness so
that we may see clearly the extent of the debt of our sin.
- He does this because in this way He shows us
grace. He could have left us so that we would be destroyed by His
punishment, but He does not do it. He cauterizes our sin out of
us so that we may become worthy of worshipping Him and living
righteously.
He does so with a purpose. He worked salvation for us by letting
the fire of his wrath loose on our surety Jesus Christ. That is
what is meant by 1 Corinthians 3 : 15:
If it
is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be
saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.
The taking of the live coal from the altar to cauterize Isaiah is a
pointer to the redemption by Jesus Christ because the altar is the
place of reconciliation where the sacrifice of atonement is brought.
We can come through God’s wrath because He let the flames of our sins
burn past us on to Jesus Christ.
- It leaves us with a responsibility – we must do
thorough introspection into our lives.
- We must know the seriousness of our sins and have
true remorse. Who ever has true remorse is sanctified by God –
even through the pain of introspection.
- Remorse is not without pain.
- True remorse may cause a pain that stays with you
for life – as it was with Paul who could never forget that some time he
persecuted the church of Christ and let the people who believed in
Jesus Christ be killed.
Pray and believe in God’s grace. Let us live towards the Lord
with holy lives that show true remorse for our sins. Come
together to holy communion so that we may symbolically receive this
assurance and taste it when we taste the bread and the wine that
testify of our salvation.
Come let us rejoice in our hearts together with the seraphs before the
throne of God:
Holy, holy, holy
is the Lord Almighty.
Holy, holy, holy
is the Lord Almighty, who forgives
us the uncleanliness of our hearts and lips.
Holy, holy, holy
is the Lord Almighty who sanctifies us and uses us in
His service.
Amen.
Closing prayer.
Closing Hymn 5-4: 1 + 6
The Lord bless you and keep you
The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you
The Lord lift up his countenance on you and give you peace.
Amen.
Dr. M.J. du Plessis
Reformed Church Bellville
Sunday, 22 August 2004
Quotation from N.I.V.