Sermon Tone Analysis

Greeting

Hi! I’m Jordan Beach.

I’m studying at Liberty University for my bachelor degree to become a Pastor so I was so excited when my Uncle Duane asked me to preach this afternoon.

I am honored to be standing up here in front of you.

This is an opportunity that I don’t take lightly, so I pray that the sermon I have prepared for you this morning will touch your hearts and challenge you to live your life for Jesus.

Introduction

This past week I had the opportunity to visit Prague with my family.

I was very thankful to God for the opportunity to visit, and very thankful that my dad over here was the one who planned everything and drove us there!

I definitely appreciate not having to be the planner or driver through those small city streets.

One of the places my dad had planned out for us to visit was the castle and the cathedral up on the hill.

My family and my beautiful wife and I hiked up what felt like a million flights of stairs to a summit that held up a castle, as well as the old Catholic Cathedral, the Saint Vitus Cathedral.

It is a beautiful, massive building, with beautiful stained glass windows, high ceilings, and massive spires topping the roof.

It’s gorgeous, tall, and beautiful, and made me feel small in comparison.

Part 1 - The Sender

In a similar way, Isaiah has a vision of the Lord, seated high and lifted up.

We’re going to read from Isaiah chapter 6 today, and seek to understand the purpose of this text.

Let’s start with just the first 7 verses, so Isaiah 6:1-7.

Let’s Pray.

In the year King Uzziah died.

King Uzziah died in the second year of King Pecah of Israel, around (739 BC).

This is in the time when the land of Israel had split into two kingdoms: northern and southern.

In the north was the kingdom of Israel, and down south was the kingdom of Judah.

Uzziah’s life and rule as King of Judah is recorded in 2 Chronicles 26.

He was a good King for a while, opposing worshiping idols and walking in the ways of the Lord.

He led Judah’s armies to victory and brought prosperity to Judah.

But when Uzziah grew proud, he became unfaithful to God and decided to enter the temple to burn incense.

But that was wrong; he had disrespected God’s commands.

Only priests were able to enter that part of the temple, and because he wasn’t a priest and didn’t obey the Lord, he was punished.

God gave him leprosy for his pride and arrogance that led him to disrespect the sanctified spaces, the exceptional, holy places that God set boundaries on.

That leprosy eventually led to the King’s death, and it’s in the midst of grief and mourning that Isaiah has a vision.

Isaiah sees the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up.

He sees God as huge, high in the sky, and unreachable.

He’s far above, distant from Isaiah, sitting on his throne.

In a similar way, Jesus was clothed in a robe and sitting on a throne in Revelation 1:13.

Some scholars believe that Isaiah could have seen the pre-incarnate Son of God because of how John 12:41 references this same text, as well as how the Lord is described in the form of man, having clothes and sitting.

What we know for sure is that while no one has ever seen God in his purest sense, Isaiah sees the Lord in a vision, in a form he uses to reveal himself to Isaiah, a form that is incredible, high, lifted up, Holy Holy Holy, and yet is not even the fullness of the glory of God.

And not only that, but the train of his robe filled the entire temple.

Wow.

The Hebrew word for train is actually better-translated hem, and kings, royalty, and priests had elaborately hemmed robes.

It also adorned some pagan idols, and a large train could’ve represented God’s deity and, therefore his power over all creation, with it filling the whole temple representing how his glory fills the earth.

We’re starting to get this picture of a majestic, glorious, beautiful God who rules his creation as king.

Notice no imperfections in him, nothing marking his appearance.

Above the Lord, seraphim are flying.

The seraphim are angelic beings, and the same creature, the seraph, is used elsewhere in Isaiah in reference to judgment but likely is referring to fiery serpents, the same kind used to judge Israel back in the book of Numbers.

They are described as each having six wings, and while using two to fly, they use two to cover their face and two to cover their feet.

Why?

Well, their face was covered because they could not look upon God, in all his perfection and glory and holiness, and their feet because they humble themselves before God.

They will not walk in their own ways but subject themselves to the Lord’s ways.

Then one begins calling to another, saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”

This use of “holy” three times is a Hebrew literary device used for emphasis.

Remember, there’s no typing, bold text, or italics.

They emphasize “Holy” by writing it three times.

He’s not just holy; he’s SO HOLY! Super HOLY! Absolute HOLY!

He is holier than we can possibly imagine.

We say that word a lot, holy.

It means that he is special, set apart, and different, that he’s pure, perfect.

He’s set apart specifically from sin and blemish, holy.

Not only that, but the whole earth is full of his glory.

The whole earth is filled with the glory of God.

Paul writes in Romans chapter 1, verses 19 and 20, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.

So they are without excuse.”

In God’s creation, we can see his When we look around at the beautiful woods and trees, the birds, and the sky.

We see the glory of God.

We can see, in God’s creation, his glory and majesty.

When the angel spoke this praise to God, the foundations of the whole temple shook, and it filled with smoke.

The temple itself even to shakes knowing the goodness and holiness of God.

It fills with smoke from the presence of God, just like when the Lord lowered down onto Mount Sinai with smoke and thunder.

Isaiah sees all of this and says WOE IS ME! Woe is me!

I am lost; I am a man of unclean lips.

I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.

His posture is just immediate humility and lowliness.

In the presence of the Lord of heaven and earth, Yahweh himself, he recognizes just how spiritually poor and sinful he is.

He sees just how wretched he is, and in contrast to the holy, clean King, he sees his own sinfulness.

In chapters 1-5, Isaiah’s message has been about Judah’s sin and disobedience, but now, he first recognizes his own unfaithfulness.

Then he recognizes the unfaithfulness of Judah, the people of unclean lips.

They, too, are unclean and wicked in comparison to the clean and righteous King.

Isaiah now sees the real King.

The king is dead, but the true King, the Lord of Hosts (of armies) will never die.

Then one of the seraphim uses tongs to take a burning coal from the altar, flies over to Isaiah, and presses it onto his lips.

One day a year, the Israelite priests were instructed to practice the Day of Atonement, where they would sacrifice animals and atone for the sins of all of Israel.

On this day, fiery coals would be taken inside the part of the temple that had the Lord’s concentrated presence: the Most Holy place, where the Ark of the Covenant sat.

These coals would be taken to the altar to atone for sin, and now the burning coal represents forgiveness of sin for Isaiah, cleansing his unclean lips.

By sacrifice, the sin of Isaiah was atoned for; his guilt was taken away.

God is the Holy King of the Unholy

So the first point and arguably the most important point is that God is the Holy King, of the Unholy.

Cider

Cider 2

Cider 3

I have a dog, he’s a cute, mini husky named Cider!

He’s so cute and so fun and we love him so much.

We take care of him, take him on walks, all normal dog things.

But he also gets into trouble sometimes!

He loves to sneak into the kitchen, even though he knows he’s not allowed in the kitchen.

He loves to peek his head in the bathroom when he was not invited in.

Sometimes he even pee’s in the house!

But we are his owners, we made the rules for him because we know he needs to behave a certain way in our house, and he obeys, because he understands that he must submit to us.

In a similar way, God is perfect and Holy, and he is King over all creation.

He has set boundary lines and laws and rules in place for us to obey him, and we must recognize him as our authority and submit to him.

But the delta between us and God is MUCH larger that the one between us and our dog.