Sermon Tone Analysis

The Call of Isaiah

Context

Isaiah 6:1

The Vision that Shakes You

Search for something real: Grandma dying, Dad falling into addiction

It wasn’t that Isaiah had not heart about God, or was unfamiliar with the scriptures.

He was educated!

One could argue with equal force that Isaiah is descended from a family of prophets (though his father, the otherwise unknown Amoz, is not to be confused with the prophet Amos).

He is thoroughly schooled in the traditional forms and language of prophetic speech.

It is an educated speech—strong, vivid, the finest of classical Hebrew.

Isaiah is particularly well acquainted with the prophetic tradition known to his slightly older contemporary, Amos

So what happens to Isaiah is something revolutionary, something life changing!

What he had was a theoretical understanding, an abstract understanding, he could tell you the stories, but when he stood this God, and got a vision of the glory of God, and holiness of God..it shook him to his very soul!

The ball dropped,and he realized all I thought I knew was not a drop in the bucket of who God is!

Thomas was not done writing his Summa Theologiae, his definitive work.

(Usage note: Folks call him Thomas because he’s first-name famous like Bono, and his last name just means “from Aquino.”

And the big Summa used to get called Theologica, but is now usually, and more correctly, referred to as the harder-to-spell but shorter-to-say Theologiae.)

The great Summa breaks off unfinished.

To round off the fragment, Thomas’ friend Reginald of Piperno pulled together sections from an earlier theological treatise (Thomas’ commentary on Lombard’s Sentences), and appended it to the Summa as The Supplement.

Though he was used to producing at a furious pace, on this day Thomas just stopped.

When his friend Reginald urged him to keep dictating, Thomas replied: “I cannot, for everything I have written seems to me like straw.”

What we need today, we may talk about all we need to do as church people, the service, the outreach, the love..yes!

But can I make a bold statement..revival begins when you get a vision of God that shakes you to your soul!

When God stops being an idea, a nice thing, but everything!

I don’t care how long you have been in church, how many stories you can tell..you don’t know God nearly as well as you think you do!

He is far more powerful and glorious than you could ever imagine.

Far deeper, far stronger, far higher, far heavier…look!

Glory refers to riches, heaviness, splentor, beauty..weight!

There is a heaviness about him, that cuases everything else to crumble and shake!

The Weight of Glory: When you drop a rock into a bond, the water shakes and moves, the rock does not move to adjust to the water, the rock being heavier causes everything causes the water to move.

When you get a vision of God’s glory what happens is that you move.

You don’t fit Him into your boxes, your categories..you don’t keep God in one part of your life, but He enters in and rearrages everything!

Revival lacks because God is still just an idea for most of us..hes theoretical but that ball hasn’t dropped.

The weight of who God is, is still abstract..a nice idea.

Revival lacks because God is still just an idea for most of us..hes theoretical but that ball hasn’t dropped.

The weight of who God is, is still abstract..a nice idea.

When God came into my life, when I began to see who He was, the greatness of this God!..I could no more stay the same than water can when you drop a rock into it..I had no choice.

Jesus says this…you can speak to the mountains and they will move if you have faith!

Jesus spoke to storms, demons, death..and they had to submit!

Why because the Glory of God entered in, and death had to move, storms had to move, mountains had to move.

The glory of God causes all to tremble!

Not only does glory give us a picture of weight, but also of radiance and beauty.

He is at the same time, terrifying and captivating.

It says the angels circle his throne praising holy holy holy..too glorious to even look upon!

The continuous song had a single theme: the Lord’s holiness, concerning which we learn two truths.

First, Hebrew uses repetition to express either a superlative, as when ‘pure gold’ in 2 Kings 25:15 translates ‘gold gold’, or a totality, as when ‘full of tar pits’ in Genesis 14:10 translates ‘pits pits’.

But here for the only time in the Hebrew Bible a quality is ‘raised to the power of three’, as if to say that the divine holiness is so far beyond anything the human mind can grasp that a ‘super-superlative’ has to be invented to express it and, furthermore, that this transcendent holiness is the total truth about God.

R.C. Sproul writes, “The Bible says that God is holy, holy, holy.

Not that He is merely holy, or even holy, holy.

He is holy, holy, holy.

The Bible never says that God is love, love, love, or mercy, mercy, mercy, or wrath, wrath, wrath, or justice, justice, justice.

It does say that He is holy, holy, holy, the whole earth is full of His glory.”21

The Conviction that Breaks You

It means a cut above the rest, separate distinct!

As perfect as you may think he is..he is better higher, our minds will never be able to climb the width and hieght of his holiness!

To worship God in Holiness, means to worship God for who He is, not simply because of what He can do for us!

Holiness, is less about what He can do for us, and more about who He is!

Its easy to appreciate a strong God, because we think He can help us with him strength, or a wise God..because he can give us guidance in our situations..Holiness is something different!

And it is important we learn to worship God, not simply because of what He can do for us!..But because He is that beautiful, separate, and worthy.

The Conviction that Breaks You

Isaiah says “Woe is Me!”…which “WOE” this word meant a curse.

Hes essentially saying..I’m going to die! Imagine you found yourself before a King, without permission or request..thats worhty of death.

Now, notice something..he knew who God ways, but once this vision shook Him, it brought him to a deeper sense of his unworthiness!

His own soul shook, and all ideas of self righteousness and worthiness melted like wax before the one who is truly worthy.

Isaiah lives in a community of people who had turned their back on God..Isaiah knew that, he could see the sin around Him, but God brought him to a deeper awareness of his own sin!!

Revival, listen doesn’t begin out there, or with them, it begins with me!

Until the sin in your own hearts make you more angry than the sin around you, you will not have revival.

Isn’t if funny that we always get angry and upset at the sins around us..we look at the problems with the world, and its always them, liberals, conservatives, white, black, native, rich, poor..Isaiah saw God and didn’t say, “They’re doomed!

He didn’t say get em Lord!

He wasn’t looking at anyone else..whatever he thought the problem was, it became clear..it was Him!

It was His sin!

He was cursed!

Can I be honest with you for a moment, I have dealt with frustrations lately around things that have happened in my life with people I love, and I started to get frustrated and angry towards some people…He told me this, “RJ, that sin that you are angry at them about, is the same sin you have in your heart!

How can you be so angry with the sin out there, and so comfortable with the sin in you?”

QUESTION: Is it true that The Times once sent out an inquiry to famous authors, asking the question, “What’s wrong with the world today?” and Chesterton responded simply,

“Dear Sir,

I am.

Yours, G.K. Chesterton.”

Muggeridge said it like this...

“The depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality but at the same time the most intellectually resisted fact.”

-Malcolm Muggeridge

Sin, our brokenness is one of the most undeniable facts in our world, but it is also one of the ones we most resist.

And I would add, its not so much sin..because I think we can would say we see it pretty well in others, but it is our own sin that we resist!

In other words, we yell and are quick to point out everyone elses problems, their sin, but until we deal with our own sin, we are blind!

So Revival is not for your neighbor, the person sitting next to you..it is for you today.

You must be broken by your own sin.

Isaiah said..Woe is me!

I am dead!

I can’t stand here!

I am unworthy!

Listen church..we are unworthy!

And I can’t speak for you..but I still mess up, I still fall short..

The Provision that Saves You

Isaiah 6:-

Notice something..an angel takes a burning coal (symbolizing God’s judgment) and puts it to his lips!

It is initiated by God, after Isaiah confesses his brokenness!

God hears him, then provides the atonement!

This judgment so fierce the angels couldn’t even hold it in their hand, but used tongs..and at once his sin was atoned for!

The Commission That Takes You

Revival doesn’t just end in you..it will inevitably take you out!