In the Throne Room

Order of Service

Welcome, Announcements, & Prayer - Patrick Albright

“Another in the Fire” - Patrick Albright

“How Great Thou Art” - Dave Ashford

“God on the Mountain” - Dave Ashford

Sermon - Dillon White

Invitation - “How Great Thou Art” - Dave Ashford

Introduction

Sooner or later, it's going to happen to you. Someday, calamity will come crashing into your life. Sometimes there is a forewarning; sometimes it just explodes under your feet. But we all must take our turn at it. Life can go from zero to panic attack in seconds, wrenching from your grasp anything resembling normal. The question is, in that moment, what will you do?

On the evening of February 25, 2007, Christian author Philip Yancey was driving his Ford Explorer from Los Alamos, New Mexico to his home in Denver after a busy weekend of speaking. He was thinking about his wife Janet and the wedding of one of their friends that they were attending in a few days. In the fading light, he didn't notice a sharp left curve ahead.

Traveling about 65 mph, he tried to negotiate it when his vehicle began fishtailing. Yancey describes the moment: "I tried to correct, but as best as I can reconstruct what happened, my tire slipped off the edge of the asphalt onto the dirt. That started the Explorer rolling over sideways, at least three times and probably more. Amazingly, the vehicle stopped right side up. All windows were blown out, and skis, boots, laptop computer, and suitcases were strewn over 100 feet or so in the dirt."

When emergency personnel arrived, they strapped him to a rigid body board and immobilized his head for the hour-long ride to the town of Alamosa. The early images of Yancey's neck revealed pulverized C-3 vertebrae. The emergency room surgeon told him that the break didn't touch his spinal cord, but likely punctured critical arteries that serve the brain. Just hours before, Philip Yancey was on his way home to his wife of 37 years. Now he is alone in the busy emergency room of a small community hospital, wondering if he will live beyond the next few minutes. (Philip Yancey, "Yancey: 'I'm Okay! Honest;'" (posted March 2, 2007), online at http://www.ctlibrary.com/ct/2007/marchweb-only/109-52.0.html)

"A Woman Called Job,"

Just after her baby was born, Nancy Guthrie knew something was wrong. All the plans and dreams shifted when Hope was born with clubfeet, extreme lethargy, and an inability to suck, among other problems - all symptoms of Zeilweger Syndrome, a disorder that causes the body to retain the toxins it normally throws off. Hope would live for 198 days.

In the meantime, it was discovered that Nancy and her husband both had the recessive gene for Zeilweger Syndrome to occur. The Guthries decided David would have a vasectomy to prevent another pregnancy. But one year after Hope died, Nancy was pregnant again. Prenatal testing revealed their next child would also have Zeilweger Syndrome. Gabriel was born on July 16, 2001. They knew what to expect. Their son's first day was his best. Jennifer Schuchmann, "A Woman Called Job," [condensed] in Today's Christian, July/August, 2007, pp. 22-26.)

That's how it happens. You're going through your ordinary life with its predictable rhythms when suddenly you're sideswiped by crisis. You hear the ambulance siren as it grows louder and louder. You've heard that sound many times before. But this time, it's headed to your house. The moment seems surreal, disjointed from reality. Things that were important just minutes before are completely irrelevant now.

"7 Things You Better Have Nailed Down Before All Hell Breaks Loose,"

The telephone rings and you answer, with no idea what is about to happen to your life. Right after you say "hello," the caller tells you the news. You stand there in body-numbing disbelief as you hear that one of the most cherished people in the world to you is gone. There wasn't even time to say a final goodbye.

There's a knock on the door and you open to a man calls your name, then hands you a legal document and a clipboard for you to sign, acknowledging your receipt of the document. You can feel time stand still as you take the pen to sign your name. You knew your marriage was in trouble, but you had no idea. You scribble your name and shut the door. You can hardly breathe. (Adapted from Robert Wolgemuth's "7 Things You Better Have Nailed Down Before All Hell Breaks Loose," Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2007.)

Some of you haven't had one of these ripping experiences yet. What are you going to do when the bottom drops out? Some of you have lived these stories or something similar. You know that sense of desperation, so gut-wrenching you can't breathe. There's nothing you can do about what's happening. You feel weak, vulnerable and afraid. What did you do? Where did your mind take you? Was it a freefall or did you have something to hang on to?

Someday, trauma will walk right up and sock you in the teeth. These are the times when you and I need the rock-solid things that do not - and will not - change. And we need them nailed down before the crisis strikes. All you will have in those defining moments is what you had before they hit you.

Background on the Text

Isaiah 6:1 KJV 1900

In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.

King Uzziah is dead. Don’t read this too casually. Uzziah (known as Azariah in 2 Kings 15) was one of the better kings of Judah—the best after Solomon. He began his reign at age 16, reigned 52 years, and “did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh” (2 Chronicles 26:3-4). He commanded a mighty army, defeated the Philistines, and collected tribute from the Ammonites. He built towers and encouraged agriculture. “But when he had was strong, his heart was lifted up, so that he did corruptly, and he trespassed against Yahweh his God” (2 Chronicles 26:16). Toward the end of his life, he tried to usurp priestly prerogatives, and God afflicted him with leprosy (2 Chronicles 26:20).

Uzziah’s reign began sometime around 790 B.C. and he died sometime around 742 B.C.—a half-century reign during which Judah prospered. However, Tiglath-pileser began to reign in Assyria in 745 B.C.—in the last years of Uzziah’s reign—and soon brought Assyria to a position of world dominance. Soon, Tiglath-pileser would begin pressuring Judah, and Judah’s fortunes would wane. Uzziah’s successors would find themselves unable to deliver the kind of peace and prosperity that Judah had enjoyed during Uzziah’s reign. Thus Uzziah would be remembered fondly and his death would be remembered with great sadness. “In the year that King Uzziah died” is a phrase heavy with meaning. Judeans would remember Uzziah’s reign as “the good old days.”

Truth #1 - The king is Dead, Long Live the King

King Uzziah is dead - But THE KING is ALIVE and on the THRONE

God was alive when He spoke the cosmos into existence

God was alive When Pharoah wouldn’t God’s people go

God was alive When Goliath was mocking in the valley before david

God was alive when socrates drank his poison.

When William Bradford established the colony at Plymouth

God was alive when the first bombs dropped at pearl harbor and the last one on Nagasaki during WW2

And When Thomas Altizer proclaimed God was dead in 1966 and put it on Time Magazine cover.

God was still alive when three planes where hijacked on September 11, 2001

God is still Alive at Charity Baptist Church and He is worth our service!

During all the ages past and for the eternal ages to come - let this truth ring home - GOD IS ALIVE

There is not a single head of state in all the world who will be there in fifty years. The turnover in world leadership is 100%. In a brief 110 years this planet will be populated by ten billion brand new people and all six billion of us alive today will have vanished off the earth like Uzziah. But not God. He never had a beginning, which means He depends on nothing for His existence. He always has been and always will be alive.

If God is on His Throne why are you worried? Why are you scared? Why are you so anxious?

Isaiah 6:2 KJV 1900

Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.

Isaiah 6:3 KJV 1900

And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: The whole earth is full of his glory.

Imagine the heavenly throne room with me.

-Seraphim - “Burning Ones”

-3 Sets of Wings

- And get this: not even they can look upon the Lord nor do they feel worthy even to leave their feet exposed in His presence. Great and good as they are, untainted by human sin, they revere their Maker in great humility. An angel terrifies a man with his brilliance and power. But angels themselves hide in holy fear and reverence from the face of God.

-God’s Glory was so overwhelming Isaiah describes it as a train that filled the entire throne room.

-Seraphims organized in choirs would have sang to each other over the celestial throne.

Holy Holy Holy repeated three times shows Yahwehs holiness is superlative, the greatest possible, and complete.

God’s glory is manifested in his holiness

Here is the word, holy. This word carries us to the edge of our language when talking about God. This word carries us to the brink and from there on the experience of God is beyond words.

If you were to ask me how to define the phrase “God is Holy” my answer would be “God is GOD”

You see, the root meaning of holy is "to cut or separate." A holy thing is cut off from and separated from common (we would say secular) use. Earthly things and persons are made holy when they are distinct from the world and devoted to God. So the Bible speaks of holy ground (Ex. 3:5), holy assemblies (Ex. 12:16), a holy nation (Ex. 19:6); holy garments (Ex. 28:2), a holy city (Neh. 11:1), holy men (2 Pt. 1:21) and women (1 Pt. 3:5), and so on. Almost anything can become holy if it is separated from common use and devoted to God.

But notice what happens when this definition is applied to God Himself. From what can you separate God to make Him holy? The very God ness of God means that He is separate from all that is not God, which means that God is one of a kind, in a class by Himself. In that sense He is utterly holy . . . which is just another way to say, God is God!

He is incomparable. You can call it His divinity, His greatness, His value as the pearl of great price. In the end, language runs out. "The Lord is in his holy temple; let everyone on earth be silent in His presence." (Habakkuk 2:20)

It is in this revelation of God’s holiness that we can understand why the phrase HOLY HOLY HOLY began to shake the house down.

Isaiah 6:4 KJV 1900

And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.

True Worship - is powerful enough to shake the entire house.

Smoke arises from the Altar of Incense (prayer of the saints)

Truth #2 - I am Dead - Long Live the King

Isaiah 6:5 KJV 1900

Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.

When in the presence of the King - neither you or your friends will measure up.

In the presence of the king we realize how unclean and undone we actually are.

Unclean lips are symbolic of an unclean heart

Isaiah comes to the understanding here that Sacrifice precedes service.

This truth reveals to us the reality of our current time - So few are willing to serve God today because so few have conviction of their sins.

So few understand the holiness of God

So few are bothered by their sins.

Maybe that is where you are this morning. Comfortable and spiritually callous. Maybe your heart has grown cold in worship - both privately and publically.

The solution for you this morning is to meet God. To do business with Him. Confess your faults and your mistakes, humbly go before his throne and praise Him for His Holiness.

Isaiah 6:6 KJV 1900

Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:

Isaiah 6:7 KJV 1900

And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.

A seraph peels off from his flight path around the throne, diving straight for Isaiah. He's holding a burning coal that he took from the altar with tongs, but not because it is hot. After all, a seraph himself is a burning one. He took this coal with tongs because it is a holy thing. It belongs to the place of sacrifice and atonement and forgiveness. But this holy thing touches Isaiah's dirty mouth, and it does not hurt him, it heals him. What we must see, in the context of the whole Bible, is that this burning coal symbolizes the finished work of Christ on the cross.

Isaiah 6:8 KJV 1900

Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.

God’s call went out to all in the throne room. Whom shall I send...

It wasn’t the angles who answered the call.

It wasn’t the Saints in heaven like Abraham and moses.

It was Isaiah.

May we have the same attitude of Isaiah - here am I, send me

Closing

Dave and Sherry come on up.

Lower audience lights.

Sing with arms stretched out to the side or to the sky

Altar is open.