Holy Service
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1 In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw the Lord sitting on a high and exalted throne, the edges of his robe filling the temple.
2 Winged creatures were stationed around him. Each had six wings: with two they veiled their faces, with two their feet, and with two they flew about.
3 They shouted to each other, saying: “Holy, holy, holy” is the Lord of heavenly forces! All the earth is filled with God’s glory!
4 The doorframe shook at the sound of their shouting, and the house was filled with smoke.
5 I said, “Mourn for me; I’m ruined! I’m a man with unclean lips, and I live among a people with unclean lips. Yet I’ve seen the king, the Lord of heavenly forces!”
6 Then one of the winged creatures flew to me, holding a glowing coal that he had taken from the altar with tongs.
7 He touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips. Your guilt has departed, and your sin is removed.”
8 Then I heard the Lord’s voice saying, “Whom should I send, and who will go for us?” I said, “I’m here; send me.”
9 God said, “Go and say to this people:” Listen intently, but don’t understand; look carefully, but don’t comprehend.
10 Make the minds of this people dull. Make their ears deaf and their eyes blind, so they can’t see with their eyes or hear with their ears, or understand with their minds, and turn, and be healed.
11 I said, “How long, Lord?” And God said, “Until cities lie ruined with no one living in them, until there are houses without people and the land is left devastated.”
12 The Lord will send the people far away, and the land will be completely abandoned.
13 Even if one-tenth remain there, they will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak, which when it is cut down leaves a stump. Its stump is a holy seed.
In life there can be famous people and infamous people.
Have you ever met anyone famous or even slightly famous?
I’ve meet two different celebrities over my lifetime. During my time in the Air Force I met a number of Generals and high ranking civilians including a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense.
It was fun to meet a famous person. I add those to the things I’ve done or people I’ve met list. Other than being able to say that I met them, the encounter did nothing for me. It didn’t change my life or how I live my life.
I’ve met some infamous people. I’ve met people that have alluded to the fact that they should be in prison or dead. The hinted at the crimes that they have committed in their lives. Some of those people made me wary of being around them.
There is one person that I met who has changed my life and that person is Jesus. When I met Jesus my life was forever changed. You can’t have an encounter with God and not come away from that experience unchanged.
Isaiah in our scripture text was transformed by his encounter with God. An angel brought a coal from the altar of God and touch Isaiah’s lips and said to him:
7 He touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips. Your guilt has departed, and your sin is removed.”
Before we can understand the transformation in Isaiah’s life we have to know why this event happened. Isaiah opens this chapter telling us:
1 In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw the Lord sitting on a high and exalted throne, the edges of his robe filling the temple.
Isaiah gives us a little historic context for his encounter with God. He tells us that he saw the Lord in the year that King Uzziah died. From history, King Uzziah’s death occurred about the year 740 B.C. Depending on the translation of the Bible you have you find him named Azariah. They are the same person.
We first read about Uzziah in 2 Chronicles chapter 26. That chapter gives us some very helpful information about Uzziah. In that chapter we read:
1 Then all the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was 16 years old, and made him king after his father Amaziah.
2 He rebuilt Eloth, restoring it to Judah after King Amaziah had lain down with his ancestors.
3 Uzziah was 16 years old when he became king, and he ruled for fifty-two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jecoliah; she was from Jerusalem.
4 He did what was right in the Lord’s eyes, just as his father Amaziah had done.
5 He sought God as long as Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God, was alive. And as long as he sought the Lord, God gave him success.
From that small section of scripture we learn a few important bits of information:
He rebuilt Eloth - this was an important sea-port on the Red Sea. It had been destroyed by the Edomites but he rebuilt it.
He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord – he followed his father’s example
He sought after God
As long as he sought the Lord, God gave him success
Uzziah in the list of Judah’s kings was one of the good godly ones. He started off right and was remembered for seeking after God. As you read through that chapter in 2 Chronicles you learn some more about him.
He went to war against the Philistines, the ancient enemy of Israel. They lived in that area that we now know as the Gaza Strip. He rebuilt towns in the area.
Verse 7 tells us that “God helped him against the Philistines and against the Arabs”
Verse 8 tells us that “his fame spread as far as the border of Egypt, because he had become very powerful.”
Verses 9 through 14 tell us that he was a great builder. He was a great farmer.
He was a great military leader. Verse 13 tells us his military was “an army of 307,500 men trained for war, a powerful force to support the king against his enemies.” That was a large army, it was comparable in size to today U.S. Air Force.
He was an inventor, verse 15 tells us “In Jerusalem he made devices invented for use on the towers and on the corner defenses.”
The last sentence in verse 15 tells us something very important about Uzziah. We read there:
2 Chronicles 26:15 (CEB)
15 And so Uzziah’s fame spread far and wide, because he had received wonderful help until he became powerful.
He had received wonderful help until he became powerful. Who helped him? It was God. Back in verse five we read
5 He sought God as long as Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God, was alive. And as long as he sought the Lord, God gave him success.
“As long as he sought the Lord, God gave him success. “
Until he became powerful. Until he became powerful then something happened. In verse 16 we read: “But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall.” That seems to be a common occurrence. There is a statement that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We see it time and time again.
In the Proverbs we read:
18 Pride comes before disaster, and arrogance before a fall.
That word arrogance means “having or showing the insulting attitude of people who think that they are better, smarter, or more important than other people”
I like how The Message paraphrase renders that verse, it says:
First pride, then the crash — the bigger the ego, the harder the fall.
I think that describes Uzziah pretty well because in the following verses we see where his pride led him. Listen to what happened:
16 But as soon as he became powerful, he grew so arrogant that he acted corruptly. He was unfaithful to the Lord his God by entering the Lord’s sanctuary to burn incense upon the incense altar.
17 The priest Azariah, accompanied by eighty other of the Lord’s courageous priests, went in after him
18 and confronted King Uzziah. “You have no right, Uzziah,” he said, “to burn incense to the Lord! That privilege belongs to the priests, Aaron’s descendants, who have been ordained to burn incense. Get out of this holy place because you have been unfaithful! The Lord God won’t honor you for this.”
19 Then Uzziah, who already had a censer in his hand ready to burn the incense, became angry. While he was fuming at the priests, skin disease erupted on his forehead in the presence of the priests before the incense altar in the Lord’s temple.
20 When Azariah the chief priest and all the other priests turned and saw the skin disease on his forehead, they rushed him out of there. Uzziah also was anxious to leave because the Lord had afflicted him.
21 King Uzziah had skin disease until the day he died. He lived in a separate house, diseased in his skin, because he was barred from the Lord’s temple. His son Jotham supervised the palace administration and governed the people of the land.
Did you catch what happened to him? In verse 16 it tells us “He was unfaithful to the Lord his God.” That led to his downfall. “King Uzziah had skin disease until the day he died. He lived in a separate house — diseased in his skin, because he was barred from the Lord’s temple.”
Uzziah started out as a faithful follower of God. He was obedient to God and did what God commanded and God blessed him beyond measure. Somewhere along the way he got his eyes off of God and got them on himself. It came to the point that he felt he didn’t need the priests in the Temple to burn incense for him, he felt he could do it himself. It was at this point as he began angry at the priests for confronting him that God afflicted him with leprosy.
What often happens when someone is in the wrong and they are confronted? They often become angry at the person who is confronting them. Uzziah became angry. I wonder if things would have turned out differently had he instead of becoming angry had repented then and there. Of course we’re reading this after the fact.
In the Old Testament law we read this about leprosy:
43 The priest must examine it. If the swelling of the infection is reddish white in the bald spot or receding hairline and resembles skin disease on the body,
44 the person is afflicted with skin disease; they are unclean. The priest must declare them unclean on account of the head infection.
45 Anyone with an infection of skin disease must wear torn clothes, dishevel their hair, cover their upper lip, and shout out, “Unclean! Unclean!”
46 They will be unclean as long as they are infected. They are unclean. They must live alone outside the camp.
So for the rest of King Uzziah’s life he lived in a separate house, away from all those who were in awe of his power and might. Here is a man who had it all, he had everything going for him but it went to his head and he took his eyes off of God and failed God miserably.
It’s into this context and background that Isaiah writes
1 In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw the Lord sitting on a high and exalted throne, the edges of his robe filling the temple.
There is a profound contrast between Uzziah and God. Uzziah died as a leprous recluse, isolated from his family and all the power and prestige that he had enjoyed. Its been said that sin will take us to places we never could have imagined and that is what happened to Uzziah and the Jews.
When Uzziah died a refocus on God needed to be had. When Uzziah last entered the temple he was arrogant and prideful. He left rejected and ostracized. In his arrogance and pride he assumed a role that was not his to assume.
When Isaiah saw the Lord, he saw God in God’s proper position. The Lord was high and lifted up. When Uzziah entered the Temple he was trying to lift himself up but God struck him down. Isaiah saw the Lord, he was high and exalted, seated on a throne. Uzziah thought he was high and exalted but God struck him down. The train of the Lord’s robe filled the temple. Uzziah never again was permitted to enter the temple.
Do you see the contrast? It’s important to see this contrast. It is of the utmost importance to see the Lord in his rightful position and us in our rightful position.
Uzziah’s death was symbolic. He who had begun so well and had found prosperity in obedience had been struck by the dread disease of leprosy. An appearance of health and strength remained for a time, but the disease was at work within the body of the king; its marks became more and more visible as the ravages of that dread sickness took their toll. Finally, destroyed within and without, Uzziah died; his pride and his disobedience brought judgment on him.
Isaiah pointed out that Judah was also diseased, just like her king, because she too had deserted the Lord.
Back in chapter 1 Isaiah wrote:
5 Why do you invite further beatings? Why continue to rebel? Everyone’s head throbs, and everyone’s heart fails.
6 From head to toe, none are well— only bruises, cuts, and raw wounds, not treated, not bandaged, not soothed with oil.
Isaiah was writing about the Jews and that wasn’t a very good picture that he painted of them. Just as Uzziah was covered with leprosy, the Jews also were sick, spiritually sick. It is interesting that the first that Isaiah hears is the angels saying:
Isaiah 6:3 (CEB)
“Holy, holy, holy” is the Lord of heavenly forces! All the earth is filled with God’s glory!
Isaiah was reminded in that moment that God is holy. We need to recapture that vision of God, that God is holy. We need to see that vision of the Lord as holy and high and exalted. In the church and culture today people are trying to make God after their image.
God is not created in our image. God is exalted, God is high and lifted up, God is holy. God created man in His image. God’s desire for us is that we are holy. The Apostle Peter reminds us
14 Don’t be conformed to your former desires, those that shaped you when you were ignorant. But, as obedient children,
15 you must be holy in every aspect of your lives, just as the one who called you is holy.
16 It is written, You will be holy, because I am holy.
The picture that Isaiah paints for us here is of God’s holiness and what happens when we are confronted with that holiness. Isaiah says that when the angels spoke “the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.” Oh that God would shake us and fill us anew with His Holy Spirit.
Look at Isaiah’s response beginning in verse 5:
5 I said, “Mourn for me; I’m ruined! I’m a man with unclean lips, and I live among a people with unclean lips. Yet I’ve seen the king, the Lord of heavenly forces!”
6 Then one of the winged creatures flew to me, holding a glowing coal that he had taken from the altar with tongs.
7 He touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips. Your guilt has departed, and your sin is removed.”
When you’ve been in the very presence of God you will be changed. When Uzziah came into the Temple, the place where God lived, he came prideful and arrogant. Uzziah elevated himself. When Isaiah saw God in the temple he realized his own sinfulness and the sinfulness of the people. Isaiah knew that it wasn’t just him, but it was also the people.
David McKenna wrote “Here is fundamental truth: whenever we see the King, the Lord of hosts, our sinfulness is exposed. Like the pounding of the telltale heart, we can only cry “woe,” not upon others but only upon ourselves.
The angel brought a live coal, fire and touched Isaiah’s lips and cleansed him. We need the same thing today. On the day of Pentecost, one of the visuals is that of fire that came down on those disciples. John the Baptist when talking about Jesus said that he would baptize with fire.
We need to be touched by the fire of God again, to ignite us for service to Him. We need to be set on fire by the Holy Spirit so that people will be drawn to the light of Jesus. That fire will burn out all the sin from our lives and purify us. Oh that God would pour out that Holy Spirit fire on us today! Won’t you pray for that?