The Once and Future King

Isaiah 6

Often God brings us to hopeless situations to show us what he is doing. This is the passage that I read to the small congregation when my father’s church closed down. There are two main characters and each of them teach us something that we all should remember.

I. Hopelessness-v. 5 “my destruction is sealed”

1. It is only when we come to the end of ourselves that God works. When we depend upon our work or our programs or our education we fail to depend upon the God of the universe.

2. Every time someone thinks that they have seen God there is the equivalent of a footnote in the text or somewhere else. In this case John 12 tells us that Isaiah saw the Son.

B. Because of the political situation. Uzziah was dead. He was a good king in many ways, an able warrior and administrator. He had brought prosperity and peace.Yet he comes to an awful end. II Chron 26 tells us of Uzziah’s victory’s as well as his pride which led to his downfall. The death of a king was usually followed by anarchy. The year of his death may have been the year of Rome’s founding. Thus Isaiah saw Judah going down while Rome was increasing in power.

C. Because of personal sin.

1. The light shows sin. Without the light we don’t see sin. There will be times in your life when you feel ok. But other times when you are deep in the Scripture that you will see just how bad you really are.

2. Woe is me. He has had woes for others but when he comes face to face with God his statement is “Woe is me.”

II. Holiness-“

1. The seraphs are the firey ones who say Holy, Holy, Holy.

2. holy is in some sense an adjectival form of God.” He is the only one who is truly holy. All other holiness comes from its relationship to Him.

B. The Work of God.

1. The nature of the act-cleansing from sin, making the defiled clean and worthy. One cannot here but think of Hebrews nine.

2. The origin of the act. Isaiah does not beg God for forgiveness but God initiates the cleansing.

C. The Word of God.

1. The servant of the word. “Here am I” Isaiah says this with humility. What is the call to preach? Story of my own quitting the ministry.

2. The seriousness of the word.

a. We do not love to preach about hell. The problem with the Gospel is not its truthfulness but its uniqueness. We are willing to listen to anything as long as it does not claim to have absolute truth.

b. The results of the word-the truth causes people to not hear and not see. What then should we do? Preach the truth, that is all that we have.

3. The length of the word. “how long?” Isaiah seems to be saying “I am willing to preach this hard message as long as I know that there will be a corner turned at some point.” v11ff The nation will be sent into exile.

Concl: There is one bit of grace at the end of the chapter the chapter ends with the statement about the stump. Story of moving the stump with AL. This is grace in the last sentence of the chapter. This statement is picked up again at the end of chapter 10 and following into 11 and vv. 1-5. A stump which will not be moved and out of which will come the savior of the world. And his name is Jesus and it is his gospel that we preach.