Take your Bibles with me and turn to the book of Isaiah, chapter 6. If you know anything about the book of Isaiah, then you know that this chapter is probably the most well-known passage in the entire book. I've preached from it many times, and I've heard many sermons, including two at camp this summer, from this chapter.

But it's famous for a reason. It is one of those passages that shows us something about God we would not see this clearly if this chapter weren't here. It brings us into the throne room of heaven in such a clear and memorable way. And it also teaches us something about ourselves in the process.

So what we're going to do this evening is look at this chapter in four sections. The overwhelming theme of this chapter, I believe, is the holiness of God. And so the first thing I want you to see from this chapter is this:

1. God is overwhelmingly holy.

(Because this is the theme, we will spend most of our time here.)

Let's go ahead and read the first four verses.

1 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. 2 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. 3 And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. 4 And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Isaiah 6:1-4

Let's walk through these very famous verses for a minute. It starts by talking about King Uzziah dying. King Uzziah was, at least from a human standpoint, one of the greatest kings of Judah. He reigned fifty-two years, and his reign was marked by unbelievable prosperity. In the first part of his life, he was a very faithful man. He did fall away at the end of his life. He tried to go into the temple and was struck with leprosy, but he started very, very well, and helped Judah have a golden era.

But now Uzziah is dead, and there is this menace called the Assyrian army building on the horizon, threatening Judah, and it will threaten Judah for decades. Everything is thrown into uncertainty. It is in this period of uncertainty that Isaiah gets this remarkable vision of God.

Isaiah sees the Lord sitting on his throne. The word Lord there in verse 1 is not Yahweh. It's not Jehovah. It's not God's covenant name. It is a word that literally means Lord. It's talking about his role. He is the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, and He is sitting on His throne.

His throne is high and lifted up. His throne is lifted up so that even if everybody else in the room is standing and he's seated, he's still the tallest focal point in that room. And it says that his train fills the temple. The train — you've probably seen it with a wedding dress, the long flowing part that follows a bride as she goes down the aisle — that's called the train.

I read about Queen Elizabeth's train for her coronation. It used something like six yards of silk and was so heavy that she needed six ladies-in-waiting just to walk down the aisle to be crowned. Well, God's train is not six yards long. God's train fills the entire temple. Everywhere you look — up, down — you see this train.

What's the purpose of the train? It's not a super practical thing if you think about it. Why would Queen Elizabeth need six yards of this heavy silk? She can't even walk without help. It is put there to show her majesty. To show that she is not like you and me. She was lifted up. And God's train is so big, his majesty is so big, that it fills this entire heavenly temple.

You get the idea here that Isaiah is having his senses overwhelmed. This is sensory overload. This is more than a human is supposed to be able to take in.

So after Isaiah sees the Lord, and he sees the train, and he sees the throne, he sees these angels, these seraphim. This is the only place in the whole Bible that talks about seraphim. It seems that these seraphim's job is to attend to the holiness of God.

What amazes Isaiah when he sees these angels is their six wings. They have two wings covering their face, two wings covering their feet, and two wings they're using to fly. Now that doesn't seem very practical. Why only use two of your wings for flying and the other four for covering up? Well, the idea here seems to be that God is so holy that even these holy angels that have never sinned cannot stand the holy presence of God without covering up.

We think of holiness as a purely negative thing, as the absence of sin. But holiness is more than that. God's holiness is more than that. God is not just holy because he doesn't sin. God's holiness is the concentration, the magnification of all that he is. It is his godness overwhelming everything else. And it's so much that these sinless angels can't stand to be in the presence of a holy God without covering themselves up.

Can I stop here and just say that I'm going to meddle for a second? I think that when we come to worship the Lord, we should array ourselves reverently. We should cover ourselves up. That's a minimum, but we should dress in a reverential way. I would never mandate that everybody in our church dress up in a shirt and tie or in a suit to come to church. But I do think that when you come to church, you should look different than when you go to Rural King, or when you go to Walmart, or when you go to the refrigerator in the middle of the night to get some ice cream. God deserves our reverence. If holy angels have to cover themselves up in God's presence for reverence's sake, then maybe we should be a little bit more reverent as we approach his worship.

I love how Tim Chester, the commentary writer, puts this. He says Isaiah's four senses are overwhelmed by the holiness of God. The first, we already talked about, is his vision. He sees the angels covering themselves. He sees the high and lifted up throne and the train that fills the temple. The second sense we see here is hearing.

He hears the angels shout, "Holy, holy, holy!" Now, in the Hebrew language, the way things were emphasized was by repeating a word. There are many times in the Hebrew where it uses a construction like the gold, gold cups or bowls. That's its way of saying what we would say in English: these are the purest gold bowls. This is a very common thing, and you'd see it a lot as you study the Old Testament. But what's uncommon is using a double repetition. In fact, this is the only place in the Old Testament we see it. Because God is not just holy, holy. God is holy, holy, holy. He is the holiest of holy, holy things.

So Isaiah sees all this evidence of God's overwhelming holiness, and he hears the angels shout this evidence of overwhelming holiness. And then catch this: he feels it. When these angels say holy, holy, holy, it shakes the building. The doorposts shake at the sound of their voice.

And finally, he smells it. It says the house is filled with smoke. He smells the holiness of God.

And so this whole thing is just an overwhelming experience of the holiness of God. God is holy, high, lifted up beyond us, beyond our imagination, our understanding. He is so, so holy.

I don't believe that we as humans can comprehend how holy God is. It's like the sun. We can't go anywhere near the sun without burning up. Even in a spacesuit that would keep us alive in an oven all day, we couldn't get anywhere closer than three million miles from the sun without being in serious trouble.

God's holiness is so above and beyond our comprehension that if you or I were taken to the throne room of God, we would just experience this sensory overload like Isaiah does here. He is overwhelmingly holy.

So that's the first thing I want us to see. God is overwhelmingly holy.

The second thing we see is what happens when a human gets a view of God's holiness.

2. His holiness reveals our unholiness.

Look at verse 5.

5 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. Isaiah 6:5

Isaiah, when he experiences the holiness of God, his first word is, Woe is me. You know, in Isaiah 5, that Adam did such a good job preaching on last week, Isaiah says woe on six different groups of people, listing their sins. But when he experiences God himself, it's not woe is them. It is woe is me.

When he says, I am undone, it's like he's saying, I'm wrecked. It's the same word that's used in Scripture to describe cities that have been ravaged by war, leveled. Isaiah was a pretty good guy, but despite that, when he came face to face with the holiness of God, it revealed how unholy he was.

And notice he says his lips are unclean. Isaiah is a preacher. He's a prophet. He uses his lips to worship God, to preach the message that God gives him. And despite that, he feels that his best part is unholy. It's unclean. Because he's seen how holy the Lord is.

Church, the more we know the holiness of God, the more we see ourselves as unholy. The closer we get to God, the more He reveals how much we don't measure up. In the light of God's holiness, even our best things, our best actions, are shown to be selfish and twisted and mangled.

Whenever somebody doesn't think that they're a sinner, that just shows me they haven't seen God. They haven't had a vision of God and his holiness. They don't understand how holy he is. Because when you understand how holy God is, you see how dirty we are in comparison.

The third thing I want to talk about this evening: we've talked about how God is overwhelmingly holy, and God's holiness reveals our unholiness. The third thing I want to talk about is

3. God's holiness demands our external cleansing.

Look at verses six and seven with me.

6 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: 7 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. Isaiah 6:6-7

Isaiah realized he was unclean. But you know what? There was nothing Isaiah could do to cleanse himself. There was nothing he could do to erase his uncleanness in the sight of a holy God. In order for him to be cleansed, something external had to do it for him. His cleansing came from the altar.

In the temple, the altar was the place where sacrifices were killed and cooked. The fire represented the wrath and the judgment of God, and that sacrifice represented somebody else taking your sin, your punishment, for you. And so from this altar, Isaiah is cleansed. From this altar, this external thing, this sacrifice, Isaiah has his iniquity taken away and his sin purged. Of course, this could only be pointing us to Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, who is the Lamb that takes away the sins of the world. Jesus Christ, who bore the wrath and the judgment of God for us, who became the sacrifice for us at Calvary. Our holiness is not something we can work up. Our holiness has to be given to us. And it comes to us through Jesus Christ.

So we've talked about God's holiness, how it reveals our unholiness and demands our external cleansing.

Let's read the rest of the chapter and I'll give you one more point.

8 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. 9 And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. 10 Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. 11 Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, 12 And the LORD have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. 13 But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof. Isaiah 6:8-13

The final thing that we see in this chapter is

4. God's holiness inspires our service.

Isaiah heard a voice, the voice of God, that said, Who shall I send? Who will go for us? Now, Isaiah does not say, Here am I, send me, because he feels like he's the perfect candidate. He does it out of gratitude for what just happened to him. Because he's been cleansed — because he's seen his uncleanness and been cleansed from the altar — he is willing to say, "Here am I, send me."

Listen, church, God is not calling you to the same ministry that he gave Isaiah. But I believe that when you see the holiness of God, and you understand who you are — your uncleanness in relation to him — and you understand the righteousness that's been given to you through Christ, you will do anything for God. Anything is your reasonable service, as Romans 12:1 says.

1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Romans 12:1

Isaiah was willing to do anything. And God gave Isaiah a difficult job. His job was to go and preach a message to people who were not going to listen. God told him, This is what I want you to do. You're going to preach this message. It's going to be mostly a message of destruction. And it's going to be mostly a message that people are not going to hear. They're going to reject.

Can I tell you that human success has nothing to do with faithfulness to God? Just because a church or a pastor has tons of people doesn't mean that God is blessing that church. It could mean that they're not being faithful to preach the unpopular message God has given them to speak.

Isaiah's message, God wanted him to know, was not going to be accepted in his lifetime. It was a message of destruction, a message that people wouldn't hear. But at the end, after the destruction of Israel, God wanted Isaiah to know that out of that destruction he would save a remnant. God used the picture of a fallen tree. And from the stump of that tree sprout leaves, sprout sprigs. God said, I'm going to take this tree of Israel down to the stump. But out of what's left, I will regrow my people. Isaiah got to have a part in that.

Church, if you walk out of here impressed with Isaiah, we missed it. This chapter is not a famous vision for us to admire. It is a holy God, high and lifted up, and a man who thought he was a pretty good preacher until he saw Him.

If you have never said woe is me, you have not gotten close enough. And if you have said it, don't sit in the wreckage. There is a coal from the altar. There is a Lamb. Your iniquity can be taken away. Your sin can be purged. You cannot do that for yourself. He does it.

And then He still asks, Whom shall I send? He may not give you Isaiah's job. He may give you a hard one. People may not hear. That does not mean He failed, and it does not mean you did. He takes trees down to the stump, and He grows a people out of what's left.

See the Holy One. You will not stay as you are.