Turn with me, if you would, this morning to our text found in Isaiah chapter 6. We ll be reading verses 1 through verse 5. In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim, each one had six wings. With twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts. The whole earth is filled with His glory. And the post of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. 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 Jehovah of Hosts. Let's pray. Lord, again we come to You to thank You for Your goodness, for Your blessings. We thank You for Your person, Lord, Your glory and majesty. And so, Lord, let us learn from You this morning. In Jesus' holy name, Amen. As we begin this morning, I want to back up just a little bit and read a passage, a verse, from 1 Chronicles chapter 29, verse 11. We're dealing with the majesty of God, and I don't think a better passage can be used than Isaiah 6. But as we see this this morning, we see that David in some sense must have got a glimpse of the glory of God, as he is telling Solomon, his son, who will soon be king in the last chapter of Chronicles, 1 Chronicles. He is preparing him to build the temple. He is bringing in all the wealth and showing him all the things that he needs and that he has collected over these years to fill the house of God with the gold and the silver and his precious woods that are used. And now he says when he brings it in to Solomon and those about him, Thine, O Jehovah, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty. for all that is in heaven and earth is thine." That�s where we start this morning. That�s where we started in the first lesson in this text. And so we see this morning as Isaiah gets a glimpse of the glory of God, God has called him to be a prophet in Israel. And as he lays the foundation for that, we see that he writes, �In the year that Uzziah died,� Now to us that doesn't mean a whole lot, but when you think about who Uzziah was, he was the king and he ruled 52 years, that's about 13 U.S. elections. A long period of time, and in that time everything was upbeat. They were secure economically, socially. and militarily. All was in place. Now, as Uzziah was older, the Assyrians began to come in, and they were entering into the north. And now as he�s Jeroboam II is old, and now together Jeroboam II, the king of the north, and Uzziah in the south, gained and recovered most of the land that David and Solomon had in their reign, though it was the north and the south together holding that. But now Uzziah is dying. Assyria has entered into the north, which is the buffer zone for them. And so Jeroboam now dies in 753. The Assyrians are already at the door. In 722 they take Israel, the northern kingdom, off. Israel, the northern kingdom, will never be heard of again as a people of God. There were many who stayed in the land who were poor and sick that the Assyrians DID NOT take. Remember in the days of Jesus when Hannah, the prophet, is from the tribe of Asher. So there were tribes that kept their identity, but there were very few and most of them began to be lost in the tribe of Judah when Christ comes. But now we see that in this vision, Isaiah enters into a vision, and I believe it�s a vision, and he�s in the Temple in this vision. Whether he�s literally there or it�s a vision of the Temple is immaterial. But what he SEES is very interesting and very important for his own ministry, as God calls him, because he�s going to be called to a people who are backslidden, a people who will not hear. But now as He comes, He had never known probably a king other than Uzziah. short pieces of other kings, like the king who follows Uzziah, the one who came before him. But he s been safe. He s always known the security and peace of his city, Jerusalem, and of his nation in the southern part of Judea. And so now, as he goes, Uzziah has died. He sees what�s happening OUTSIDE of Judah. The Assyrians, a wicked people, a great people, a strong military people, are coming. Soon they will be knocking at the doors of Jerusalem. And so now all of a sudden fear has struck into people. They�re having to wrestle with what�s going on. Who will lead Judah? That's the issue with Isaiah. Who is going to protect us? Who's going to be our king? And so now we see, what does he see? And the vision he sees is a vision that brings him to see who is actually and truly leading and guiding and directing the nations, plural. He's going to get a glimpse of God, and in particularly, His vision is a vision as we see in John chapter 12. It's a vision of the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ, who is the very Son of God, to whom the Father has given over power and might and rule. And so as we see it, in the year that Uzziah died, all hope was gone. Everybody had to look back and say, What's going to happen now? There was fear. But now it says, First of all, I saw the Lord. Now, the word here is not Jehovah. It's the word Adonai. It's not the name of God. It's His office. He is a ruler, a master, a king. The word Adonai takes more emphasis on His DOING, what He IS. He IS the Ruler. He's the one who RULES and GUIDES and DIRECTS the states of affair. He's the one who's over everything and in charge. He's the one who's WORKING for the people to protect them and guide them and direct them, and it's Adonai. That�s Jesus Christ. He IS the Master, the Ruler. But now notice, He�s sitting upon a throne. It�s not just an ordinary throne. Now, all the kings of Israel in their palaces had their dioceses, their thrones, high so the people down below could see them as they judged and they When people had an audience with Him, they would come to the steps as they would go up and ascend up to His throne where they would bow before Him. But this is again the picture of a HIGH THRONE, not just a high pedestal like a pulpit up on a stage. This is a HIGH THRONE, because it�s a picture again of the heightness, the greatness, the highness of Christ, of God Himself also. And so again we see as He�s there, He�s seated on the throne which tells us He IS He is guiding and directing in all the official aspects of the Kingdom, and here again Isaiah understands, of the WORLD. He is in control of every king. It is He who guides the hearts of the king as the waters travel down the channels of the creeks and of the rivers. He is the one who is guiding it and leading them. And so again, Isaiah is to be CALM and see His dependence upon the Lord. He s high upon the throne and LIFTED UP. It s not just that He s high, He s being lifted up that ALL can look upon Him and see His presence. ALL should see Him and be at peace and be at calm. as long as they are His friends. And so it is now, He�s given us a picture of the King of kings and the Lord of lords. It is Christ who is being pictured here as the one who rules. Remember Philippians, it says He comes as a man, He humbles Himself and becomes obedient, as a servant and He humbles Himself unto death, even the death of the cross. But now God has highly exalted Him. Here He is exalted BEFORE He becomes man. This is the pre-incarnate Christ. He was King and always King, and yet He could humble Himself for His people. And His throne is lifted up, and His train filled the temple. Remember, the train is the tail of his robe that falls out behind him. Some of you remember when Lady Di and I can't remember his name, Harry, whoever it was, they got married, and it was the wedding of the century for Americans and for Europeans. I mean, it was like the whole world was going crazy over this marriage. and like human marriages didn't last very long but the point was it was the most glorious wedding probably most of all the world had ever seen when she comes walking down that aisle and she's got her wedding gown on and her train that is falling out behind her it takes several servants to keep and walk behind her with it off the ground not dragging on the ground this is the picture that we have now. He is ROBED as He�s sitting on His throne, but His TRAIN doesn�t just sit on the throne. It is, as it were, so long and so great because that train spoke of the majesty on high. We�re talking about God�s majesty! Who is He? And as we look at Him, we see He is high and lifted up. That word MAJESTY speaks of being HIGH and LIFTED UP. Remember, several of the words that are used by David, three out of the four or five words, can be translated MAJESTY. And MAJESTY means to be GREAT, and its picture is to be HIGH and LIFTED UP. So it is. Now, Christ is pictured here high and lifted up as He is robed in His great majesty, and the train of His robe, as it were, serpentines around inside of this temple, which is the place of His throne. Remember, the temple speaks of the presence of God, The Temple is where God's Presence was with Israel, but it also spoke of that Ark of the Covenant, spoke of His THRONE. His Presence is where His Throne is. And when we get to the Psalms, David says, The HEAVENS are His THRONE, the EARTH is His FOOTSTOOL, because He's the GOD of HEAVEN and EARTH. He has created it all for Himself, and we see that picture as we see it. And so it is now, as we look at our picture, it moves to, again, we see this, we see, and it says, there stood above it, or above it stood the seraphim. Now, this idea of standing doesn't mean they're standing still. As we get into it, it says again, they stood above it, and it says, with each one they had six wings. With twain they covered their face, and with twain they flew. And again, they covered their eyes, face, their face, and their feet, and they flew. Again, these beings are called fiery beings. The word seraphim means the burning ones. Now what we mean we don't understand, but we believe these were the angels of God who represent them as they stand around them. And Daniel, we get a picture of that, he says, "...a fiery stream issued and came forth from before him. Thousands and thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The judgment was set, and the books were opened." He's speaking again here again of the Christ coming as He opens His books, but there were the ANGELS with Him as they stood there with Him sitting there. And so now we see as these beings fly about, notice they FLY! And notice what they are doing, and these are SINLESS BEINGS! They've NEVER sinned! They've never touched sin, as it were, we would say. And yet, as they fly about the throne of God, they COVER THEIR FACE. They CANNOT look upon God. Remember, God told Moses, No man can see My face and live. Yet God gave to Moses the blessing of seeing His hindrances. He saw God, the glory of God, and that's all we can see because God does not have a body. But His, again, BRILLIANT SHINES! Remember the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration, He began to SHINE and GLOW, and they saw the GLORY of God! So it is here, these animals SEE that GLORY, but they have to HIDE their FACE from it! They have to COVER their FEET! Possibly God has sent them, and again because they are ALWAYS FLYING, it appears, I'm assuming it's still going on in the American government. It used to be in the 60s there were ALWAYS jets in the air to protect our borders. When some would come in, others would be going out. They were ALWAYS flying about READY for action. These beings are ALREADY IN ACTION. All God has to say is GO! as they fly about, but they cover their whole being. Just think, You and I are men and we have sinned. Remember, Manoah, when he saw the angel of the Lord, he said, We ve seen God, we re going to die! But God spared them. One day we will see God in the face of Christ. He is God in the flesh, in Him dwells all the Godhead bodily, and therefore we will be able to see God in Christ. as He sits upon His throne. And now notice what happens also. In that moment, it says, one cries to another. They don't sing as a chorus. It's antiphonal. This one sings to that one. That one sings to another one. And it's just around, as they fly about His throne, they're loud voices. These are not beings that have soft voices that whisper. Their songs and their voices are LOUD, and they cry out, HOLY, HOLY, HOLY is Jehovah of Hosts. You notice we don�t know who this One is until we get to this vision. First of all, we see Adonai, and we know who it is. But He's first recognized for WHO He is and WHAT He does, His WORK throughout the Psalms God talks about, the great WORKS of God. Adonai, the LORD, is the one who does the WORK. He IS Jehovah, the Great I AM, the self-existent God. who rules over all, and they can help sing HOLY, HOLY, HOLY! Because again, what does the word HOLY mean? It means SEPARATED! It means to be PURE! And they recognize themselves, they recognize God, and they recognize even in THEIR purity, God is so much more PURE and HOLY and SEPARATED from them! They cannot get near Him! They do their faithfulness to Him in flying about His throne, crying out, Holy, Holy, Holy is Jehovah of hosts. He is again Jehovah of hosts. Thus, I am that I am. The same yesterday. And forever. The God who is. Immutable. Spirit. the One who fills all eternity. There�s no place that He does not exist. There�s nothing that He does not know. There�s nowhere you can go to get away from Him, as David says. He IS the Lord of glory, and He is the Lord of hosts. That is, He�s the CAPTAIN of His And Daniel, again, tells us again that when he saw, when Geneser saw that vision of God, he says, The inhabitants of earth are reputed as nothing, and he does according to his will among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hands. He s over the army of God, and the army of God is one. He�s over all the inhabitants of the earth, and they are ready. And no one can say, �God, what are you doing?� As we look at this election coming up Tuesday, and again, it�s a very important election. I don�t think in my lifetime I�ve ever seen one more important, because I think the differences between what Isaiah saw as Uzziah dies as a man, He saw the armies of the Assyrians who could not be stopped entering into northern Israel. He knows once they get through there, they will come to the gates of Jerusalem this election tomorrow or Tuesday. If the wrong people, if the Democrats win, America will be changed. We will be like the children of Israel when the Assyrians marched on the gates of Jerusalem. And so where is our hope? We pray this does not happen. We pray that as weak as all the presidents of the United States are, that God will spare us and give us the man who's there now who is a Christian or not, I don't know, but God has raised Him up. He's one of the few presidents that I know of who has kept every promise that He's ever made. He's a man who loves life. He does not love death. All the other side are lovers of death. What do they want? Women to be able to kill their unborn babies, and that's not enough. They want to kill them if they make it out of the womb They want more abortion more death and They could care less about life. They are monsters. I Said it they are monsters. They are no different than Karl Marx whose children Stalin and Lenin and Hitler, and particularly Stalin and Lenin, were HIS children, and they MURDERED MILLIONS OF LIVING PEOPLE. Will it happen here? In every communist country that has ever grown up, there has always been the ANNIHILATION of anyone who disagreed. All you have to do is go down to the riots. Do you think they want to talk to you? Do the Democrats listen and want to talk about what's going on and have a civil conversation? Karl Marx said, no, you just scream and scream and scream and scream and shut them up. You take over and you remove those you believe will cause you problems. Our God is in rule, and it's not wrong for us to say, God, remove them. Do you think Isaiah said, Oh, Lord, what are we going to do now? Is God showing him that they're weak, and he's weak, and they should be quaking in their boots? Or is He saying, I'm in control, and if everything that happens, I rule. When Daniel, which we've already quoted from, opens up the very first verse in Daniel doesn't say, And Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon came and he took Jerusalem. It says no, in the year that Nebuchadnezzar came, God gave over to Nebuchadnezzar Jerusalem. It was God who gave Him over. It was God who gave Israel over to the enemies and the judges. It was God who gave the enemies over to the judges and to Israel. So it is, God is ruling. This is what Isaiah is seeing because he�s getting ready to go into a people, his own people, who will not hear him. And so it is now when we hear and see this vision. What happens? At God's throne, the seraphim fly about singing, Holy, Holy, Holy is Jehovah of Hosts. He's head of His army. His army is already in flight, ready to go. And it says, And the post of the door moved. What a vision! What about Isaiah as he's watching this vision? Is he afraid? The doors of the temple, the doors into the palace are shaking, and it�s like an earthquake going on, and the voice of these beings crying out, �Holy, holy, holy,� is resounding, and it says, �And the house was filled with smoke.� What a vision! Remember when Solomon builds the temple, chapter 7, I believe it is, in 2 Samuel, when they go into the temple for the first time, it is dark, and the Lord comes down in their smoke and darkness at the presence of God. So it is, again, we see this vision at a time and a day like ours. As Christians we ought to be repenting of our sins, crying God to come and send a Redeemer, a King that will rescue us. But the King is already there. But we need to raise up a nation that is led by Christ, His rule, His law. His law ought to be the rule of every nation in the world. Christian, do you want that? Is it God's law that you fear more than man? Do you think God's law had anything to do with the making of our nation in the late 1600s or 1700s, when all the thirteen colonies basically had the Bible as their law? God's Law, the Law of Moses, the Ten Commandments, and the rules and laws and regulations of the commandments that God had given to them in the book of Deuteronomy and Numbers. God's Law became the rule, and we came out a great nation, and we still have SOME of those things that are lingering on in it, but not many, and little by little We have allowed the idea of LET�S JUST GET ALONG to come along. Christians need to STAND UP, NOT BE AFRAID OF THE ENEMY. We ought to pray that God, if He�s not going to save them, REMOVES THEM as David prayed �I HATE THEM Who hate thee? I hate them with a perfect hatred. He says, the workers of iniquity. He says, God, remove them, kill them, destroy them and their offspring, if it's not your will to save them. So it is with us. We ought to be praying those prayers. That's not wickedness. That's not cruel. It's praying, God, rule and bring back peace and your law. If we would have peace, we cannot have peace without God's law being established, not so we can be saved, but that we could be a righteous people before God and that we, because we are His people, want to be like Him. And so as we see this morning in these first four verses, what's going on? They get a glimpse of Jehovah. But just as we close this morning, verse 5, What would you do when you saw God? As a Christian, you KNOW Christ has died for you, you have justification before the law of God. Your day in court has already come. In Christ we have justification. We are already ADOPTED as His children. We belong to Him because He has ADOPTED us as His, revealed Himself to us, and so was Isaiah, a redeemed man in Christ Jesus. But notice what He does when He sees all this. The first thing He comes, He doesn't say, Wow! Look what's going on! What am I seeing? This is wonderful! No. WOE! WOE! WOE IS ME! That word WOE in Hebrew is the opposite of holiness. It speaks of judgment. When God curses Jerusalem, He puts in about eight WOES there in Matthew 25. WOE UNTO THEM! woe unto them, woe unto you serpents, woe unto you whited sepulchers. He�s calling down God�s judgment, and the only other word in all the Bible that is used in its reference as �Holy, holy, holy� three times in a row is the word �woe.� In the book of Revelation, He says, �Woe, woe, woe unto the inhabitants of the earth.� So this morning, what is your reaction when you see the holiness of God and think about the holiness of God? Do you say, ìWoe is me!î Because thatís what we all say, ìWoe are we! Woe is me!î Because we are people of unclean lips, and we dwell in the midst of people with unclean lips, and yet God has sent us forth to proclaim Him. He is our King, He is our Ruler, and weíre to stand boldly in the world and not be afraid of what man can do. fear what God can do. And so it is we come this morning, we must understand the holiness, the righteousness, the glory of God. We've been going through a series on the majesty of God. He is the one that we are to glory in. Christ is the one who is risen from the grave. He today, right now, this moment, is seated in heaven with Elijah and Enoch, as the two representatives of men raised to heaven with Him. He's there at the right hand of the Father. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. You and I have already bowed before Him, and the world will bow before Him, and they will pray to Him. We will rejoice in His coming, but what will the world do? The book of Revelations and the Old Testament prophets said they will cry for the mountains to cover them. They will try to find holes to go down in and to hide from the presence of the living God. Isaiah is our representative. When we see him, we will joy. We will say again with David, Thine O Jehovah! thine, who is called Adonai, our Lord, Jehovah, our God, our Ruler. To you is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty. For all is yours, the heavens and the earth are yours, and we are yours, And we want to glory in your name. Let's pray. Lord, again, help us to see your glory. And as we look for this election on Tuesday, most of us are already having anxiety. We don't know what's going on. One party thinks they know everything and they can do anything. And Lord, they might be. You may give them the power to steal an election. But they can do NOTHING beyond what YOU allow, as you allowed Satan to touch Job. There�s nothing they can do. They are weaklings. They�re weaker than the tiniest baby whom they would put to death if they could. The oldest of us who are elderly that they will put to death if they can. These people who HATE life. But Lord, THINE is the power and the glory and the might and the majesty of God. YOU RULE! Help us not to forget that. No one sets upon the rule of a kingdom apart from YOUR hand. It may be that you look at us and say, It's now time for you to lose because of your sins, to receive from my hand the wicked rule over you. Because these people have been given up to an ungodly mind. But God, we pray that You would have pity upon Your people. As Abraham prayed, Lord, for 50, for 45, for 30, 35. Lord, if there's five righteous, would You save them? Lord, we pray for the five, the smallest numbers of your people that you would spare us and help us to go forth in your might now and be thankful for time, if it be your will, to let this linger and give us victory. In Jesus' holy name, amen.