And I'm grateful to be here and have the opportunity to open God's word and grateful for this marvelous, marvelous book, the book of Isaiah. So as we march our way through or slowly crawl through the book of Isaiah, we come actually to the beginning of the book. The first five chapters being the preface, at least the way I've outlined the book and come also to a passage. It's one of those ones I refer to as chariot passages. A lot of times Isaiah 6 is preached. I'm sure you've all heard lots of sermons on it. In fact, that intimidated me a little bit when I thought of preaching on it. They've already heard this, but word of God is the sort of thing you can hear again and again, and it still is fresh to you. Just to put where we are in the book of Isaiah, you can break the book into two parts. That's not two authors, but two parts. The first part being chapters one through 39, the book of judgment, which is where we are, of course. And then the second part being the book of comfort. And within this book, we're in the first section of it, the triumph of grace, chapters six through 12. In the specific chapter of Isaiah 6 that we're looking at, you can outline it pretty easily. You have verse 1a, the date, and then you have response to divine holiness, verses 1 through 7, response to divine concern, verses 8 through 10, and response to divine purposes, 11 through 13. It breaks out that way because of the poetic structure that Isaiah uses in verses 5, 8, and 11. You have Isaiah saying, and I said, and I said, and I said. So there's three responses of Isaiah, so you can diagram it out that way. Isaiah ended his preface, chapter five, in a very dark note of hopelessness. He left us with two concluding images of hopelessness. The first being a person who hears the growl of a lion and looks and sees a lion about to pounce on him. And the second being a sailor who's caught out in a raging storm and he looks to the land and he sees only darkness. It's a very, very dark close to his preface. In fact, Motier, and I quoted this in my last sermon, makes the comment, Thus, Isaiah ends his preface. The message of the first two sections, 1-2-31 and 2-1-46, is that human sin cannot ultimately frustrate God's purposes in that, in God, mercy triumphs over wrath. But the third section, 5-1-30, poses a shattering question When the Lord has done all, and then he's referring back to verse four, when the Lord looks at his vineyard and says, what more is there that I could do from my vineyard that I have not done in it? I looked for it to yield grapes, but it only yielded wild grapes or stink fruit. So when the Lord has done all, must the darkness of divine wrath close in, and the light flicker and fade? This was the day of crisis, which Isaiah ministered. A crisis for mankind, for the day of wrath has come, and a crisis for God. Can mercy be exhausted and defeated? And so Isaiah ends the preface to his book. But then we come to chapter six and God appears. Isaiah immediately answers the question which Motier asks, immediately answers the question of the crisis with the appearance of the Lord to Isaiah. So as Motier says, as he continues in his commentary, the question mark put against the doctrine of hope in chapter five is erased by Isaiah's own experience. And then he goes on to comment and say, this chapter is not simply his or Isaiah's justification for a prophet, but is more particularly the heart of his answer to the problems raised by this preface. It speaks of the triumph of grace. And so that's our first observation. When things are dark, when things are hopeless, God appears. God intervenes. And that's our hope, isn't it? When life just seems hopeless and it seems like things aren't gonna get any better, things are just gonna get worse. God appears. We begin with Isaiah's call in the year that King Uzziah died. Now this dates it to about 740 BC. Uzziah had a long and prosperous reign, but it's a reign that ended poorly when he became prideful and tried to offer incense himself in the temple. We read in 1 Kings 15 verses one through seven, In the 27th year of Jeroboam, king of Israel, Azariah, the son of Amaziah, king of Judah, began to reign. He was 16 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 52 years. That's a long time. In Jerusalem, his mother's name was Achaliah of Jerusalem, and he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord according to all that his father Amaziah had done. Nevertheless, the high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places. And the Lord touched the king so that he was a leper to the day of his death. And he lived in a separate house. And Jotham, the king's son, was over the household, governing the people of the land. Now the rest of the acts of Azariah and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? And Azariah slept with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in the city of David, and Jotham his son reigned in his place. So he died about 740 BC, as I mentioned, And five years before he died, a man by the name of Tiglath-Pileser III, a Assyrian king, an imperialist, began his reign. And that reign would begin to set in motion the fall of the Northern Kingdom, the chipping away of the land of Judah, and the events that follow in the book of Isaiah. Under Uzziah, there was a period of prosperity and peace, but it ends. The boundaries of Judah and Israel had extended to their fullest extent, but soon a rapid decline was to begin. A few passing observations just about the reign of Uzziah. He had a very successful reign, but like a number of the kings of Israel, he didn't finish well. And I mention that because that's a pattern that you see, that there were a number of kings that did well, but finished poorly. And that remains a warning to us, even, and this includes most of us, either in retirement or approaching retirement. Finish well. Don't think you can coast. Uzziah thought he could coast, and it didn't end well for him. The race isn't over till you've crossed the finish line, and that's not retirement. The finish line is when you break the tape at death. So even retirement or when you get on in life, that's a shifting of time, time that you can spend serving the Lord and time that you can spend with the Lord, not an extended vacation. And so it's an exhortation or warning to all of us to ensure that we finish well. Another thing we see from Uzziah's life is that he became overconfident. He became arrogant in his success, and he overstepped the bounds of his office, and he broke the law. It's easy to coast on your laurels. It's easy to say, ah, I've done so well. Things have done great. not worry about these little things, not worry about the law. And that's what he did. And the end result, he ended up finishing his reign living in a leper's house, a leper's cabin outside the city while his son reigned in his stead. And sadly that's something we often see in our, we've seen in the past couple of decades. Business leaders and very sadly Christian leaders too. People who've had great ministries and have done well and you sort of watch them go in their career and they peak and then And then they get overconfident, and they ignore the Lord, and they have a very ugly fall. So that's a warning also to us. Don't get overconfident. No matter how good things are, no matter how well you've done, don't get overconfident. In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim, each had six wings. With two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory, and the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. It's interesting as you look at this, Isaiah says, I saw the Lord, but then he doesn't describe the Lord, does he? There's no description of the Lord there. Instead, what he describes is everything that's around the Lord. And the impression you get, and this is a passage which impression is what he's trying to convey rather than detail. It speaks of majesty and power and glory and holiness. And we're gonna talk a little bit about the details, but that's not the issue. And if you really wanna understand this passage sometime, sit down and read it. and then just close your eyes, not during the sermon, I don't like people with closed eyes during sermons, but sit and think about the passage, and try to picture in your mind's eye, or along with that, think about a time that you've been someplace, maybe in a bad storm, and it's terrifying and it's awesome. I've been in some really marvelous, terrifying storms, and you get that sense of fear, But you also get that sense of there's power out there. There's tremendous power. Power so much greater than I am all around me. And then multiply that by a thousand. And you're starting to get a sense of what Isaiah saw. So what we see is we see a throne, a statement of authority and judgment. It's kings and judges that sit on thrones. We see a robe. Robes denote someone of importance. In the United States, our Supreme Court justices wear robes. In the UK, the king or queen wears a robe. But this is not just a regular robe. This is a gigantic one where the train or the hem of his robe fills the temple, which is, you would expect for such a magnificent god, he's got a magnificent robe, or the robe points to his magnificence. And he's got angelic attendants, and not just regular servants, but ones that are described as, they're so brilliant, they're described as burning ones, and smoke, and the shaking of foundations. The whole picture that Isaiah paints points to the glory, the majesty, the holiness of God. And so the Lord sits on his throne while his attendants, the seraphs, stand or fly about him to attend on him. Now the word seraph or seraphim is actually only used here, and it's not used in any of the other extant literature. Cherubim, we find cherubims in other ancient Near Eastern literature, but not seraphs. And the word seraph actually just means burning ones. Want to know what a seraph is? It's a burning one. Both of whom, what we can gather here, they're spiritual beings. They've got faces and feet and hands, employ human speech, and they have moral concepts. Their eyes are covered, so they can't see the nature of God. Not even his burning attendants can see God and see his essence. such is his glory that they're not allowed to see it. But their eyes are not covered, or I mean their ears are not covered because they can receive what the Lord has to say. And they cover their feet. There's some discussion as to why they cover their feet. All I can say is feet are not the prettiest things that we have, especially in a culture where everybody walked barefoot. There's also in some Asian cultures, and actually Thailand is one of them, to show someone's your foot is a grave insult. It's sort of the cultural equivalent to showing somebody the middle finger. So that may tie into this passage here. Now, Hebrew doesn't have a comparative or a superlative structure, you know, like we wouldn't say, He is big, bigger or biggest. Instead, it repeats words. So you would say, you know, He is big, big, meaning He's bigger. And God is not only holy, not only holy, holy, but he's holy, holy, holy. He is the most holy. That's the way of expressing the superlative. And that's by far the most common attribute of God. Interestingly, if you go through the Old Testament, the name Jehovah is qualified by holy more often than it's qualified by any of the other adjectives all put together. far more often is the Lord called holy than anything else. That is indeed the chief attribute of God. Now holiness, it's only used, even in, the word has other, it's used, or the Hebrew root is used in other cognate languages, and it's always used of, divinity or divine things. And it's only used of God or the things connected with God, priests or the temple itself. It is a unique attribute of God. And it denotes his distinctiveness, his uniqueness. He is indeed the holy other. He's incomprehensible and indescribable, except insofar as he's revealed himself to us, and then only by analogy. You know, if you even look to the book of Revelation, where you have some pictures of heaven and of God, you find the word as or like, it's not saying, The only way God can be described is by analogy, and even you get the impression in Revelation that John is struggling to describe something that he finds difficult, you could almost say he finds impossible to describe. God is holy, and he is the holy one. He is the holy other. And so you have these burning ones, or seraphs, sing to one another in sort of an antiphonal song, crying out of his holiness. The entirety of his creation and his surroundings speak of his glory, as do the creatures in his presence. And as he speaks, the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. Now shaking is a normal reaction of earth to God's presence. We see that in Exodus 19-18 with the appearance of Sinai and then Habakkuk 3-4. And likewise smoke is also associated with God's presence. Again, Sinai looked like a of volcanoes, and I've described it with the shaking of the earth and the smoke and the awesomeness there. And we see the same thing in 2 Samuel 2.22 with the temple, and then Psalm 18.8. And so the shaking of the foundations of the thresholds prohibits Isaiah's entry into the divine presence, just as the smoke prevents him from seeing God. As one person put it, the divine nature actively forces exclusion. God is holy and hidden and away from us. He's revealed parts to himself, parts of himself to us, but by analogy. His total being remains hidden. And you see the same thing, again, going back to Revelation, in Revelation 15, eight, the sanctuary's filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one can enter the sanctuary, so awesome is it. And then we have Isaiah's reaction. And I said, woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. That's the reaction of man when he stands before God. It's interesting, you know, when you go into the New Testament, for example, the book of Luke, every time an angel appears, the word fear is there in the text. And that would be our reaction if we encountered God. And really, always should be our reaction when we enter into the holy, because God remains always awesome, and we remain fallen creatures. The word there that is translated, lost or ruined actually comes from the Hebrew word for silence. Silence following a death or disaster. Speechlessness. So it's the sort of thing if you come up across something horrible, a shooting or an awful car wreck and you just, you stop and you can't say anything. As Calvin puts it, so terrified as to resemble a dead man. That's the reaction of Isaiah. And again, that ties in with the theme of speech and lips, which flows throughout chapter six. Isaiah is speechless. And he says, you know, talks about, I'm a man of unclean lips, and I dwell amongst a people of unclean lips. Because Isaiah knows that he's unclean, and he also knows that the unclean can never be in the same context, can never encounter the holy. The two are like two magnets which push each other apart. So we have this contrast here. We have the seraph or the seraphim, which are uttering continual praise of God. But Isaiah can say nothing. He's speechless. He's struck dumb because of his unclean lips. Now, you might say, why is Isaiah talking about unclean lips? I mean, really, all of us are unclean, right? From top to bottom. Why talk about unclean lips? Well, I think, because again, that's a key, speech is a key part of the poetic structure of the poetry of Isaiah. You have, Isaiah talks about his lips twice, his unclean lips. You have the coal that touches his lips. You have him three times saying, and I said. You have the seraph, seraphim that are saying something, and you have God that says something. And it's also appropriate because Isaiah is being called to use his mouth. He's being called to speak, so to speak, holy words from his unclean lips. He's called to be a prophet for God. And then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said, behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for. The coal would have been taken from the perpetual fire that sits on the altar, that's Leviticus 6, 12 through 13. And this was the fire, the place where God accepted and was satisfied by sacrifices. This was the place of atonement and propitiation. And so those are the coals that atoned Isaiah. Now you would think, Up to this point, you have the holy God and you have the unclean Isaiah. And you'd almost think that one of two things would happen, that Isaiah would be kicked out. What are you doing here? You're unclean, you're not supposed to be in my presence. Or maybe just like one of us who enters a room that we're not supposed to be there, excuse me. walk away, but no, no, that's not what happens, is he's atoned for, he's forgiven. It's a picture also of another aspect of God's character. Now we've already talked about the awesomeness, the majesty, but we also here get a picture of his compassion and his forgiveness, his kindness, his loving kindness, because he atones atones for Isaiah's sin. And it was, interestingly, notice that it's God who initiated it, and it was initiated and accomplished solely by God. Isaiah doesn't say, oh, please do something. It's God's initiative. And that's a picture, really, of what happens to us, isn't it? We come into the presence of God, and God atones for us. So notice here that Isaiah says, I am silent, or I'm ruined. Twice he mentions the fact that he has unclean lips. And now Isaiah's sin is atoned for by the touching of his lips. Isaiah was concerned with his mouth, with his lips. But it says in the passage that his sin, his iniquity, his whole being was atoned for, the inner source of his deviant speech and nature. Couple observations here. It's appropriate that Isaiah's call began with a vision of God. His call was a hard one, an unfulfilling one, and a frustrating one. In a worldly sense, Isaiah had a failed ministry. You know, he preached for 50 years, didn't see any progress. In fact, tradition has it that he was martyred at the end of his ministry, and that's probably true because he lived on into the reign of Manasseh, who was a very, very wicked king. And so what propelled Isaiah forward? What gave him the strength to preach for 50 years? Having been told, by the way, you're gonna fail. It was his vision of God, of seeing who God is. And that's really what we need to seek, isn't it? But to see the Lord, to see the Lord, to catch a glimpse of him answers all of our nagging questions, just as it did for Job. And that's what we should seek, is a vision of God. I'm not talking about an ecstatic vision of lying there looking up into the heavens to see something like Isaiah sees, but to draw close to God, to study his word, to pray to him, to draw close like you draw close to a person. and get to know God and get that vision of God. And that's what will drive us forward in life and give us the strength to go through the difficulties, the hard times of life. To see Christ is to have all of our doubts settled and to propel us through hard times. It's interesting, I always chuckle a little bit about Job, because Job has all... Stephan preached a great series on Job. Job had all of these questions and complaints and, you know, does he ever get his questions answered? No, not really. But as Ed Clowney said, God takes him to the zoo. And that answers all of his questions. He sees his picture of the zoo. He learns a little bit more about God. He says, I don't have any more. These questions don't mean anything. I'm paraphrasing rather broadly, but he doesn't have any more doubts or questions because he's learned a little bit more about God. And so it is for us as we go through hard times in life, as we see God and know who Christ is, the hard times melt away, and the doubts melt away. And we see here, just in this section also, the two major themes of Isaiah's message. Israel, people's sin before a holy God, and God's atoning forgiveness. And the forgiveness, the atonement for Isaiah here, it's sort of a statement of saying, Isaiah, I'm doing this for you, but this is what can, this is what will happen for my people. That's sort of an example that moves forward and goes forward as he develops this throughout his book. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? Then I said, here am I, send me. So we have a second hearing. First you hear the seraphim, Isaiah's silent, now you hear God himself. But Isaiah has been atoned for, his sin's been atoned for, and he's ready for his calling, and he answers God. Now just a comment here, you notice that it says, who will go for us, the plural, same as you have in in Genesis 1.28, and he let us make man in our image. Now, I think this points at the Trinity, but I can't be, that's not definitive. It could be a plural of majesty. So it's not a definitive point, but I think a hint pointing at the Trinity. And he goes on, he says, and he said, go and say to this people, keep on hearing, but do not understand. Keep on seeing, but do not perceive. So the outer facilities, hearing and seeing are working, but not the inner faculties of understanding and perceiving. In essence, Isaiah's mission would have no effect. And notice, by the way, he says, say to this people. He doesn't say, say to my people. I don't know about you, but I want to be included in as one of my people, not one of these or this people. I think that's something we've all seen as we've talked with people, isn't it? You get people and they, they hear the gospel and they just, they can't seem to understand it. I know there's a, I had a colleague, and I spent some time, we would read the gospels together, and she was probably smarter than I am, she's a pretty smart gal, and she just couldn't understand the parables, couldn't understand the book of, you know, the gospels, and was like, how can you not understand this? I mean, it seemed obvious, but, She understood the words, she could read the words, but it just had no meaning to her. In verse 10, make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed. Now, of course, no passage of Isaiah is worth discussing without a chiasm. And so here we have a chiasm. It begins and ends with heart, and so we have, make the heart of this people dull, and then we have ears heavy, eyes that are blind, eyes that can't see, and then we go back to ears, and then hearts. So it goes heart, ears, eyes, eyes, ears, heart. A nice Isaiah chiasm. And so this describes the totality of their incomprehension from the outer to the inner. from the eyes to the ears to their heart, which lacks understanding. The heart being the place of motivation. Again, notice it's this people, not my people. So Isaiah faces hearers who are resistant and close to the truth of his message. Yet he continues preaching it for 50 years. And as a reward, his congregation saws him in half. Or so tradition has it. Isaiah, you know, he spoke plainly. He spoke clearly. It wasn't like he was speaking in a foreign language. It wasn't like he was saying a message that was incomprehensible. But the people's response brought them to the point of no return. Their response of just turning him off and lack of repentance. Notice too, it begins, make the heart of this people dull. That's not a prediction, that's an imperative. So he's saying, Isaiah, your preaching is going to harden the hearts of these people. It's not a prediction. I almost phrased it as a prediction. It's not, you're going to preach, but it's going to fail. Yeah, but it goes beyond that. He says, you're going to make these people, He's ordering Isaiah as an imperative to make the heart of these people dull, to make their ears heavy and to blind their eyes. So not only would his preaching be fruitless, but the effect of his preaching would be further hardening. And so we have this pattern, with each hearing comes rejection, and with each rejection comes hardening. And that's a cycle that we see, not only here, but we see elsewhere in scripture. I think, you know, most of us think immediately of Pharaoh. In Exodus 21, where you have Pharaoh hardened his heart, God hardened his heart. We have the same pattern in Deuteronomy 2.30, the king of Sihon. In Romans 1.28, where Paul says, God gave them over. God gave them over to their sin and the hardening of their hearts. And second Thessalonians 2.11, therefore God sends them a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. So they didn't believe the truth, and they had pleasure on unrighteousness, and God sent them a strong delusion. It's a very scary pattern, isn't it? Ignore the gospel. God may harden your heart that you don't want to repent. We'll talk about that a little bit later, but it's, like I said, it's a scary pattern. And so the very steps of salvation, hearing, seeing, understanding, turning, being healed, are denied to the people. Now at this point, I wanna go to Calvin. Calvin gives us an interesting warning, and Calvin's one I like to take as advice. And he says, what he warns us against is trying to tie this hardening of the heart to the doctrine of predestination. He says, yet if you inquire into the first cause, that is their hardening, we must come to the predestination of God. But as that purpose is hidden from us, we must not too eagerly search into it, for the everlasting scheme of the divine purpose is beyond our reach. But we ought to consider the cause which lies plainly before our eyes, namely the rebellion by which they rendered themselves unworthy of blessings, so numerous and so great. So you can wrestle with the issue of predestination, and the issue of hardening, and then the issue of culpability. And Calvin warns us, and rightly so, don't push that too far, because you're delving into divine mysteries, and leave mysteries mysteries, as has been said from this pulpit, don't try to unscrew the unscrupable. Okay. It is a mystery to us. And so we're just left with the doctrine of hardening, but yet we know that man is culpable. It is because of their depravity and their sin. Notice though that this passage ends with a little bit of a promise. lest they see and then they turn and be healed. And so there's a little bit of a promise there that if they were to turn, they'd be healed. God doesn't turn away any who repents. So if a person moves, if a person repents, God's not gonna turn them away. God will allow them to repent and bring them into their kingdom. And that's a great promise, isn't it? That no matter what you've done, if you repent, God will let you in. God's not gonna turn you away. And so, Isaiah says, How long, O Lord? And he said, Until the cities lie waste without habitation, and the houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste. Isaiah's response to this is almost a prayer or a pleading for his people. How long, O Lord? How long is this going to happen? And the response is, it's gonna be a long time. It describes a complete devastation, a complete conquering, and a deportation. And the Lord goes on to say, and the Lord removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. A picture of deportation, which was a Syrian policy, one that was followed through by the Babylonians. Really a form of cultural genocide. Interestingly enough, Stalin did the same thing. The idea is if you move people away and you scatter them about, they'll lose their culture. They'll become assimilated to the other peoples around them. And it worked. Not for Israel, but if you go out on the streets of Kirkland, you won't find many Moabites or Ammonites or Enamites. They're gone. Their cultures, have been annihilated. And although a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth, or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled. It sounds like the same ending as 530, right? Not any hope. It's not only is the land gonna be devastated, but it's gonna be burnt over again and again and again. Even the 10th will be burned over. But then, isn't there another verse? Yeah, the holy seed is its stump. There's a ray of hope, in fact, a burst of bright hope that Isaiah ends with here. Life remains. I'm... Reminded of two pictures here. One is, you know, if you've ever cut down a deciduous tree, we had a lot of box elders when we lived in upstate New York. You cut the thing down, oh, we're done. You go back in the spring and there's little shoots, oh boy, this thing again. So you clip the shoots off, oh, took care of that sucker. Nope. Sprouts start coming back up. It's hard to kill one of those things. Or I'm also reminded I've been on some hikes here in the Pacific Northwest where there's been terrible raging forest fires. You know, fires to the point where the soil itself has been sterilized. Every organic thing in the soil's burned. You know, you look and even the, not only the stumps burn, but the fire burned down into the root systems. But then you go back in a year and there's plants come up and flowers coming back. Life is returning to this burnt out forest. So here we have, just as Isaiah's sin was taken away and forgiven, there's hope that so will Judah's. Now we may have here a reference to the Messiah, as in 4.2, in that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be made the pride and honor of the survivors of Israel. And your branch that comes out of something. Or 11, one, there should come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from its roots shall bear fruit. Again, something coming out of a stump. But Isaiah usually uses the word seed to refer to the remnant, and that sort of fits the context a little bit better. I'm not gonna get into a discussion as to which one's right. They both sound like pretty good arguments to me. And in a sense, it doesn't really matter, does it? Both are statements of hope for the future and both are linked together. The remnant exists because of the Messiah and exists for the Messiah. Whichever one it is, there's hope, there's hope. There's a remnant, all right, a very small remnant. A couple observations in conclusion here. We're left with the difficult fact that the gospel may have the effect of hardening of hearts. It's not the fault of the gospel, it's not the fault of the messengers, but of man's depravity. And this passage itself is quoted three times in the New Testament. It's quoted in the book of John, John 12, 38 and following when Jesus had said these things he departed and hid himself from them though he had done so many signs before them they still did not believe in him so that the word spoken by the Prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled Lord who is believed what we have heard what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? And then, therefore they could not believe, for again Isaiah said, he has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they see with their eyes and understand with their heart and turn, and he would heal them. So John says, Jesus preached, he did signs, They didn't believe. Why? Failure of Jesus? Failure of the Word? No. Hardening of God. But why? Their depravity. And Paul uses the, well, in Acts 28, 37, and then Paul in Romans 11, 8, quote this passage again, pointing to the blame of blindness rests with men. And again, quoting Calvin from his commentary, yet the prophet shows a little before that the blame of this blindness lies with the people. For he bids them hear. He bears witness that the doctrine is fitted for instructing the people if they choose to submit to it. The light is given to guide them. if they will but open their eyes. The whole blame of the evil is laid on the people for rejecting the amazing kindness of God, and hence is obtained a more complete solution of that difficulty to which we formally averted, talking about the difficulty of the doctrine of hardening. Now this can be difficult for us beyond in an experiential fashion, You know, many of us have had the experience, we've shared or preached the gospel with someone, and they reject the gospel. And it's easy to feel like that's a rejection of us, and to walk away and say, well, you know, maybe I didn't say things very clearly, or maybe I, maybe, maybe, you know, no, no, that's not the case. The case is this person hardened their hearts. We tend to be very result, success-oriented people. We wanna see people come to the Lord, and if they don't, we tend to blame it on ourselves. And the temptation, of course, is then to soften the gospel, and that sadly often happens from the pulpit. Not this pulpit, but other churches where you go, well, let's not be too hard. We don't want to turn people away. We don't want to turn people off. But Paul, when he deals with this in 2 Corinthians 2, makes the statement, for we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To one, a fragrance from death to death. To another, a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not like so many, peddlers of God's word. but as men of some sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God, we speak in Christ. We do our best, we preach the gospel, and then we depend upon the Holy Spirit to do his work of conviction. Even if, as is often the case for me, you say, oh John, you should have said this, this, and this. Well, yeah, you probably should have. the Holy Spirit needs to do His work. And if the person doesn't respond, well, the Holy, I won't say the Holy Spirit hasn't done His work, He has, but it's been in the work of hardening. This is, but it's also a very frightening doctrine. It's a warning against delaying. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians, for he says, in a favorable time, I listened to you, and a day of salvation I have helped you. Behold, now is the favorable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. There is a day of hearing, and there is a day of salvation. Do not miss it. Do not play games with God. Do not trifle with God and think, well, I'm gonna enjoy my life a little bit. Let's face it, sin is fun. So, I'll have a good time and then I'll repent. No. You know, there's always the classic, well, you know, you might step out the door and get run over by a garbage truck. Well, yeah. But there's also, the door to repentance could be closed to you. And that working of, in your heart, that twitching or feeling of the Holy Spirit, you deny that, it may not come back. I always remember reading a story about a young doctor, Christian doctor who, he said, he worked with a lot of patients who at the end of their life, they had a couple weeks or months, to live, and he said it was just really amazing. He said, you know, if I were in that situation and had only a few weeks or months to live, he said, I'd be studying for the final exam like mad. But he says, these people, you know, they just sit there, they read Vogue magazine or People magazine or maybe, you know, they watch the television and they're just, they're not, they have no concern about this event that's about to take place, the biggest event, so to speak, in their existence or in their life, death. It's just, no, I'm just going to sit here and twiddle my time away and read this worthless magazine. There's just not that movement of the spirit that drives them forward to prepare for that day of their death. Okay, it's interesting too to notice here how God works. You know, we read at the end of verse 10 that God will never turn away a repentant person. And so God interacts with people through his Holy Spirit, giving them the ability to repent, that interest, that acting in the heart of man. What I speak of here is Edwards' Doctrine of Voluntarism, which he elucidates in his book, The Freedom of the Will. And so, God won't turn us away, but it's God who draws us to himself or hardens our heart. And so that's also, that's a great comfort. And it's also a statement that if you feel drawn to God, Feel drawn to repentance. That's the Holy Spirit. The door is open and you can go through the door. But the warning is if in your heart you close that door, you might hear it lock. You might hear the latch shut. Notice though, again, how the chapter ends. The chapter ends with hope. Hope is restored. You know, that's how we began this this sermon, and that's how Isaiah closes this. Again, his message is a very dark one, but there's hope, there's that ray of hope. And as Maltier says, typically of Isaiah, hope is the unexpected fringe attached to the garment of doom. I like that. Hope is the unexpected fringe attached to the garment of doom. The tree may appear dead, at times the church can appear to be dead and dying, but there's hope. There is that promise from God. There's always hope, no matter how dark things are in world affairs, in our nation, in our church, our family, our lives, there's always hope in Christ. Cling to that hope.