The fundamental fact of our faith is God. And the fundamental fact about God is that God is holy. God is majestic. He is mighty. He is awesome. He is transcendent. Perhaps in your spiritual walk, you've committed the same sin over and over again. And in your anger at your sinfulness, you say to yourself, why do I keep sinning? Is there any hope for me? Is there anything I can do to overcome my spiritual shallowness? Well, thankfully, there is. Keep that in mind as John MacArthur presents today's Grace to You, showing you how to battle your own sin and live in a way that's pleasing to God. He's looking today at one of the clearest examples of God's holiness in all the Bible, the sixth chapter of Isaiah. The message you're about to hear is part of John's series on the foundations of Christian belief and practice. The study is called Foundations, Volume 1. John, before we get to your lesson, we ask you from time to time about what you're reading, your reading habits, and I know you read often and on a variety of subjects. So tell our listeners today what books you're enjoying right now and maybe something you've read recently that was particularly insightful. This may sound a little bit self-serving, Carl. The book that I've been reading a lot lately is titled Biblical Doctrine. It's almost 1100 pages of systematic theology in immense and thoughtful yet readable detail. Now, I say it's self-serving because I participated in writing that book along with my good friend Dr. Richard Mayhew. Dr. Richard Mayhew, who served for so many years at the Master's Seminary along with me there, we felt there needed to be a systematic theology. It takes the ten categories of theology. and writes an extensive treatment of each of those categories and all the subcategories. That's what a systematic theology does. You can find any doctrine and look up that doctrine and get a full explanation in this book, Biblical Doctrine. I find it helpful because when I'm studying a scripture and I come across a doctrine, and I want to know everything there is about that doctrine condensed into a small section. I go back, and even though it's work that I've done and put together, it's all there for me, and it's immensely helpful. I was thinking through some issues of sanctification the other day, and I went into the theology, and everything I needed was right there. Biblical doctrine is a powerful book. because it pulls together all the propositional doctrines that the Bible teaches and gives you a full, unified explanation of these great truths. Everybody should have a copy of biblical doctrine, because this is where all the doctrines of Scripture are laid out and properly connected. You need to find a copy, Biblical Doctrine, by MacArthur and Mayhew. You can order that book, Biblical Doctrine, from Grace to You while supplies last. Thanks, John. Now, friend, I'll have more information about this systematic theology book titled Biblical Doctrine right after today's lesson. So for now, turn in your copy of the Bible or the Study Bible app to Isaiah chapter 6. Follow along as our teacher John MacArthur brings today's study. Certainly it's apparent to you, if you're a Christian, as it is to me, that we live in a profane, godless, secularized, and for the most part atheistic culture. Even our religion is a kind of atheism, for it attempts to erase the true God, and substitute in his place a God who makes men comfortable. And whenever I read that 50 million people in America are supposed to be born again, and I see, in comparison with that statistic, the constant, ever-increasing secularization of our society, I find that the two don't go together very well. We're supposed to be a Christian nation, It's even popular to be born again. Yet the impact of Christianity on our country seems to be weak, seems to be shallow, it seems to be superficial, it seems to be saccharine. Being a Christian may be in, but it doesn't seem to be having much of an impact. We are caught up in a kind of self-indulgence and self-centeredness that even views God only in terms of what He can do for us. God becomes sort of a utilitarian genie. You rub your little theological lamp, He pops out and says three wishes. People are preoccupied with relational things. The person who criticizes the teaching of the Word of God by saying, well, it's too strong, it alienates people, is really saying we want a God who makes us comfortable. And I guess what I really see in Christianity as I look at it across our country is the absence of a theology. It just seems to me that there isn't one. There's a lot of talk about God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, but in terms of a substantive definition of the Trinity and an understanding of theology, it just really isn't there. We're really big on relationships and we certainly don't really understand the source of all of them, God Himself. And I guess if there's one element of theology that we really don't understand, it is the theology of God, theology proper it's called. We don't understand God, God's nature. The fundamental fact of our faith is God. And the fundamental fact about God is that God is holy. God is awful, if you want to use that sense. God is majestic. God is fearful, He is mighty, He is awesome, He is transcendent. In fact, in Exodus 15 and 11 it says, He is glorious in holiness. The beauty of the Lord is the beauty of holiness. I don't think we understand the holiness of God. Now I would also want to add that I don't think we can understand fully the holiness of God, but I think we can understand it a lot better than we do. And I want to share with you some things that the Spirit of God has just been running through my heart for the last couple of weeks about the holiness of God. I confess at the very beginning that I don't really understand the fullness of His holiness, but I'm sure working at it. The central thing I want you to see about God is that He is holy. And that weighs very heavily on our hearts, if we understand it. In order to help us focus on that, I want you to take your Bible and turn to the sixth chapter of Isaiah...Isaiah chapter 6. And I want us to examine the first part of the chapter and I want us to see the holiness of God. as Isaiah relates it to us here. Just a little background. Isaiah was a prophet, not just any prophet. Some feel perhaps the greatest prophet of Israel. Isaiah was a man who was a statesman who spoke for God to common people and also to kings. He was known in the palace. In fact, he was a consultant to the monarchs. He prophesied during the reign of four kings, a time of great crisis, a time of great chaos, a time of moral decadence, a time when God's people were turning their backs on him. In fact, during the time of Isaiah's prophecy, the northern kingdom, Israel, was taken captive by invaders. The southern kingdom, Judah, was attacked by Assyria. These were unstable times, difficult times, and he had a very strategic ministry. In the midst of these days of Isaiah, there came along a king in Judah. who compared to the others was a man of some influence, some goodness, some excellence. His name was Uzziah. He is mentioned in verse 1. Uzziah reigned for a long time, 52 years. And he was generally a successful king and brought benefits to his people. In fact, he subdued most of the hereditary enemies of Judah. and brought them some time of peace. He was able to turn Jerusalem into a fortified city, well equipped with arms for its own defense and He gave the people a great sense of security. According to 2 Chronicles chapter 26, He developed agriculture and He developed commerce for the nation until it became extremely prosperous. The sad story of Uzziah is that in the end, pride lifted up his heart. He looked at all the things he'd done, given them a time of peace from their enemies, fortified Jerusalem, brought security, developed agriculture and commerce. He was filled with pride and God gave him terminal leprosy. Now, in spite of how he ended up, His time of reigning in Judah provided a season of peace from all of the chaos. And when He died, apparently there was a certain feeling of panic that began to set in. What are we going to do now? Uzziah has died. They became fearful. I believe that the fear was probably greatest in the heart of the God-fearing Jews who through all these years had maintained a true devotion to God. Because they knew that through the time of Uzziah, there was an ever-increasing moral decadence. There was an ever-ascending disobedience. There was a defiant kind of idolatry. And it was almost as if as long as Uzziah was around, he sort of preserved the whole thing from coming apart at the seams. And in chapters 2 through 5 of Isaiah, Isaiah chronicles some of the terrible sins of the people of God. But in the midst of their sinning, they were so secure because of Uzziah that they just kind of went on with it all. But then he died and they panicked. They were afraid. There were some events that made them afraid. Five years before Uzziah died, Tiglath-Pileser, the ambitious warrior king of Assyria, suddenly appeared on the horizon in the Near East. And he had a grand design to conquer all the kingdoms between the Euphrates and the Nile and to establish in their place the great Assyrian Empire. Naturally, all of the target nations The nations that were imperiled by His designs began to seethe with apprehension and revolts broke out. They began to form alliances against Assyria. They began to plot political intrigues and sabotage and rebellion. The kingdoms of Samaria and Judah were tottering on the brink of doom, not only because of Tiglath-Pileser but because of the spiritual moral rot that was internal. Instead of turning to God as Isaiah had told them to do, the people were caught up in a frenzy of self-indulgence and dissipation and moral decadence. In fact, in Isaiah 22, Isaiah says, and in that day did the Lord God of hosts call to weeping and to mourning. But behold, joy and gladness, eating flesh and drinking wine, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. Instead of turning around to crying and mourning, they said, let's really live it up. It may all end tomorrow. That's how it was when Uzziah died. The leader was dead. Among all of the God-fearing Jews who may have sought the face of God was the prophet himself, Isaiah. And he goes to the temple in chapter 6. Let's pick it up there. The king is dead and Isaiah goes to the temple. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His robe filled the temple. Now stop right there. I saw the Lord, he says. I saw the Lord. incredible statement. Think about the situation. You'll notice the word LORD there. Whenever you see in the Old Testament LORD with an uppercase L and lowercase letters, it's reflective of the Hebrew word Adonai. When you see it, for example, down in verse Three, where all the letters are uppercase or capital, it is reflective of the word Yahweh. Yahweh has reference to God's essential nature. Adonai has reference to His sovereignty. Now with that in mind, you'll understand verse 1, in the year that we lost our human king, I saw the real king. There never can be much panic set in when you know God is still on the throne. It may have looked to Isaiah as if the whole thing was falling apart, but Adonai is a title meaning the Sovereign One. The human king was dead, but history doesn't depend on human kings, but on the absolute monarchy, the Supreme Lord Adonai, God Himself. His kingship is infinitely superior to that of Uzziah or anyone else. And so God, in the midst of the crisis, to let Isaiah and his people know that all is not lost, makes a personal appearance. And Isaiah sees Him. And he sees Him sitting upon a throne. Isn't it great to know that God hadn't abdicated? that when the whole world falls apart and everything seems to be going to pieces, God's still there on the throne. Exalted, it says, high and lifted up, and His robe filled the temple. And this, of course, is a picture of His majesty and His exaltation, His glory and His power. And by the way, make a little note in the margin of that verse, write down John 12 Because in John 12, 41, the writer tells us that this was Christ, really a pre-incarnate Christophany, an appearance of Christ. Now look at verse 2. As Isaiah sees this vision, it says, and above it, that is above the throne, stood the seraphim. Each one had six wings. With two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he did fly." Now what is a seraphim? Or what are seraphim, since it's plural? Apparently they are a certain group of angels whose personal calling and designed by God was to attend to God's holiness. They are fiery guardians of the holiness of God. Now why do they have three sets of wings? Have you ever noticed that when God makes anything, He makes it to do what He expects it to do? He makes it functional? And if they had six wings, it wasn't just that God got carried away with the idea of making wings. there was something very purposeful in that. Notice it says that with two at the end of the verse, he did fly. Apparently, these marvelous, incredible, supernatural, eternal creatures had the capacity to hover like some kind of a celestial helicopter. around the throne of God which was high and lifted up. And upon some occasions, as indicated in verse 6, would do the bidding of God as the one who flew with the live coal. But they hovered around the throne of God. Amazing. And then it says, they had two more wings with which they covered their feet. Why? There are several possibilities. Some say that was a sign of humility, of lowliness, of humble service. There may be that thought, but that might be stretching the point of the angelic role. Perhaps it's better to see it this way. Do you remember that Moses was up on a normal, plain old dirt hill one day? Probably a hill he'd walked many times. But he turned around and he saw a burning bush. And a voice came to him out of the bush and said, do what? Take off your shoes. Take off your shoes, Moses. Why? For you're standing on what? Holy ground. Now your reaction to that might have been, huh? I've been here a lot. Same old stuff. But whenever the divine presence appears, everything is immediately sanctified. This was holy ground, not for any virtue in and of itself, but because God was there and His pervasive presence sanctified the earth under His feet. There may be a sense in which whatever kind of ground there is in glory. Whatever kind of place angels land is a place so sacred that they cover their feet for its holy ground. Then it says, they had two wings with which to cover their face. That's a little easier to understand. If they hover around the throne of God, they are exposed there to His full glory. You remember in Exodus 33, Moses said so brashly to God, he says, God says to him, you're going to be my man, go lead my people. And Moses says, I'm not going to do it alone. Who's going to go with me? And God says, my presence will go with you. I'll go with you. And Moses said, that's a nice promise, God, but I'd like some proof. I mean, I appreciate you saying that, but would you just prove it by showing me your glory?" God gives him a very good answer. He says, no man can see My glory and...what?...live. No creature could withstand the sight of the blazing fullness of the glory of God. And God promises proximity, but never full revelation. So God says to Moses, I'll tell you what, I'll tuck you in the cleft of a rock and I'll let my...and the Hebrew means my hind quarters, my back parts. I like to think of it as afterglow. You can't see the whole deal, but I'll let you see my afterglow. I think maybe that's why the angels covered their face. I don't think they could have existed in the full effulgence of the glory of the holiness of God. Incredible creatures. But the most incredible thing about them is not what they look like, it's what they said. It's what they cried, verse 3, and one cried unto another. They had an antiphonal thing going. back and forth, and they said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory." Now, can you imagine angels just flying around forever saying that? No, you can't because you don't understand the worthiness nor the holiness of God, and neither do I. But that's what seraphim do. Holy, holy, holy, the whole earth is full of Your glory." Why holy, holy, holy? You say, well that's because that's the way the song is written. No, no, no. The song came later. Why holy, holy, holy? Somebody says it's the Trinity, one for each member. Certainly the Trinity is thrice holy. But the Jews had a figure of speech, a device they used when they wanted to emphasize something. They had many literary devices they could use, but one of them they commonly used was repetition. And that can be illustrated many, many places in the Bible. Very frequently before Jesus would say some very important truth, He would say two words, what were they? Verily, verily. Why didn't He just say verily? or truly, truly. You know what that word is? Amen, amen. Amen, amen. Now you say, now wait a minute, you're supposed to wait till the end to say that. That's right. In fact, in the Hebrew congregation, the rabbi stood up and the rabbi would teach and the people in response would endorse his teaching by saying, Amen, amen. Jesus did not wait for such endorsement. He started out by saying, amen, amen first and then He spoke because He didn't need any humans to validate what He said. But when He said it twice, He was affirming by repetition the significance of what He was to say. Emphasis is the issue. And when the Bible says holy, holy, holy, what it's trying to do is emphasize the holiness of God. We don't even know that God is holy, let alone holy, holy, holy. By the way, do you know that that is the only attribute of God in all of the Scripture that is spoken of in repetition three times? Never does the Bible say God is love, love, love. Never does it say God is light, light, light. Truth, truth, truth. Mercy, mercy, mercy. Wrath, wrath, wrath. But it says He's holy, holy, holy. This is an absolute priority, people. That's on Grace to You, John MacArthur showing you one of the clearest pictures of God's holiness in all of Scripture. Understanding the holiness of God is one of the foundations of Christian living, and that also is the name of John's study, Foundations, Volume 1. Along with being featured here on this radio program for 49 years now, John is also president of the Masters University and Seminary, both located in the Los Angeles area. Now, earlier John talked about his systematic theology book titled Biblical Doctrine. If you don't have a copy of the book, let me encourage you to pick one up today. Make sure you know the key doctrines in the Bible, essential truth, whether you're a church leader, businessman, housewife, or student. Get a copy of the book as you contact us here today. To get your copy of Biblical Doctrine, call the toll-free number available anytime at 1-800-55-GRACE. That's 800-554-7223. You can also order a copy online at gty.org. A doctrine isn't just for theologians or pastors, it's for anyone who loves God and His Word. Again, purchase your copy of the book, Biblical Doctrine, by calling 800-55-GRACE, or order from the website gty.org. While you're online, please go ahead and download today's lesson titled, Experiencing the Presence of God. In fact, you can download all of John MacArthur's sermons, the 10 from the current study called Foundations Volume 1, as well as over 3,000 messages by John in MP3 or transcript format. Just go online today, gty.org. And now, for John MacArthur and the entire staff, I'm your host, Carl Miller, reminding you to watch Grace to You Television Sundays on DirecTV, channel 378. And remember, that's also known as NRB-TV. And then come back right here Monday, as John will show you how you can experience God's terrifying holy presence and enjoy it at the same time. That message is a part of John's current study, Foundations, Volume 1. Join us on Monday for another half hour of Unleashing God's Truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You!