How Big Is Your God?

Woe to me, I cried. I'm ruined. For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips. And my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty. Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.

And with it, he touched my mouth and said, see, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for. And then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send? And who will go for us? And I said, here am I.

Send me. So let's work our way through that passage. In the first place, looking at verses 1 to 4. Verses 1 to 4, and the heading of this section of the message is revelation. Revelation.

As Isaiah receives this revelation of God and from God. Now it's very interesting, of course, the introduction is in the year that king Uzziah died. So the historical context to this, and there's a sense in which when Isaiah sees the Lord high and lifted up on His throne ruling, it is a reminder to Isaiah and indeed to the people of the day that despite the fact that their earthly king has passed on, has died, and it wasn't a good time in the time of Israel, that yet God still does rule. God still does rule. And there's a couple of things in this that I would like to point out before we get to the proclamation of the angelic beings.

That here in verse 1, you see, in the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and exalted. Notice the Lord there is in lower capitals. It's capital L and then lower capitals o r d. Now a little bit later in verse 5, we'll notice verse 5. See the last line, the Lord Almighty, L O R D?

Now that should be in all capitals, L O R D. Because there are two, there's two Hebrew words used here. The first one, the small letters, which was in verse 1, is for the... it teaches us. It's Adonai. It's the God who is the ruler over all. The ruler over all.

And so as Isaiah has his vision, he's reminded that this Lord, capital L, small o r d, is the one who is ruling supreme over all things. That's embedded in that word Lord. But then in verse 5, here, the Lord Almighty, that's a totally different word in the Hebrew. It's actually the word which we might call Yahweh. It is the same word which God revealed Himself at the burning bush.

I am who I am. I will be who I will be. And so that's that really needs to be changed because it's L O R D, all capitals. In my version here in the NIB, in case you think I'm making it up, it is L O R D, and it's critically important. It's critically important because I want you to turn now. Can I go to the John 12 reference, please?

John chapter 12 and verse 41. Thank you. John's writing in his gospel, and he quotes this Isaiah 6, and look at the staggering thing he says in verse 41. Isaiah said this, that's all his prophecy, because he saw Jesus' glory and spoke about Him. When did Isaiah see the Jesus in his glory?

It's in the call in Isaiah 6. Yahweh, the pre-incarnate Christ. It's the revelation of God in His majesty and glory and authority and power, and it is the pre-existent Christ who Isaiah saw in Isaiah 6 seated on the throne. We call Him King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We know that in the unfolding of redemption history that He has ascended to the right hand of the Father where He rules in power and authority.

And so you can see I'm not just being pedantic here. I can be. I know. But this is not a matter of being pedantic. This is critically important to get the fullness of the revelation of God that came to Isaiah.

Now whether Isaiah understood all this, we do not know. But when the New Testament interprets Isaiah 6 by John 12 and verse 41, that's the end of the story. And as a matter of fact, everywhere you read in your Old Testament, L O R D, in all capitals, that is referring to Yahweh. Yahweh. It's transliterated a bit Jehovah, which is a terrible thing.

We shouldn't do that. But Yahweh, the God who has revealed Himself. There at the burning bush. See, you know, I know I am theologically pedantic, but it is important to realise that when God Almighty reveals Himself, it's in the person and the work of Jesus Christ even before He was incarnate by of the Virgin Mary. And we talk about God revealing Himself, and we talk about it in a vague sort of a way, like as though God sort of came down and, you know, appeared to Abraham and so, and we just sort of gloss it.

But it's of critical importance. It highlights the majesty of God. How great He is. The Father, the Son, the Spirit. And here is the response, the revelation that Isaiah received.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty. We sang it earlier. Our hearts, our voices would join across the ages in proclaiming the holiness of God. There's two sides to the holiness as you know. One is that God is holy other.

Holy other. He alone is divine. But there is the sense of purity. That God is the God of immense holiness and majesty and glory and authority. And this is what Isaiah received from God.

And then we see his reaction. His reaction is verse 5. Verse 5. Woe to me, he said. I am ruined for I'm a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.

And we would put in brackets, but if we don't want to add to the holy scripture, but we're interpreting, we've seen the Lord Jesus. It's pretty amazing, isn't it? It's staggering. But his reaction is immediate against the background of God's holiness and purity and majesty and authority. Isaiah falls as it were to his feet, to his face, and acknowledges his sinfulness and unworthiness.

Alexander McLaren, the great Scottish preacher of the late nineteenth century, said, if we truly see God, we will see our own sin. And Isaiah acknowledges here, he's a man of unclean lips. Not to, we're not conjecture about what that might mean completely, but it certainly would seem to me that he have at least two, two or three things that we could say about it. From out of the heart comes forth the speech. He realises that he is not holy, that he is part of fallen humanity.

That would be one part of it. The second part might be that he's unworthy to join in the praise of God, this resounding forth. He realises he just, it's not a flipping thing. You just can't switch flick the switch and yeah and praise God like that.

Or thirdly, he might be saying, I'm unworthy to be Your spokesman. I'm unworthy. Unworthy. Unworthy. I'm deserving of judgment.

He says he had seen the King, the Lord Almighty, and you know from your understanding also of the Old Testament that no one can see God and live. I'm not completely a hundred per cent sure that this is an accurate reference, but remember Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron? It says they offered strange fire, unauthorised fire before the Lord, and the fire came out from the Lord and consumed them. They died. Now it's possible that in doing that, they went into the Holy of Holies.

They went into God's presence where they were not allowed to go. Only the high priest could go in there, and that one day a year on the day of atonement. And the tradition has it that the Jewish people actually tied a rope around the high priest when he went in on that day of atonement because they would not dare go into God's presence. So if he happened to die in there, they could, so to speak, drag him out. I don't know if that's apocryphal or not, but it makes the point.

This is God's presence, holy, holiest of places. And Isaiah said, I'm done. And then what happens in verse 6 and 7? Verse 6 and 7. One of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar, symbolic from the altar.

And with it, he touched my mouth and said, see, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away. Your sin atoned for. Now the scriptures tell us categorically that the only way guilt is taken away, the only atonement that can be made is by the personal work of the Lord Jesus Christ. So again, we have the pre-incarnate Christ on this throne in this vision, and then we have the seraph coming and picturing as it were, the redemptive work, the redemptive atoning work of Christ.

So there's more Christology in this passage. Could we have the first John reference, please? First John chapter 4 and verse 10. Verse 10. This is love. Not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Scriptures tell us there's no other name under heaven by which we may be saved. Jesus, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. So when this happened to Isaiah, it was a glorious picture of the redeeming work of Christ. Beautiful.

And then in the fourth place, so that's redemption, sovereign grace, redemption. And then in the fourth point, verse 8, this question, the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? Now, I need to be careful here. But I think it's just me thinking. Right?

You you work out what you think. God didn't have to say that, did He? I mean, He can do whatever He likes, of course. But to me, it's sort of this rhetorical sort of question. Question.

I take it within the Trinity, within the council of the triune God. Whom shall I say? Who will go for us? It's to me, this is the beauty of God. God.

He, He's accommodating this to us. It's like as though there is Isaiah. He said he's sinned, atoned for. He's been forgiven. He's seen a fantastic, amazing vision of God, and then God, I just ask, gives up Isaiah the opportunity to say, here am I.

Send me. That's right, darling. I've got my left hand on the pulpit, and my left foot went over. I know. But can you, do you see that potentially?

That God in His goodness He could have said, right, Isaiah, now you go and do it. But what does He say? Who will go for us? And it gives the opportunity for the child of God, the redeemed, to respond. So there's our four Rs: revelation, reaction, redemption, and response.

And so I now want to ask you, how big is your God? You may be tempted, and I've certainly thought this in the past at different times. You know, if I would have had a vision like Isaiah, oh, man. I would have been front and sound. You know?

Oh, I'd be so you know, I'd be fired up something chronic. But God has revealed Himself to me. God has revealed Himself to you. And we we don't have time for this, I know, but it would be lovely sometime to sit down around a maybe a coffee or something better around the word of God. But if we could sit down and just we could share some of the ways in which God has revealed Himself to us, the different ways.

Because God is a God of amazing creativity and brilliance. And he will work one way with Brandon and another way with Noah. And both ways will fit you you blokes exactly right. And Noah, it might be different from your dad. We know you're a lot better looking than your dad, so obviously, you know, it's God reveals Himself in His ways.

We talk of two particular ways of revelation: general revelation and special revelation. General revelation, God reveals Himself. You know, the psalmist in, I'm just going I want to quote it correctly. The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of His hands.

Day after day, they pour forth speech. Night after night, they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. You know, we live in this age where people want to make God small, insignificant, irrelevant, deny His existence.

Why do people do that? Because they're suppressing the knowledge of God that is in them as created in His image in the first place, and secondly, the witness to creation all around us. I got steamed up last last night again. Yeah. People talk about mother nature.

Oh, that really sticks in my craw. It's blasphemous. It's rubbish. Mother nature. It's creation.

It's God's creation. I told you the story how before once I was at a hospital with a family, and the mother had just actually died, and we were walking down. Can see it so clearly, and I foolishly said something about nature. I used the word nature. And this one of her sons turned on me.

I mean, on me. And said, it is not nature. It's creation. And at the time, I thought, yeah, steady up. You know, I know your mum just died, but, you know, pick on someone else.

But he was right. He was right. So ever since then, I've tried to speak about creation. Because in creation, God gives bears witness that He is God. Have a look at Romans. Oh, we're gonna have it up on the board.

Romans 1. Romans 1. Are we gonna start with 18? Beautiful. The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness since what may be known about God is plain to them because God has made it plain to them.

For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made so that men are without excuse. That's the clear, categorical teaching of the holy scripture. No one's gonna be able to stand before God and say, well, hang on. No one told me You were God. Because we are, as His creation, His own witnesses against ourself.

Look in the mirror. God's revealing Himself to you. Not because you're six foot two and all that, but you are His creation. This morning, I went for just a quiet little walk down in our front garden, and I mean, I I knew what I was preaching and stuff. And I'm walking down and we've got these sort of Chinese, they're not bluebells.

Pardon? Lanterns. Chinese lanterns. They, thanks, Don. They are, they're beautiful things, you know. And, of course, they grow wild, so I get in.

I hate cutting things back, but I've cut them all back. And now they're coming again. And so I walked down the driveway, and I sort of bumped against this Chinese lantern. And I just lifted it and looked into it. It was magnificent.

And it was that God was saying, you're gonna go and preach at Sunshine. See it yourself. There in that little flower in the cup of my hand was the almighty God revealing Himself to me. And it's there every day, all day. Since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, His eternal power, and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made so that men are without excuse.

That's the general revelation. And then talk we about special revelation, special revelation coming in the word of God. In the word of God. That lantern, Chinese lantern, beautiful though it is, intricate though it is, does not in itself speak to me of the Lord Jesus in itself. But when I look at that lantern in the light of the scriptures, it speaks to me of the Lord Jesus.

We need the spectacles of the scripture to receive the fullness of God's revelation, who is the person and work of the Lord Jesus. That very same one that Isaiah saw twenty-seven hundred years ago. Let's have a look at Second Timothy chapter 3 and verses 14 to 16. Second Timothy 3:14-16. Love this passage.

Love it. Here's Paul. He's charged Timothy. Remember Timothy had grown up and been taught the faith by his mother and his grandmother, his grandmother Lois, and your mother Eunice. Isn't that a beautiful covenantal picture? Just generation to generation.

And here in verse 14, as for you, Timothy, continue in what you have learned and become convinced of because you know those from whom you learned it. It was your own mother and grandmother. And how from infancy you have known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. That was the Old Testament, mind you. That was the Old Testament. But when we look at that passage in Isaiah 6 this morning, is it we we see that the Lord Jesus in that.

So God is revealing Him to us all the way through. That whole Old Testament sacrificial system, all of it pointing to the one for all sacrifice of Christ. And then in verse 16, that beautiful statement, all scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. And again, we could speak together of the ways in which God has revealed Himself through this holy word. I think we need to encourage each other a lot lot more.

I mean, it was it was good that the Titans beat Kronulla last night. That's good. Happy about that. Sorry about Essendon. But the thing is, this is where it's at.

This is where it's at. And you just think you just think for a moment. Yeah. I don't want you to look around. It's a bit obvious, but you know who's sitting near you or there's a few people here today.

Can you imagine the wealth of knowledge of God's revelation that sits in this room now? Amazing. Just sorry, Noah. You shouldn't have sat in the front seat. But but that's see, that's what our young people need to be growing up and hearing and seeing.

That God has revealed Himself to us. He has. Just as surely as He did to Isaiah. Matter of fact, I'll go one stronger than that. I think that our revelation that we receive from God, the fullness of His holy word, that beats Isaiah's vision hands down because this is clear crystal.

Clear as crystal. And so now I ask you, come back. How big is your God? How big is your God? Life difficult.

It's challenging. Life can be, it can be brutal. And we live in a world that's continually shrinking God into nonexistence, and we're affected by that. McLaren said, shallow religion comes from a dim faraway view of God. A dim faraway view of God.

Yeah. Think about it. You park God up behind the clouds somewhere. You park God off in the distance. It's gonna lead to a shallow, complacent faith, which includes a corresponding slight and superficial view of our own sin and shame.

McLaren goes on and says, true deep encounter or understanding of who God is leads firstly to a deep acknowledgement of sin, a repentance which is met by the overpowering redeeming grace of God, extended to repentant sinners in the personal work of Jesus Christ. A repentance met by the overpowering redeeming grace of God extended to repentant sinners in the person and work of the Lord Jesus. The evil one continually seeks to distract us. The evil one continues to seek to have us shrink our view of God. We have this sad tendency to put God in a box.

But we wouldn't put it like that, but in effect, that's it. Yes. An hour or so on Sundays, maybe praying before meals or doing family devotions or whatever, maybe a small group meeting somewhere. Thanks, Rob, for this example. We can put God in there, and then the rest of the time, well, it's ours.

Are you overcome? Am I overcome by the beauty and the majesty and the glory and the power and the authority of God? Are you and am I so consciously aware of the overpowering grace extended to us in the Lord Jesus that we will say, here am I. Let us pray. Lord, You know each one of us completely and thoroughly.

We thank You for that amazing fact. We thank You that Your love and Your mercy and Your grace overpowers completely inadequacy and our frailties. And that, yes, Lord, we sang that song earlier that we are destined to win. Now, Lord, we know ultimately that's in the second coming of King Jesus and the clouds of glory. But, Lord, we want our lives to count increasingly for You each day again until that happens.

So we pray that You would continue to reveal Yourself to us. And, Lord, when we're distracted or when life is hard and heavy, oh, God, penetrate our despair and our concerns and remind us that You are the God who rules supreme over all things and that You are working Your purposes out. Oh God, to You be the glory now and forever. Amen.