Being able to make the table—okay, times.
Sometimes, some of these terms, “seeing the Lord,” can sound so ethereal or spiritual. Today, I’d like to really bring it down in a practical sense and look at one in Scripture who found himself in a time of crisis. The things that he had trusted in before were shaken. Everything was shaken around him. He didn’t know what to do, yet he was able to really find the Lord in the midst of the crisis because he saw the Lord.
It’s interesting how this thought of our eyes being lifted up and seeing the Lord—our brother Bobby mentioned that in Psalm 121 to start. So, it’s like he didn’t know what I was sharing on. I didn’t know what his opening was, but the Lord orchestrates all this.
So, I’d like for us to turn and look at Isaiah 6. We’re thankful that we have this wonderful testimony, and really this vision of Isaiah. These few verses are one of those majestic visions throughout all of Scripture. John had one on the Isle of Patmos. We know a couple others had them, but this is one of these few majestic visions that even the author finds very hard to describe.
We’ll start in Isaiah 6:1-8.
In the year that king Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and His train filled the temple.
Above Him 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 unto 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 trembled 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, the Lord of hosts.
Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:
And he touched my mouth with it, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin forgiven.
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.
Praise God, brothers and sisters, for these phrases here, because Isaiah found himself in a time of crisis. He says that this occurred in the year that King Uzziah died.
Now, I know this is Isaiah, and he was a prophet, and this was what we call his calling here. But we might not all be called to be prophets, yet we are all called. Each one of us is called to be servants of the Most High God. So, the things we see occurring here are things that the Lord is also doing in our lives.
Now, just to set the scene here, if you look back at King Uzziah, he reigned for fifty-two years. He was one who was called a good king. He did right in the sight of the Lord, as long as he kept his eyes on the Lord.
We see Uzziah, when he came in, restored the house of God. The temple there was flourishing. He had a mighty army. Agriculture—it says a unique phrase of Uzziah: “Uzziah loved the soil.” He loved to farm and brought about agriculture and everything. He rebuilt the cities, and there was a great prospering within Judah under Uzziah that they had not really seen for a long time.
Under Uzziah, Judah was actually a world power, which it had not been because of some of the previous kings. Uzziah had done a great thing. Tragically, because of the greatness of the things that Uzziah did, toward the end of his life he became proud. That’s a whole other story and a warning for us, but he became proud. He did not repent. The Lord humbled him and judged him. He became a leper for the rest of his life, and after the last few years of his life, he passed away.
Now, Isaiah and Uzziah had a very close relationship. Some historians even raise the question: were they related? Nobody really knows for sure, but that issue is raised.
Isaiah had only known one king his whole life. He had just lived under the reign of Uzziah. He had lived during this prosperous time, and that is all that he knew. Then Uzziah dies, and it really shakes Isaiah. It’s hard to keep Uzziah and Isaiah straight, so if I confuse them, just try to figure out who I’m talking about here.
Maybe unconsciously, within Isaiah, he was not even aware of it, but he had put his hope, his confidence, his security, even his success, in Uzziah. All of a sudden, this one who had been so mighty and powerful upon the throne was no longer there. The earthly throne was empty, and there was chaos. There was uncertainty.
What does Isaiah do in the midst of the crisis, in the midst of the shaking? He goes to the house of God. He goes where, in the Old Testament, the presence of the Lord was.
In a time of crisis, where do we go? We go into the presence of the Lord. We’re thankful that we do not have to go to a physical place, because God is with us. It is that turning unto Him, coming before the Lord, coming into that presence.
When Isaiah came into the presence of the Lord, what was the Lord’s answer to him? The Lord, in a simple way, just showed him Himself. He showed him Himself.
Isaiah said, “I saw the Lord sitting on the throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple.” The Lord comforted Isaiah by showing him and giving him a revelation of the throne that is never empty.
There is an eternal throne that is never empty. Even though thrones upon this earth, and kings and men, come and go, there is an eternal throne that is never empty. He is there. He is ruling. He is reigning throughout all eternity. He is forever the same.
That was the basic truth the Lord revealed to Isaiah. I believe the Lord wants to reveal that basic truth to each and every one of us: in whatever situation, whatever type of crisis we are in, as we come to Him, He wants to bring us back to having a right perspective. He is on the throne. He is the same forever and ever.
If we go back and consider what Isaiah saw in this majestic vision, sometimes we read these verses and they can become familiar to us. But let’s slowly go through Isaiah 6:1-4.
We see Him sitting upon the throne. We see His majesty, His holiness, and His omnipotence there, as His whole train is filling the temple. It is truly that majestic vision of Who He is and all that He has done.
In verse 1, it says, “I saw the Lord sitting on the throne, lofty and exalted, high and lifted up. His train was filling the temple.” We know of His robe—it was all-encompassing. There was not a space where His glory and His majesty were not displayed.
Then the seraphim are there in verse 2. Each has six wings: two covering their face, two covering their feet, and with two they are flying. What are they doing? They are occupied with the King on the throne. Their eyes are upon the King.
What are they doing? They are crying out, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord of hosts.” Oh, what a revelation. These ones, their life was occupied with worshiping Him upon the throne and with that glorious testimony: “The whole earth is full of His glory.”
Praise God, brothers and sisters, the whole earth is full of the glory of God. We do not see that fulfilled in fullness at this point in time, but we can look throughout all creation.
That is one of the beautiful things of spring. It’s wonderful, as we have just been at home, being able to see the glory of the Lord blossom forth in all the different plants and shrubs as they come out—whether the azaleas or the hydrangeas are blooming, the astilbes are blooming, the roses are blooming. All the different things blooming forth and showing the glory of God and His wonderful creation.
We see how, because there was such power and such awesomeness there, the foundations of the thresholds were trembling at the voice of him who called out, and the temple was filled with smoke. Brothers and sisters, there was such a majesty there.
The more you stop and meditate upon these verses, the Lord reveals more and more of His glory. Have we seen this? Have we seen this Lord? Praise God, have we?
The Lord, as He met Isaiah, wants to meet us in a similar way. He wants us to see His majesty, His holiness, His glory, and that beauty, that our eyes would be upon Him.
The Lord was doing a work of getting Isaiah’s eyes off the earthly and onto the heavenly—off the earthly things that can be shaken and onto the heavenly things that can never be shaken.
What was Isaiah’s reaction? We see that he responds in verse 5: “Woe is me, for I am ruined.” Now, this is not an exaggeration or somebody trying to wax poetic and come up with some cute little phrase. When he saw the Lord, he saw that he was undone. He saw that he was unclean, that he was among a people of unclean lips. He identified himself with the people. He saw that he was a part of them, for his eyes had seen the King.
What did he do? He saw himself in God’s light. Brothers and sisters, he saw himself in God’s light. As soon as he saw himself in God’s light and humbled himself, what did God do? God cleansed him. Praise God for that.
He cleansed him because He had a purpose of service. He said, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Isaiah said, “Here am I; send me.”
As we go back and look at this in a little more detail, you can divide these verses into two sections based on Isaiah’s words. First, he says, “I saw the Lord sitting on the throne,” and then he responds, “Woe is me.” Then second, he says, “I heard,” and then, “Here am I; send me.”
The first part was that he saw. He saw the Lord. He had that revelation, the simplicity of that. He simply saw the Lord.
If you look at different ones’ testimonies, think of Paul’s testimony on the road to Damascus. First, he saw the Lord—that light, that bright light. Then he heard that voice, and he said, “Lord, what shall I do?”
In Ephesians 1:18, it talks about the eyes of your heart being enlightened, but it does not stop there: “that ye may know what is the hope of His calling.” He opens our eyes to see Him, but that is not the end. We are not just to see Him. There is a responding to Him and responding to the call that He has upon our lives.
Today, in this great time of shaking, we see how the Lord wants us to see Him in a fuller way than we have seen Him before. Many have already mentioned how everything is shaking today. Around the world, it is a worldwide shaking. The church is being shaken, families are being shaken, and the economy is being shaken.
As we have heard often, the economy was going great a few months ago, and many were putting their confidence in it. We do not know what the future of the economy will be. It depends on whether you are an optimist or a pessimist. But our eyes are on the King.
We know He is Jehovah Jireh, and He will provide for us. Whatever is ahead, He will be the One providing for us.
We are thankful that in this, I see one of the blessings of the Lord. In the last years, there has been such an attack on families. It is like the Lord provided a Selah for families. Sometimes it may be a little chaotic Selah at home, but families were getting distracted and dissipated, and the enemy was coming in every which way.
It is like He said, “Okay, I’m going to shut you in. The family is here together. Start having meals together again, maybe having some devotions together, some fellowship, some prayer.” Families would not be destroyed, but families would be recovered.
Just as we heard in that Psalm this morning and in these verses, in the time of crisis, the Lord wants us to see Him. He wants us to know Him in a way that He is in charge, that He has won the victory, that He has overcome, and that our hope and confidence are in Him.
Each of us can have our vision, our perspective, adjusted. If you look at this story of Isaiah, what changed? None of the outward circumstances changed. Uzziah was still dead. Everything outwardly was the same. What changed was Isaiah’s perspective. He got his eyes off the earthly and onto the heavenly, and he was able to offer himself to the Lord.
That is why, in this time where everything is shaking for us, we have to honestly ask ourselves: what are we putting our hope and confidence in? Have we subtly been relying upon Uzziah? Maybe that Uzziah is our job. Maybe that Uzziah is our education. Maybe that Uzziah is our family, our meetings, or whatever. It could be a big man of God or various things out there.
But praise God, in His great mercy, our Uzziahs need to die. Whatever we are dependent upon other than the Lord, our Uzziahs need to die so that we find ourselves in a fuller and greater way of having dependence upon Him.
How do we know that our eyes have seen the King? How do we know when we have really seen Him?
I think we know, as we see here in Isaiah, that when he responds, “Woe is me, for I am ruined,” he knew he was nothing in the light of God. Do we know the utter ruin of our natural self?
Isaiah was what we would call a good person. He was serving the Lord before Uzziah died. He was a good, upright, moral person. In the world’s eyes, everybody would say, “Oh, Isaiah, you’re such a good guy.” But when he saw the Lord, in the light of the Lord’s presence, he said, “I am undone,” because there is a whole different perspective.
Today, what is our standard? Do we compare ourselves with others, or is our standard the Lord? Do we think, because we are doing this, “I’m a little better”? Maybe we compare ourselves to other believers, consciously or unconsciously, and think that we are a little bit better.
Our standard is the Lord, and He wants us to have our eyes upon Him, to really see and know all that He is trying to do.
Have we come to that point of really seeing and knowing, coming to a place of saying, “Woe is me, for I am ruined”? Paul had this experience. He said, “O wretched man that I am!”
We have to realize that within ourselves, without Christ within, if you are just looking at the natural man, there is a wretched man living within me. There is a wretched man living within each one of us, and that wretched man is never going to change. We are never going to be able to improve it.
There is a monster living within each one of us that is out to destroy us. But praise God, we have the Victor who has overcome that also living within us.
The only way that wretched man, the only way that monster, gets empowered is when we give him power. When we take our eyes off the King, look at that, and try to do things in ourselves, that empowers that wretched man.
Praise God, we can see as Isaiah did. We need to become more conscious of our uncleanness, of the wretched man that we are, having that perspective. But we also need to become more conscious of the cleansing that has been provided for us.
How do you really know it? We talk about seeing the Lord. How do you really know if you have seen the Lord? In a simple way, when Isaiah saw the Lord, he was humbled. He was broken. He was down on his knees, we could say, before the Lord. He was really humbled.
But you see these ones at times who say, “I’ve seen the Lord,” and there is a spirit of pride within them. There is a proudness about it. It makes you wonder: if you are acting like that, did you really see the Lord? Is that just in yourself?
I think when we genuinely see Him, there is a humbling. This is what happened to Isaiah. He was unaware of his uncleanness, and the Lord showed him in His light how unclean he really was.
When we are unaware of our uncleanness, that is a dangerous spot. That is what happened in Malachi. They were unaware of their uncleanness. That is what happened in Laodicea. They were unaware of their uncleanness. That is a sign of the end times: are we unaware of our uncleanness?
But praise God, when we become aware of our uncleanness, it does not stop there. We do not have to sit around in a pity party and say how wretched and bad we are. I love these verses because, as soon as Isaiah saw, “Oh, I’m undone,” immediately it says in verse 6, “Then one of the seraphim flew unto me.”
Praise God, how quickly the Lord responded to Isaiah. He took that coal off the altar, came and touched Isaiah’s lips, and cleansed him. There was no delay on the Lord’s part. There was that live, burning, fresh coal off the altar.
How quickly the Lord is there to meet us when we repent. The Lord is not asking us, “You’ve got to wallow in your self-pity and your condition for a while.” No. As soon as we turn to Him, we see that He is right there.
We need that greater revelation, yes, of our uncleanness, but also of our cleanness—what He has cleansed us of. That is why we remember Him at the table every day.
It is interesting, as you look in Isaiah here, that you see the relationship between the throne and the altar. He saw the throne, that greatness. But how could he really come and stand before the throne? It was because of the altar, because of the cross, because of the work of Christ.
How can we stand in the presence of God? There is a relationship between the throne and the altar. As we have allowed that cross to work within us, to cleanse us, we are able to come into the throne room of God—not just creep in, but come in with boldness and confidence.
Why is that? Because we have seen the King. Our eyes are upon Him, and we see this great salvation. We see how He has cleansed us and what He has brought us into. We are so thankful for that.
That is why, when the Lord called out to Isaiah and said, “Whom shall I send? Whom will go for Us?” Isaiah was right there: “Here am I; send me.”
He says to each one of us, “Whom shall I send?” Praise God. Isaiah was not focusing upon who he was not, but he was focused upon who he was because he had been cleansed.
Consider Isaiah’s response here when he says, “Here am I; send me.” He simply makes himself available and waits. When the Lord said, “Who will go?” he did not say, “I will go. Here I am going.” No, he said, “You send me.”
There is a big difference between “I will go” and “You send me.” We see that difference. “Oh, there’s a need. I’ll go do it. There’s a need there. I’ll go do it.” Do we wait on the Lord until He says, “You go. I will send you”?
Isaiah did not even ask questions: “Well, where do You want me to go, Lord? What do You want me to do, Lord? Well, I saw this need. Can I do that? Why am I doing this?” No. He was fully surrendered. He had a captured heart, and he was offering that acceptable service and sacrifice to Him in a way that the Lord could use him in any way the Lord desired.
Isaiah did not know what was before him. He did not know this call, but he had seen the King. It gave him a whole new perspective on life. All he wanted to do was follow and serve this glorious One.
Have we been captured? Is our heart captured in such a way that other things fall to the side and we would be those who could respond like Isaiah?
As we said, these days are days of training. Really, we should be worshiping the Lord, because this is a tremendous opportunity. For most of us at this point in our lives—and I’m one of the younger ones here—we have never experienced anything like this before.
What an opportunity to go through an experience for the first time. The next time a pandemic comes, everybody may say, “Oh yeah, I remember that one. You do this, that, and that.” But we did not know what to do. You have all these experts, but really, nobody knew what to do.
We had an opportunity to learn, an opportunity to find the Lord in the midst of uncertainty, an opportunity to find the Lord. We do not know what is ahead of us. Is this pandemic going to come back? Is it going to resurface? It depends on whether you listen to these politicians or those politicians, whether it is going away or whatever. We do not know.
But we know Whose we are. We keep our eyes upon Him. We would see Him, we would hear Him, and we would obey Him—that we would have a captured heart.
Whatever is before us, we are willing to go forth because we know He has gone before us. May the focus of our life not be upon the circumstances of this world, but may there be a change in perspective, that we could really see Him.
Do we spend so much time on the internet looking for answers that, all of a sudden, the internet becomes our god? We have this website, and, “Oh, I love it. I get all this information,” or that website. Brothers and sisters, would we take this time to really see the Lord in a fresh way?
Why is He shaking? He is shaking because of purpose. He wants us to have that change of perspective, to come back to Him. As we go through the shaking and some things are falling off, what is our response?
Let’s close by looking at Hebrews 12:27-28.
And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain.
Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace, whereby we may offer service well-pleasing to God, with reverence and awe:
for our God is a consuming fire.
What is our response, brothers and sisters? It is like Romans 12:1. We are offering ourselves to Him for an acceptable service. There is a poured-out offering of giving ourselves to Him.
It is not just so that we make it through a crisis. It is not just seeing Him, but seeing Him with an end in view, because He has brought us into a kingdom that cannot be shaken.
Do we see that we are citizens of that kingdom? Regardless of the politics of this world, our citizenship is in a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Would we know the solid and sure foundation we have there?
As we respond, there would be that acceptable service with reverence and awe—that reverence of seeing the King.
“My eyes have seen the King, high and lifted up. His train fills the temple.” That glory, that holiness, that majesty, that omnipotence—oh, here am I; send me. Here I am. I want to be living for You, Lord.
Brothers and sisters, may our living testimony be in this day: “My eyes have seen the King.” My eyes have seen the King.
Maybe it does not even have to come off our lips, but our lives would reflect that—not just in words, but in life. Then we say, “Here am I; send me.”
Lord, we are thankful that in the midst of the current crisis, we have a hope that is sure and steadfast. We have an anchor that holds within the veil. We have a King sitting upon the throne in all glory and majesty.
Lord, we do come, and we all would confess that we need a greater revelation of Yourself. Lord, we are thankful for how You have revealed Yourself to us. Lord, we have seen our King, but we know that we have only seen a little. There is so much more of You we want to see.
The more of You we see, the more we see of ourselves in Your light. Lord, that we could continue to be those decreasing, because You must increase and we must decrease, for Your glory and honor; that You would have a people fit for the Master’s service in this day.
In Jesus’ name, amen.