Sermon Tone Analysis

A Call to Duty

May 24, 1998

 

*Scripture:  Isaiah 6*

 

*Introduction:*

 

          Memorial Day is for remembering.

We remember loved ones who have died.

We remember great events that have taken place.

We remember those who have given their lives for great causes out of a sense of duty and ethic.

We remember because it behooves us not to forget.

In remembering we maintain a continuum of belonging and purpose, honor and destiny.

Without these things our lives fade into oblivion and meaninglessness.

Time and tedium take their toll on our remembrance.

We must keep the vision alive lest we forget.

We must not only remember those who have gone before us in carrying the vision, but we ourselves would like to be remembered for faithfully carrying it.

Let us honor our veterans today.

Will all who have served in our armed forces please rise so that we can remember you and thank you.

How did you receive your call to duty?

In 740 B.C. Isaiah received a call to duty in a heavenly army.

And I believe that God has some things he would like us to remember about that call.

We live in a culture as besieged by immorality as in Isaiah’s day.

The first five chapters of the book give us the message as the reason for his call.

They are perhaps placed first because the message is more important than the messenger.

There has been an attack.

There has been an offense and offense is called for against it.

God will be justified.

There is a vision of the effect of victory in chapter two and four, but the battle to achieve it will be long and arduous.

Chapter five reminds the people of what God has done for them before now and lists their incomprehensible sins in response.

We see woes:

 

          The Slum Landlord (5:8-10)

          The Giddy Playboy (5:11-17)

          The Syndicate Hoodlum (5:18-19)

          The Behavioral Psychologist (5:20)

          The Pink Professor (5:21)

          The Besotted Judge (5:22-24)

         

          But then we see Isaiah, representing those called of God, sinners awakened from their culture to sound the alarm.

We must remember Isaiah because we must be like him.

We serve in the same army and live in the same camp.

In chapter 6 we see, as Isaiah did, who God is, who we are, what we must do about it.

And we have the privilege of serving directly under the Captain that he anticipated beginning in chapter 7 & 9 and fully declared in chapters 42-53.

I.

The Source of the Call  (vv.

1-4)

          Remembering Our Power:  A Holy God

 

*1 ¶ In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.*

*2  Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.*

*3  And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory."*

*4  At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.*

A.

Confronted by the sovereignty of God  (vv.

1-2)

 

Sovereignty is the powerful nature of God.

Israel had become too complacent in its security to heed the warnings of God and too corrupted in its prosperity to escape the wrath of God.

King Uzziah was a good king for 52 years but became proud and profaned the temple, was given a holy dose of leprosy, and finally died in shame.

When our last hope is stripped away is when we can see God.

This is Jesus (John 12:41).

Robe: S. Rev. 1:13.

Seraphim: S. Rev. 4:7 (lion=kingship; ox=strength; man=intelligence; flying eagle=honor); they worshipped God, proclaimed His holiness, and declared His sovereignty over all the earth.

B.

Confronted by the holiness of God  (v.

3)

 

Holiness is the moral character of God.

It is this and not, for instance, love or justice that they extol.

Even sinless creatures such as these cover their faces in humility and their feet in modesty before His Holiness.

Even they cannot look upon Him in His glory for He alone is the holy of holies.

God is both transcendent (holy in his being) and immanent (glorious in his doing).

Holy x 3 = Trinity.

C.

Confronted by the worship of God  (v.

4)

 

We tremble with fear and awe, but at the same time we are fascinated by his holiness which is desirable, promising and compelling.

It is the ‘reverent fear’ spoken of in 1Pet.

1:17 when we shut our mouths, cover our feet and close our eyes before the sovereign holiness and glory of God.

It is like entering a planetarium from the busy street - the universe opens before us and we see the greatness of God in our smallness.

But worship is not a focus upon ourselves but upon the greatness, goodness, grace and character of God.

We should come, waiting upon him and a visitation of his Spirit, expecting a glimpse of his glory.

It is in his holiness that our holiness begins.

We receive the promise that we can be holy because he is and he has commanded it in 1Pet.

1:16.

It is not an option.

Like any good father, our heavenly Father wants his children to be as he is (1Cor.

7:1).

II.

The Effect of the Call  (vv.

5-7)

          Remembering Our Place:  A Humbled Servant

 

*5 ¶ "Woe to me!" I cried.

"I am 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."*

*6  Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.*

*7  With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."*

A.

Convicted of sin  (v.

5)

 

                   1.       Feeling our anguish  (v.

5a)

 

The closer to the light, the clearer the dirt.

Like the Edgar Allen Poe story, “The Telltale Heart,” in which he murders a man who has a vulture-like eye that haunts him, buries him beneath the floorboards, and sits over him on a chair as the police investigate.

His conscience reconstructs the mans heartbeat in his mind as he sips tea with the police as if nothing happened and he cries out that he is the one who has done it.

In the presence of a holy God we are utterly ruined and have no recourse but honesty and repentance in agreement with God about sin.

We realize with Isaiah that we are unworthy to join the seraphs in crying, “Holy, Holy, Holy.”

In every documented conversion of major spiritual leaders from Augustine to Spurgeon and into the modern day, there is agony of soul:  the stab of conscience, the shame of inward uncleanness, the remorse for sin, the sensation of being lost and alone.

We may struggle most of our lives to row against the current of God’s grace but finally in desperation we cannot continue to oppose God and let ourselves, exhausted, go over the falls and into his arms.

We can no longer trust ourselves but only God.

We have been brought to the brink.

Our spiritual sensitivity to sin (and grace on the other side) gets dulled because we have lost sight of a holy God.

Like Isaiah, we may need to see his holiness, feel the shaking pillars and smell the rising smoke of the cleansing fire to cause us to cry out, “Woe is me, for I am undone.”

2.       Accepting our responsibility  (v.

5b)