I direct your attention to the prophecy of Isaiah. And the sixth chapter, Isaiah six, and we'll begin our reading in the first verse and read through the end of the chapter. Isaiah chapter six, verse one. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up. And his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims. 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 posts of the door moved 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 seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar. And he laid it upon my mouth and said, lo, this hath touched thy lips and thine iniquity is taken away and thy sin purged. Also, I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, here am I, send me. And he said, go and tell this people. Hear ye indeed, but understand not. And see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat and make their ears heavy and shut their eyes. Lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and convert and be healed. Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered until the cities be wasted without inhabitant. and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, and the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return and shall be eaten as a teal tree and as an oak. whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves, so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof. Thus far, our reading of God's holy, infallible, and precious word. Dear friends, it is a glorious chapter that is before us here. in Isaiah chapter six. And it reminds us in many ways of other parts of the scripture, especially in this sense that the Lord always makes his glory and his holiness known wherever and whenever he will do any work of his own. And we think in particular in these moments of what we read in Genesis 32 verses 1 and 2 where we read of Jacob going back towards Canaan in accordance with the Lord's command. And beset by many troubles and fearful of all that would come upon him, we read there that the angels of God met him in a place that would later carry the name Mahanaim or two camps. And what a special meeting that must have been to have the angels of God meet this fearful Jacob on his way back to the promised land. The angels of God. The world of the angels is a world that is, for the most part, veiled to us. Once in a while in scripture, the veil is lifted ever so slightly, and we see a glorious, radiant, and spectacular realm that the Lord has seen fit to hide from our view most of the time. And yet, when he lifts that veil ever so slightly, it is for our instruction, It is for our edification. It is for our learning. And so it was for Isaiah as well as he was called into the ministry and called to this very difficult task of bringing the holiness of the God of Israel to bear upon this sinful nation of Israel who had departed so very far and so very long from the statutes and ordinances of the Lord. And as the Lord will impress upon this his servant something of his grandeur, his majesty, his splendor, he opens up to him, among other things, this mysterious, miraculous, and instructive vision of a world, indeed, that we see nothing of except reflected in the scriptures, and yet a world that is so pure, so holy, so transcendent, and one that has to teach us many lessons. And so with the Lord's help, we wish to focus our thoughts in this moment on verse two of the chapter that we read in your hearing. In particular, because I believe that there are lessons in this, not only for ourselves gathered here this evening, not only for the gospel ministry, which has a relevance here to Isaiah and his calling, but also more particularly to the calling of this auxiliary and the society represented by it. and we wish, if helped, to give a few of those applications towards the end. Allow me to read once again in your hearing Isaiah chapter six and verse two. Above it stood the seraphims. Each one had six wings. With twain he covered his face, and with twain He covered his feet and with twain he did fly. Thus far our text. Our theme with the Lord's help in these brief moments is the spectacular vision of the seraphims. The spectacular vision of the seraphims. And we'll look at these various wings that are held before us. We will see how each of them have a lesson. And we will seek to apply them to ourselves and to the society and its mission in the second half of our address. Above it stood the seraphims. Seraph is a term to denote the angels from a particular viewpoint. And the word in the original means fiery or burning. Fiery or burning. And it most likely refers to the angels from this perspective that they are creatures of God, holy creatures made by God, unfallen, these seraphs, at least unfallen. Though a third of the angels fell with Satan, Two-thirds remained in their innocency and created beings, created for the worship and the service of God. And these seraphs, whether it denotes all of the angels or a particular regiment among them, they're denoted as seraphs because they are burning with love. for their creator and Lord. Burning not only with love, but burning with zeal for the glory and the holiness of God. And ought not this already to confound us? When we catch here a glimpse in the word of God of these creatures of God, unfallen around the throne of God, appearing there about God's very throne, that they are burning with love. If you permit me this expression, red hot with zeal for the holiness and the glory of Almighty God. When we put next to that our very cold hearts, by nature and even after received grace, we cannot but be confounded and made to cry out as Isaiah cries out here, woe is us. For when God gives us his spirit and gives us the light of his word applied to our souls, and we are able to see even just a slight amount of what this scripture says, we feel ourselves to be entirely a block of ice compared to this red, hot, fiery zeal, which we creatures of God made in innocency as well at the first in Adam, our federal head, which we ought to have because the Lord has not changed. And he is worthy of the very same thing that he always has been worthy of. And that is that we would be consumed with love for him and with a zeal for his glory. And then in all our thoughts, words, and actions, and all that we do and omit to do, that would be our one and only aim, to glorify the God of heaven for all that he is in himself, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders. And what a mercy it is when the Lord, by His Spirit, kindles a fire in our hearts. And when once He kindles it, it cannot be put out. Indeed, in our experience, there's such an ebb and flow, and there's still so much coldness. But when once the Lord works by His Holy Spirit, There comes to be what we read of in Luke 24 in the case of these men who found this holy stranger walking next to them and with them. And they spoke of it after he left. And they said one to another was not our hearts burning within us when he spake. Oh, may the Lord give that by his spirit. In our hearts. That instead of having desires that burn for the things of this world. For ourselves and our own reputation. And for the stuff of this world. And the passions of which this world is so full and our own evil hearts are also so horribly filled. That instead of burning for that. The Lord would give us to burn. With love. For him, for who he is. And for what he has done. And for how he speaks in his word. May the Lord forgive us. His people are often so cold hearts. Cold hearts and the worship of his name. Cold hearts in the exercises of religion. Coldness when we come to his word. Coldness when we come to his throne of grace. But may we find in his word, may we find all from the Lord's side by his spirit. to make it so that thy word was in me, as Jeremiah says, as a fire burning in my bones. May that be, by God's grace, our experience. May we seek for that. Also in our days, when there is much of a chill, even in the professing church of God, that the Lord would once again come and that he would give, could it be a springtime and a summer even by his grace? What a wonder that would be. But the Lord has done it in the past. In Reformation days and thereafter, with the dawn of the Reformation, didn't that exactly happen? That the Lord gave that the morning light grew more and more and more until it was a noonday sun. And would to God that he would do so yet again. May our hearts be in prayer for that. And may our expectation be in God who changes not. And therefore we sons of Jacob are not consumed. But we press on from the mere word seraph now to this remarkable Remarkable vision of these six wings that each of these seraphs had. And the striking thing about it is, and Isaiah notes it well, by the direction of the Holy Spirit as he guides his eye there upon these seraphs encircling the thrones, that of the six wings that they have, two of them they use to cover their face. Two of them they use to cover their feet. and with two of them they fly. And every bit of this is significant. The order of it is significant. The proportion of it is significant. And there's much instruction here for the people of God and for all of us and for the church of the Lord Jesus Christ also in our day. Because many of us have the impression And wherever we got it, we are not sure, but we have the impression that angels fly, and angels have two wings, and they fly. And when we think that way, we skip over very important parts. Because what Isaiah says is, and he notes it in this order, with two of them, they covered their face. And by that, if we just stop there for a moment, with two of their wings, they hide their faces from the face of him that sits upon the throne. And what do we have in this act, but really the deepest of reverence and the very heart of worship. whereby these angels sense instinctively and intuitively that they are in the presence of one who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. And though angels have not committed sin in any way, shape or form, these angels, nevertheless, we read in the book of Job that he charges his angels with folly. and that they as created beings in the presence of almighty God, they sense their folly. They sense their creatureliness. They sense the great and introversible distance between God and his majesty and they and their creatureliness. And they cover their faces as if to say there's only room for one face in all of And it's His face, and His face alone. For God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. And no creature even has any inherent light, but a derivative light if they have it. And God is altogether light. And what can these angels but do but cover their face? As if to say the very thing that the Lord Jesus Christ teaches his disciples in the first petition of the Lord's Prayer, and they embody it as it were there with two of their wings. Hallowed be thy name. And in a world in which we live, in which people are trying their utmost to hallow their own names, to set apart their own names, to make their own faces stand out. And people everywhere are branding their own names and their own faces everywhere, on billboards and who knows where all. But we, not to learn from these angels to cover our faces. And not just formally so, but truly from out of our hearts, that the Lord would teach us in our hearts, experimentally, what it is to look away from all and to hide ourselves before the majesty and the holiness of Almighty God. This, dear friends, has been the secret of every true move of God in our world. Every true ministry of the Gospel, any true service of God, does not begin with wings that fly, but begins with wings that cover the face in adoration, worship, fear, reverence of Almighty God. in days in which many quarters in our world and also in the professing church, what we read in the scriptures about there being no fear of God before their eyes, how we long for days in which the Lord would teach us this fundamental lesson once again. that He would return to us. And could it be begin with us, who name the name of God and of Christ, that He would give us a heart that would reverence Him and His holiness, His being, and the three persons of His glorious triunity, and His word, and His statutes, and His law, and His day, once again. And that we would by his spirit be taught to cover our faces before the holiness of God. And the Lord ultimately teaches that to his people, not just by his law, though we must respect it. And there must be a ministry of that law in our hearts and in our lives to convict us and to empty us and to show us our deadness by nature. But where do we learn most to cover our faces? Interesting thing we read of Elijah when he was there in Mount Horeb and the Lord led him out of that cave. And he saw and witnessed so much of the majesty of the Lord in the wind and the fire and the earthquake, which were certainly tokens of the Lord's majesty and greatness. But do you know when it says that Elijah covered his face, it wasn't after the earthquake and it wasn't after the fire and it wasn't after the wind. But when the Lord spoke in the still, small voice, we read, and Elijah covered his face. You see, it is when the Lord comes close, and he comes in the sweet gospel tones, and he approaches the sinner, who from his side should be entirely condemned. and wiped off the face of the earth. And yet the Lord does it not for reasons only known unto Himself. And He approaches the sinner. And we know from the Gospel much more of it. He comes through the blood of sprinkling. It is when the Lord by His Spirit applies these truths so tenderly, so compassionately, and so effectually into our souls that we truly bow in the dust before God. And now, not just with some servile reverence, which is appropriate in and of itself for creatures made in the image of God, but with a childlike reverence, we cover our faces and we say not unto us, Not unto us, but unto thy name be the glory." With Twain, they covered their faces. But we must press on and we read here then, secondly, that Isaiah doesn't follow a physical order, as if he had simply looked from from the head of these angels down to the feet. He would have come secondly here to the wings wherewith they do fly, but he comes to the lower set of wings and he comes to those wings that cover the feet. And so we have here in terms of the order of this revelation, we have not only the lesson of worship and reverence, we have here now secondly the lesson connected to it and that is of humility and of self-effacement. Because the covering of the feet would be something that, in ancient times, they would have recognized quite quickly. And in some cultures, even today, they would recognize it probably more quickly than ourselves. But those of us who are schooled in the scriptures, when we realize that, for example, Moses was told to take his shoes from off his feet because the ground on which he stood was holy. And the pollution of man is symbolized often through feet. which needed to be covered, needed to be washed. And so certainly for Isaiah, this would have been palpable, this would have been sensible. He would have understood immediately what this conveyed. And it is the lesson that we see, for example, in the centurion, as he speaks there, or sends message to the Lord and says to Him through these messengers, I am not worthy that thou shouldst come into mine house, but speak the word only. There is this sense on the part of the centurion that the ground cannot be shared by two. And these angels have that sense as well. And they cover their feet. Think of that. These holy unfallen angels who do the bidding of their master perfectly and instantaneously, they cover their feet perpetually before the throne of the majesty and high. And should we then not humble ourselves? Should we not learn that holy art of effacement? Should we not bow in the dust before the Lord? And should we not indeed cover our feet which We are polluted from head to toe. There is, as Isaiah says, from the sole of our feet to the crown of the head. There is no soundness in us. There's no righteousness, no holiness from our side. It is all unclean, unclean. We might as well be like the lepers in ancient times who needed to cover their mouth and they needed to cry unclean, unclean before men. And then shall we not cry this out before this throne of God? Certainly Isaiah learns to do this. Having seen all that he has seen, having taken lessons here from these angels, that is what he does. He certainly understands, doesn't he, the lesson. Woe is me, he says, for I am undone. I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. I'm a man of unclean lips. It's really a confession of spiritual leprosy. And this is in the year that King Uzziah died of leprosy. And Isaiah is basically saying, I deserve the same thing Uzziah has deserved, and that is that I've made my approach unto God so often because that's what Uzziah did. He made his approach unto God, imagining that he was of the capacity and quality that he could offer, as he did at the altar of God. And Isaiah is not placing himself above Uzziah, and he's saying, I'm a man of unclean lips. I dwell in the midst of a leprous people, as it were. And he effaces himself. And he repents, we might say, in dust and ashes. This is something that all God's people learn and measure. Job. I'm vile. I lay my hand upon my mouth. Abraham. I'm a dust and ashes. Feeling is unworthiness there to call upon the Lord. Dear friends, do we know anything of this in our own experience? The Lord taught us this by His Word and by His Holy Spirit to see ourselves, not in the light of our own self-estimate and the light of what people see, in the light of even the best of men, As the Lord ever brought home to our hearts, from the sole of our feet to the top of our head, crown of our head, there is no soundness. When the Lord does this, we do learn to cover our feet. We learn to bow before God in humiliation, repentance, confession of sin. It's as if our life unravels before the Lord. I am undone. That's a word that would be applied to a garment that the seams come apart and you could just pull the threads and nothing is left. I am undone. That's what a vision of the Lord of hosts, the Lord of angels is holiness. Glory does. When the spirit applies it. But then we move on very quickly to this third set of wings is only after he has seen this vision of worship and of humility, then he now comes to service and with twain. They did fly. A man will only be useful in the service of the Lord when he has learned these lessons of worship. Now the Lord is deserving of all worship of self humiliation and this over and over and over again. Yes, this first knowledge of it is important, but it ought to be a continual conversion, a continual life of repentance. All the Christian life, Luther said, is one of conversion, of repentance. It's the sum of it. And only such a life the Lord uses in his service. But what a readiness, what an exactness marks the service of these angels. When Isaiah sees them, they are flying. Reverently speaking here, their wings are busy already. They don't need to come into motion. They are in motion. And at the simple command of the Lord, they fly wherever. whenever the Lord bids them, but not till then. We can learn from this that the Lord requires of his people the same exactness and swiftness. For the Lord taught his people to pray, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Remarkable prayer. Therein the Lord teaches his true disciples that they must look to the world of angels as a pattern, as a model, knowing full well that we as fallen creatures, we will never reach in this life a stage of service in which we will be exact and prompt and ready and busy. And yet the Lord puts this there. in order to stir within the hearts of His people that desire, oh, that that would be given to me by the Spirit of God, that I might be swift in what the Lord calls me to, that I might be exact in what the Lord calls me to. And Lord, I do not find it within myself, and that's why I cry to Thee, Thy will be done. Lord, make it happen by Thy Word and Holy Spirit. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And that's the longing of the Church of Jesus Christ in truth, that that day would come, and would it come speedily. And there unto we long, we sigh, we groan, we seek grace from God to labour while it is yet day, knowing that the night comes when no man can labour. And so, dear friends, I must close, but not without saying, do we not find here much matter for conviction? of heart and soul. And I ask you, can you not find in Isaiah's language, woe is me, can you not find anything in your heart that echoes it in such light before such glory? But there's also here a direction for the people of God and a comforting one at that. And that is that this Lord whom Isaiah sees on the throne, which is, by the way, if you wish to search this out further, according to John chapter 12, this is none other than the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus Christ. He sees a vision of this. And what this means, we cannot imagine. But that Lord on the throne, he took not to himself the nature of angels, But He took to Himself the nature of man. He took to Himself, Hebrews 2 says, the seed of Abraham. That means He took to Himself to be born bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. Oh, what was in the heart of the Son of God. To have seen this, angels all about the throne, covering their faces, covering their feet, ready to fly. And seeing Isaiah and all his misery and all his woe, the son of God from heaven, it was in his heart from all eternity. He took not himself to himself the nature of angels, but he took to him the nature of man. The nature we bear, the nature in which we have sinned, the nature in which we live. Do you see, dear congregation, what we find in here is a matter of all consolation for the many who are burdened in their souls and burdened in their hearts. And is this not a message also for our poor perishing world? He took not upon himself the nature of angels, but he took upon himself the nature, our nature of the Virgin Mary. And there's one last comfort for you, children of God, here. And it's this, that he sent no angel here to redeem the fallen sons of Adam. What if he had done that? From among that company of seraphim, he had sent one of those seraphs to redeem you, lost soul, me, lost in and of myself. Oh, we would never be saved. We could never be saved. One of the Puritans put it like this, he said, if you would come to me, if you could come to me with the spotless robe of angelic righteousness, of some beautiful seraph that had never sinned, and you could say, oh, here you go, here is a spotless robe of angelic righteousness, he said, reverently speaking, I would take that robe of angelic righteousness and I would hurl it from me and say, I need so much more. I need the bloody righteousness of another. I need the blood-stained garments of Christ's righteousness. I can do with nothing less. The angels may be able to do with angelic righteousness, but I, sinner that I am, I must have a blood-bought righteousness that alone will avail for me. And that, dear friends, is what this glorious scriptures, which you as a society and you as an auxiliary, have committed to you in very faithful renditions. And I pray God that he would give you more of a burden than ever before to see that go forth into our world. because nothing will testify of these things that we have seen and heard this evening other than the Word of God. May the Lord give us, all of us, this reverence, this worship, this self-effacement in all that we seek to do also in the society, and that the mission of the society, which is a great mission, an important mission, May the Lord give us swiftness in that mission and an exactness, a meticulousness that is called for by that mission. And I believe that you espouse that and you seek that with God's help to do that. Though we are faulty creatures, infallible, and we will remain so till our dying breath, that the Lord would preserve that among us, and that there would be no flippancy that would creep into any of this, that there would be this utmost seriousness that befits the salvation of souls that are perishing. but that the Lord would give this in a way whereby it's nothing less than the blood-bought righteousness of Jesus Christ attested to in the scriptures and applied by the spirit to the heart of the vilest and the most wretched. Take hope, my dear friend, if that is you. Read the scriptures on this. This and nothing less than this will do Dear friends, it is in this way that we must labor, it is in this way that we must go forward, and it is in this way that we must first pray, because it is pray and work to the praise and honor of the triune God. May the Lord give it by his grace and to his glory. Amen.