Welcome back. It's great to see you all again. We're in the second chapter of R.C. Sproul's classic book, The Holiness of God. And Dr. Sproul really spends almost this entire chapter talking about Isaiah chapter six. And so that's what we're going to do this evening. At least my plan is, is we're going to walk through the first part of Isaiah six together with a little help from Moses. We do have a Moses seeking to see the glory of God and a little bit of a help from First John chapter three, which speaks to the beatific vision on how we will all see God as he is in the future. But primarily, my intent is to focus on chapter six. We've already talked about the fact that Uzziah was this really good king. Yes, R.C. points out there were some flaws late in his life. He did go into the temple, which is very presumptuous, and God struck him with leprosy. But overall, he was a very good king, a very capable king. And the Lord blessed Israel with great prosperity. That is, Judah, with great prosperity throughout his reign. And so when he died, it was a really tumultuous event. for almost all the people of Judah. And it's precisely at that time that the Lord appears to Isaiah and says, basically, yes, this earthly king, my servant, is dead. But I, the living God, stay enthroned on the throne of the universe. And I am fixed here forever. So he shows Isaiah his glory. Now, what I'd like to look at tonight are a few things. But of course, I'm really interested in what else you'd like to hear. First, I want to look at the very question of what does it mean to see the Lord. Isaiah says in the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. But I think we ought to poke at that a bit and try to see if we can get a better idea what does that mean. Second, I want to talk about the fact that the word holy is repeated three times it's their so called trice hagion RC makes a big deal out of that and we ought to have a list of pretty good understanding of how that works. Third, I want to talk about Isaiah coming undone right he says what was me I am on done and related to that the fact that he focuses on his own speech his own lips and what God does with those lips. And finally, I want to say just a little bit about his call. But does anyone else have anything off the top of your head as things come up throughout tonight's discussion, you could just throw them in. But if you have something else already that you want to go, hey, let's make sure we talk about this tonight. Why don't you get it on our agenda, as it were. Anyone going, I really need to understand verse four better. You're a very accommodating group. Please do volunteer your questions, your challenges, and your ideas throughout tonight's discussion. But before we dive into this chapter together, let's go before the throne of grace and ask that the Lord would bless our study of his word. Let us pray. Father, we do stand in awe of who you are. And yet we confess that we often in our day to day lives push that a bit out of our thoughts, because it is so challenging to us to think about walking before God who is perfectly holy as you are. And so we ask this evening is we study this portion of your word that we would not simply gain a few facts. but that we would be deeply impressed at the wonder of your holiness, and that you would give us a desire to be holy, because you, the Lord our God, are holy. We ask this in Jesus's name. Amen. Would someone read Isaiah chapter six, verses one through seven for us? Go ahead and stop at verse seven, but Isaiah chapter six, verses one through seven. I can do that. Thank you, Ray. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings, with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. the whole earth is full of His glory. And the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of Him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said, woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then one of the seraphim flew to me having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said, behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for. Thank you, Ray. I want to start with a little detail. I don't want to spend too much time on this because it's not central to this discussion. But R.C. does seem to assume a conclusion here. And I'm wondering what you think. Where does this vision take place? Isaiah has a vision of the Lord. My question is, where in fact does he see the Lord? In the temple? Yeah, Jason, I think that's what R.C. is saying is he assumes that in this chapter. And there are some scholars that believe that, so it's possible. The vast majority, however, of Old Testament scholars believe it is not Solomon's temple, but he has a vision of the temple of which Solomon's temple is merely the copy. That is, Isaiah is being caught up into heaven, and he has a vision of what God is doing in heaven. There are a number of reasons for that, but one of them is, In order for this to be the Lord enthroned, it would be him enthroned in the Holy of Holies, and we have no indication at all that Isaiah is the high priest. And if you recall, Uzziah, late in his life, got leprosy because he tried to go in and do the work of a priest. It's pretty unlikely that Isaiah would have just walked into the Holy of Holies under those circumstances. There are other reasons as well. I just wanted to make you aware that there are two views. And the majority of good Old Testament scholars tend to believe this is a vision of him seeing the Lord enthroned in heaven. By the way, that makes good sense, because the idea of the prophets is they're being called into God's counsel. They get a vision of what God is doing in heaven, and they come back and they announce it here on earth. Here is something, though, that is rather important to this discussion, which is Isaiah says, I saw the Lord high and lifted up. I wonder how many of you poked at that a bit or turned it around and asked the question, what does it mean to see the Lord? And R.C. actually talks about three different points. Here in Isaiah, he goes back to Moses saying, Lord, show me your glory. And he talks about the beatific vision where we will all see the Lord. But what does it mean for Isaiah to see the Lord? If you don't have an answer to that, could you throw out the challenging question that goes with that? Why is this something other than like, if I said I saw Ray, nobody would ask, what do you mean you saw Ray? Unless they thought he was in Germany or something, right? They would all understand what it means for me to see Ray, but it's kind of an odd thing in one sense to say, what does it mean to say I saw the Lord or what does it mean to see the Lord? Catechism says God is a spirit and has not a body like man. It's not just the catechism, it's the Bible. Catechism is, in fact, based on the Bible. So we're talking about seeing the invisible God. So what does it mean to see the invisible God? And what does it mean to see the invisible God in degrees? Can't you also think? I guess, seeing God would be potentially seeing Jesus pre-encountered sitting on the throne. Well, that would be a Christophany, and that certainly is possible of seeing a Christophany. But actually, the language here suggests more about seeing God. I do think they're related, of course, because ultimately, we come to apprehend God in the face of Jesus Christ and in his deeds. Let me just tweak this out why it's a bit of a problem for us and also something to think about as we do theology. It is a mistake to think that as we study theology, we answer all the questions. God, of course, is infinite. And there's a bit of mystery around this. Unless you had this experience, you're going to be stuck with going, OK, there's metaphors being used here, and there's degrees, and it's hard to figure out. But if we go back to Moses, which R.C. talks about, Moses says, Lord, remember, he's really the most remarkable man in the face of the earth at the time. He says, Lord, show me your glory. And the Lord says, no man can see my face and live. So he hides Moses, as it were, in the cleft of the rock. He puts his hand over him. Of course, it's an anthropomorphism to say that. And he shows him his hindquarters. Now, since God is invisible, what he's doing is he has what's called a theophany. He's giving an appearance of his glory in some way that registers to us in a physical way to reveal who he actually is. And there's a bunch of different ways that happens. It can happen with fire. It can happen with storms. It can happen with a type of the Shekinah glory. And Moses is not allowed to see his face. That doesn't mean that God has two eyes and a nose. What does it mean? No man can see my face and live, but I'm going to show you my hindquarters. Glory that's greater than his hindquarters. Yeah. So what God is doing is saying, I'm going to, I'm going to reveal my glory to you in part more than I have already. And of course, we remember how extraordinary this is. When God would appear to Moses, it actually changed Moses's face so that Moses's face would shine. And the people were so afraid of it that Moses had to wear a veil over his face. He'd take the veil off when he went back to the Temple of Meeting and see God. And he'd have to cover it because it scared the people. And that was Moses reflecting a partial glory of God. Right, so therefore, to see God face to face as it were, this is really what we get in first John, we will be like him for we will see him as he is, is we will see an unveiled glory of God, right? We will have a full experience of God himself. Why can we do that in first John three, but Moses, greatest man of God in the face of the earth in his day couldn't do it in the Exodus generation. It's not a trick question. I know I have to say that sometimes. No one can see God and live? Why couldn't Moses, why are we going to be able to see, according to 1 John 3, 2, God as he is, when Moses couldn't do it in the Exodus generation, the Lord himself said, no one can see my face and live. Why can we do it? according to 1 John 3. Sacrifice? Not quite, but that's a good answer. So there are things that change with the coming of Christ and the coming of the new covenant. But actually, 1 John 3 is talking about us after we die, after we've been glorified. So we're completely expunged from all our sins. The reason why human beings can't see God and live is because we're sinners. Right, that's really the issue. It has to do with our sin. It doesn't have to do with our finiteness that we're human beings. Now that question is kind of intriguing. What does it mean to see God as he is? Two possibilities. And I think I kind of like the answer Ray gives here, or is given if we pull it forward. But one of them is from Jonathan Edwards. And this is something we're looking forward to in one sense, and maybe they're both true. Jonathan Edwards, being of a philosophical bent, suggested that once we're glorified, we will have an immediate perception of God. That is, because God is everywhere and God will unveil himself to us, we will have an immediate sense of who God is and how he is with us. But I like the other approach that Ray pointed out, which will be, we're going to see God as he is because we're going to see Jesus Christ in his glory, the glory of God shining through Jesus. You can think of it as an intensified version of Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. When the glory shines through Jesus, it overwhelms Peter, James, and John. Peter doesn't know what to say. He talks like a babbling fool. We would, too. It's not just Peter. I think perhaps seeing that in its fullness. But we should also say, it's a mystery to us in part. What we're really getting is we're going to have a greater, fuller, deeper experience of God than we can bear right now as sinful people in this present world. Well, to some degree, like Moses, maybe like Peter and James and John on the Mount of Transfiguration, Isaiah sees this vision of the Lord high and lifted up. He sees him in glory. and it becomes undone. It wipes them out. Before we get to that, though, we have to say what the angels were saying, right? They're crying out to one another. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is filled with his glory, right? What's the significance of holy being repeated three times, the tris agion? It's of utter importance. It's of utter importance. Ray, how many attributes of God are repeated three times in the Bible? I think that's the only one. That is the only one. So if you hear R.C. doing this in a video or on audio, you know, he has that wonderful, charismatic ability to teach. He really hits that. You know, God doesn't say, the Bible does not say God is love, love, love, or God is mercy, mercy, mercy. It says God is holy, holy, holy. This is, in fact, one of the standard ways in classical Hebrew, that is biblical Hebrew, of creating emphasis. You see it in a lot of places in the Bible. Now, the emphasis can have a very specific nuance to it. But you'll see, for example, the Lord calling Abraham, and he'll say, Abraham, Abraham. And that's called the repetition of endearment. He has that very close relationship. This gets carried over in the New Testament. New Testament is written in Greek, but it's written in Greek by Jewish people. And so you have Jesus saying things like, verily, verily, or truly, truly. He's saying this is really important. So that repetition is a way of drawing attention to it. And it's particularly common in Hebrew. It's not common to repeat something three times. R.C. in the book points out that in Revelation, we get, whoa, whoa, whoa. And he says, well, you don't want to be around when that bird is singing, right? That's pretty bad. We've gotten woe to the max. The only attribute of God, though, that's repeated three times is holy, holy, holy. Does that mean this is the most important attribute of God? This is the big one. Kristen's shaking her head no. Kristen knows that was a trick question. Yeah, go ahead, Rachel. I'm on the wrong team, it sounds like, but I was going to say yes. Yes. Is the most important. I think if you read the chapter, it could come across that way, which is why I asked the question. God's attributes are not more important than each other. Right. They are they are not in tension with each other either. All his attributes are equally important because God is his attributes and they are all completely in harmony with each other. There's no tension in God. I think the reason why R.C. hits this so hard, besides the fact he's writing a book on the holiness of God, is how many times has he heard in his life and how many times have we heard in our lives you're talking to someone about sin or righteousness or something else and they go, well my God is a God of love and by that they mean he isn't holy, he doesn't have justice, he doesn't actually bring judgment into the world, he's just sort of a soft Santa Claus figure and R.C. wants to make clear that is not the God of the Bible. But here's the thing. There are a lot of ways of creating emphasis in the Bible, not just repetition. And this particular literary device that shows up here works really well when it's on someone's tongue. You get the bird crying out, whoa, whoa, whoa. You get the angels crying out, holy, holy, holy. But you'll find out there are other things that we get that emphasize God, for example, being love. the mere fact that we're told God is love is a way of emphasizing that point. But I would also draw your attention to Psalm, I think it's 136. I should have written this down. Let me just pull the Psalm 136. Here's a good one to get on repetition. Oh, I was correct. Psalm 136 begins, give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. I think there are 26 verses or stanzas in this Psalm, and all 26 of them say, for his steadfast love endures forever. That is, the psalm emphasizes the steadfast love of the Lord by repeating it 26 times. So you don't want to pit God's attributes against each other. And you don't want to say, because this is the only one that's stated in this particular literary device, that somehow his holiness is more important than his love, or his mercy, or his justice, or his omniscience. They all go together. They all are who God is. Does that make sense? where someone want to push back and go, I don't care what the psalm says. It's not what my Hebrew prof told me. If your Hebrew prof knew Hebrew, he would have told you the same thing. OK, so Isaiah says, woe is me when he encounters God's holiness and his glory, right, his majesty. Why? Why does he pronounce a woe on himself and say, I am undone? The contrast he sees is infinite between his sin and God's holiness. Yeah, Peter, I think that's really very, very important. In fact, one of the things RC points out in the video of this, I don't remember if he did it in the book, is our normal course of life, we walk through the world and we think primarily on the horizontal level. And so we all know we're not perfect, but you're not perfect, I'm not perfect and whatever, and it doesn't really create a crisis in us. In fact, we think it's just normal, it's fine. So what, I'm not perfect. but actually God demands perfect, personal, perpetual obedience. And when we come into contact with the God who is completely holy, it unmasks us, right? We're not pretty good on the curve compared to God, we are in serious trouble. But there's something else I'm wondering if anyone got at, what is it about God being holy that causes us to become undone? Because it's not just that God's the perfect standard, because that could apply to things other than his holiness. God never makes mistakes, because he's omniscient. But that's not why Isaiah comes undone. He comes undone specifically because God is holy. Ray, you're on mute. Maybe you meant to be, but I couldn't hear you. I saw your lips moving. I know you're still on mute. Jason, I said that our sin is instantly revealed and the depth of our sin is instantly revealed. Yeah, so it instantly reveals it and it's all its ugliness. I want to encourage you to go back to the definition I gave you last week about holiness, because I think it'll help you with this. Holiness is being devoted to God. Right, so positionally, you're devoted to God, the moment God unites you with to Jesus Christ by faith, you've been set apart. And then practically in terms of your sanctification, you're becoming more devoted to God in terms of your heart, your attitude, your mind, your thinking. But that means, of course, that God is devoted to himself. God is completely devoted to his own glory. And that actually has two ramifications here for Isaiah. Because when he comes into the presence of the perfectly holy God and realizes God is completely devoted to his own glory. He also realizes God isn't going to go no big deal. Right, I understand you know you you said not a big deal, because God is in fact devoted to his own glory. But the other part, as Ray was pointing out, is it also exposes the depth of our own lack of devotion. And you say, how could I possibly live like this in light of the fact that I am serving this God, the God that is so perfect? I sometimes put it with talking about Jesus Christ, who reveals his glory in a different way on the cross, but he very much does. People don't sin while contemplate Jesus dying for them on the cross. Those two things are at odds with each other. You have to distance yourself from thinking about the living God giving his life for you as a human being in order to forgive your sins and then say, oh, I know. Let me go run off and steal some money from my employer or something or yell at my wife or something like that. Those things don't fit together. And so I think those are two of the drivers. Other thoughts about that? He comes undone. He talks about that sense of disintegration, just being overwhelmed in that way. There's a wonderful song by Mercy Mead. In the chorus, it goes, you know, when I stand before God, basically, will I be able to stand or will I fall to my knees? And will I be able to speak at all? No, they're rhetorical questions, because there's no way we're going to be able to stand or speak in the presence of God. Well, actually, we will. That's an intriguing thing, eventually. So he's talking, the Mercy Me songs really talk about your first encounter, like when you're glorified and you're in the presence of God. And yeah, we should totally expect to be overwhelmed because God is so extraordinary. But actually, if you go back to Psalm 1, just as an example, it is the wicked who will not be able to stand in the assembly of the righteous. You, at that time, now being glorified, completely cleansed from sin, can stand in the presence of God. And actually, because you've been justified, right now you can stand in one sense before God to serve him, to honor him. We'll come to that a bit more in just a moment. So we do live in that tension right now between you have been completely justified, completely forgiven by God. You are clothed in the righteousness of God. And yet you're still a sinner. And that really does create a tension with us in terms of how we relate to God, because I'm still a sinner. It's kind of overwhelming just to contemplate the majesty of the God I serve in light of who I still am. But that's part of what helps us to understand the depth of God's grace. He did not die for pretty good people. Right, Jesus gave his life for a wretch like me. It really disturbs me, by the way, it's a very good sign of what's going on in the contemporary church, particularly in the West. But the fact that so many churches have actually rewritten in their hymnals amazing grace. So it's to something like saves a person like me because they don't want people to sing saved a wretch like me. But of course, that's why grace is so amazing, right? Because we have this extraordinary tension between the perfect holy God and me. Why does he focus on his lips? He comes on down and he says, I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of the people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Why do you think he focuses on his lips? And Martha and I are discussing James and Proverbs. James and Proverbs, that's a good choice, particularly since we just went through James. Glad you still remember that. Or you would have known it, of course, anyway, if we hadn't gone through it. Yeah, so there's a profound import of our words, both from James and Proverbs, but I'd also say Jesus. Jesus talks about the fact that what comes out of our mouth actually reveals our hearts. Right. And he also says something that's kind of a little bit jarring because I want to think, OK, this is true of the goats. It's not true of the sheep. But he actually says everybody is going to give an account for every idle word that comes from our mouths. Right. So there is this aspect of our words revealing ourselves. Why else might have he been thinking about his lips, though? Well, with being a prophet that was, I don't want to say his profession, but his main occupation of his time was speaking to people and saying what God wanted to tell the people. So maybe to an extent that was something where he realized he wasn't able to say the words that God would want him to say in the capacity God would want to say them. Yeah, Rachel, if we were physically together, I'd buy you an ice cream for that answer. That is a great answer. Maybe some other time. You have to pin me down. We'll get you ice cream. This is actually normally thought as the call of Isaiah to be a prophet. What does a prophet do? A priest speaks to God on behalf of the people. A prophet speaks God's words to the people. And he says, holy God, holy words, unholy Isaiah. How can God's words come out of my mouth? I am totally unfit to be a prophet. By the way, that is the normal response of prophets. You will see this pretty universally throughout prophetic calls when you get any inclination of it. Moses, after all, when he was called, protested how inadequate he was. He hid his face from the presence of God. He protested that he was inadequate for the call, that he was a man who couldn't speak well. And the Lord, actually, it's kind of funny in a way, because it almost seems like the Lord's frustrated with Moses. And he's like, well, your brother Aaron, we know he can speak. He's coming, so we're going to send you and Aaron together, and you'll be like God to him, and he'll do the speaking. Of course, we actually see when they get to Egypt, Moses does his fair share of speaking. But it's that sense of, I am inadequate for this. That is the normal response. of prophets. I would say, by the way, though the call was different for people to become ministers, it would concern me if young ministers were too self-confident about going into pastoral ministry and standing up and telling people what God's word means. Right? It is a fearful thing. And going back to Peter talking about James, let not many become teachers. Right? I think that's a real concern. So I think both Peter's answer and Rachel's answer go together. Our words reveal our hearts. But Isaiah is also a prophet. And he realizes how unfit he is for this calling. By the way, the reason why I wouldn't want to make it just that, He also says, I live in the midst of the people of unclean lips. Those are people who are not being called to be prophets, but their words are revealing their hearts and they don't fit with being a holy God. What does the Lord do about Isaiah's unclean lips? You could say it's kind of like an atonement in the sense where he burns his lips with the hot coals to take away the guilt. So there is a declaration in the passage of his sins being forgiven. Right. Verse seven, and he touched my mouth and said, behold, this is touch your lips, your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for. But I think it also has to do with the purification aspect of it. I mean, after all, Isaiah presumably was already a believer, by all accounts, he seems to be one of the most holy men of his day. In one sense, he's already justified. But God is practically coming to him at this moment of crisis with his sins. And he's saying, your sins have been put away. So you can go serve me because I am forgiving you. What does the Lord not say? Well, that's a very loaded, open-ended question. There's a lot of things he doesn't say. But in particular, we think about how our culture, including many churches, tend to approach these sorts of issues and the gap between the holy God and sinful man. What are some other responses people might have expected God to say or to do? I mean, this is pretty dramatic. A hot coal held in tongues by a seraphim. Seraphim, by the way, that's from seraph, which means burning ones, right? Putting it to your lips. It's a pretty dramatic act of saying, I'm going to cleanse you. What else might God have said according to, let's just say, a fair number of 20th and 21st century American Protestants? I'll use you as you are. Yeah, just as you are. You know, I love you just the way you are. Actually, as a number of people have pointed out, the right response is God doesn't love us as we are. He loves us in spite of the way we are. Yeah. So I love you just the way you are. Use you just that way. We're not that big a deal. Or, hey, Isaiah, no one's perfect, but I see you're making a good effort. Right. There are a lot of things like that. We should realize is God takes this in very seriously. He doesn't say Isaiah is overdoing it. Hey Isaiah I know it's kind of shocking to see my glory but like don't freak out. It's all going to be okay. He acts decisively. in something that, if it physically happened to him, would have been immensely painful. I'm suggesting this is a vision, but the vision was very real to Isaiah, very deeply moving. He put a burning coal from the altar on his lips. should also realize it's not just any burning coal. It's a burning coal from the altar, the place where the sacrifices were offered. So in a sense, you can almost think of Isaiah's lips as being sort of a mercy seat in the Holy of Holies here, where you offer the sacrifice, and then you come in and you cleanse that so that he'll be fit for use. Other thoughts on that? Oh, could you also say that the coal was consecrated? Coal was consecrated. Coals on the altar is holy. Everything in the temple is holy, but the coal is holy. It's not just hot. Yeah. And the idea, of course, is, is that that scorching heat is burning away the unsuitableness of Isaiah's lips for the purposes which the Lord wants to use him as a prophet. Any other thoughts? Well, then we come to verse eight and we hear this. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? Then I said, here I am. Although, you know, R.C. says, here am I. He makes a big deal out of that. Here am I. Send me. Forgiveness leads to service. I think that's true for most of us. As we concentrate, think about, and celebrate the work of God in forgiving us, that motivates us to serve other people, not to become prophets. That seems very, very unlikely for any of us. But it does motivate us to service. Forgiveness comes first. And if you have not experienced that forgiveness from God, you're not really going to serve him. You might go through the motions, but you can't really do it. Just as an aside here. I know this is a disputed point, but I think this is right. Until you have assurance of your salvation, assurance of your forgiveness, it is very hard to serve God in spirit and in truth. Because your service is always going to be mixed with, I hope this service is enough so that God's going to forgive me in the end. So that Calvinistic doctrine Pauline doctrine, right, Johannine doctrine, of the fact that God, when he saves you, puts away all your sins and causes you to persevere to the end, is actually a really important motivator for Christian service. Thoughts on the here am I versus here I am that R.C. talks about, both in his video and in the book. I didn't really think it made that big a difference grammatically. I mean, I get what he's going for as far as the intention, but I just didn't really think it was that defined. Rachel, once again, you're on the right track here. It's context, not the words. One of the things to remember is just the obvious. Isaiah does not say, here I am. He says, hineni. which does not include the word here in it. It basically is the interjection behold, and it's the preposition, we would say me on the end, right? Behold me. And the intent, which RC gets totally right, Right, it's saying here I am at your service use me right it's not he's not giving Lord I happen to be here, you did all the smoke in the temple keep you from seeing me right that's not the point. So RC RC is correct in what he's saying, but it's not driven by the words of the translation and even though the ESP translates it differently there's no way you would miss that that intent. And by the way, we see this in a number of really important places in the Bible. I'm thinking of Abraham in Genesis 22. We get the very same thing. When the Lord appears to Abraham and he's going to test him, and Abraham doesn't know it's a test, and he's going to send him to offer up his son Isaac on Mount Moriah, Abraham's response is, Hineni, here am I at your service, Lord. And that is where Isaiah is going. But it's not really the word or order that's driving that. It's just the context. And Isaiah is saying, though, now that I've seen who you are, how could I not do anything you want me to do? Any examples of that from the New Testament? With Paul, when Paul is struck down on the road to Damascus Jesus appears to him and he says, here I am, Lord. And then I was going to say, David, that there's a big contrast with Moses, because in Moses' situation, God called Moses to do, you know, to send him back to Egypt. And Moses says, no, send somebody else. Right? Well, but Moses is protesting his unworthiness to go. Moses isn't saying, I'm unwilling to serve. He's protesting that he's unfit to serve. And in one sense, that actually goes with Isaiah, who says, woe is me, I am undone. I am also unfit to serve. But yeah, there is a little bit of difference there. Moses, of course, does go. And Moses does some really, really hard things for a long period of time. Ray, I really like your connection with Paul in Acts. There are other examples too. But the reason why I like that so much is the Lord does this very dramatic thing on the Damascus Road, knocks Paul to the ground, temporarily blinds him, right? And he tells him how much he must suffer for my sake. The greatness of the revelation matches up with how difficult the call is going to be. That's true of Isaiah, right? God gives this extraordinary revelation of himself to Isaiah and overwhelms him. But when we see the call he has, he continues. This is verse nine. And the Lord said, Go and say to this people, keep on hearing but do not understand. Keep on seeing but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy and blind their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn and be healed. Then I said, How long, O Lord? And he said, Until cities lie waste, without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is desolate, and the Lord removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled. The holy seed is its stump. You understand what he's saying? Oh, Isaiah, now that you've agreed to go, because the Lord didn't post a job description, he just said, I need someone who will go for me. He doesn't tell what's going to happen until Isaiah goes, me, I volunteer. I will follow you. Now, that's true of us too. We bow beneath Christ. We do not know what he's going to do with our lives. We're saying, Lord, wherever you send me, I will go. Whatever you call me to do, I will joyfully do. And then we wrestle with that because it's hard. Well, Isaiah's call was really, really hard. He was a prophet for a long period of time, and God told him at the beginning, you know what? These people aren't going to believe you. They are not going to turn from their sins. I'm going to wipe out the people. I'm going to level the land, and I'm going to send them into captivity. Now, the year Uzziah dies, we know when it is. It's 740 BC. In 722 BC, the Lord's going to destroy the North with the Assyrians. And in 586, he's going to send the South into the Babylonian exile. So how in the world could Isaiah be comforted that his ministry in his own lifetime was going to be met with so much hostility? What do you think? And aren't you glad you're not called to be Isaiah? That's the other side of it, yeah. But how did Isaiah get comfort out of this? He kept going on. He's actually called a major prophet because he writes a book of 66 chapters. And he prophesied orally a great deal. I don't know, because these are some of the saddest verses in scripture. And it also reminds me of the Pharisees, because they were in that same situation. Here they are, witnessing the Messiah, the living Messiah. seeing his miracles done. And their eyes were blind and their ears were blocked and their hearts were dull. So why would he though? So Ray says, I don't know because it's really hard. Someone else have a shot at what could have sustained Isaiah to this sort of ministry. Because it's actually relevant to us even though we don't have this same experience. He's seen some sense of the glory of God. Yeah. And he's had this conversation with God. Yeah. So it's the glory of God. He knows who he's serving. You know, the apostle Paul in second Corinthians talks about a man is he put it himself, but it's pretty clear. He's talking about himself who was caught up in the heaven and saw things that it's not even lawful for a human being to utter, but I can't share this with you. God gave him this extraordinary vision. Precisely so, he would endure hardship and beatings and suffering, and so on is a good servant of Jesus Christ, and be faithful. So I think that's actually really important the vision of God drives it true for us to work have a literal vision of God, which I think it's very unlikely any of you will. But we do have a sense of God's awesomeness, as we study his attributes and as we read his word. And if we don't aren't anchored in who God is, we will not be able to serve like this in the hard times, we will not be able to be faithful through hard times. But the second thing is, you know who God is, and one of the things God is, is faithful. And the Lord says, no one who does anything by faith in my name will ever do that in vain. I am gonna bring fruit out of it. And of course, in Isaiah's case, that fruit happens to be after he's dead. But you know, billions maybe, but certainly a billion people have been blessed by the ministry of Isaiah. And as it has this wonderful privilege of saying these great prophecies about the coming of Jesus Christ right so there is that long term confidence, I might not see it, and I think on a human basis, how often that's true in our own lives, I may not see the fruit, but I know that God's going to reap it. There's a wonderful story that D.A. Carson, one of the really great evangelical New Testament scholars in our day, has told about his father. His father was a minister in Quebec when Protestants would get thrown into jail for being Protestant ministers. And he was really, really brutally pro-Catholic. And there was, in all of Quebec at the time, only a couple hundred, I think he said 300 evangelicals in the entire city. And it was just brutal. And he says, as a young kid, I was so insensitive. I once asked my dad, who was a minister there with a congregation of some 20 people or whatever, why don't you just pack it up and go somewhere else? You're wasting your life here. You're not making any difference at all. Which, you know, later in life, I'm sure that caused him a great deal of regret. He had said that to his father. But D.A. Carson's father was simply saying, I believe God's called me to be here, and I'm going to be faithful, and I'm going to leave the results of it to God. And that's what we're called to do, too. We don't see all the results when our parenting efforts are reaching out to people that are needy and suffering and struggling, faithfulness at work, sharing the gospel. We only get to see a little bit of that. But we ought to have the confidence like Isaiah, I believe, had. because we know our God, that God will be faithful, he will glorify himself, and he will bless you. He will cause your life to be fruitful eternally for the sake of the kingdom of God. Well, I'd like to stop here. We'll take a few more questions, but I'm going to cut off the video here.