So I'm delighted here to be in the south of Ireland. I'm not sure how we use the term in any way. I have no politics whatsoever. So I hope that I don't offend you, south, whatever we call it, the south of Ireland, wherever it is from. And the numbers don't bother me. My first congregation I went to and after a number of months the people said to me, are you going to continue to preach this evangelical gospel? I said that I was by the grace of God and they said well we'll have to see what happens. I went back the next day and there was nobody, absolutely nobody. So I know of what it's like to have a few, there's a lot more here than there were on that day and I thank you for coming to worship Almighty God this morning. So it is to Isaiah chapter 6 that I want to look at this morning. in particular the first four verses, but we'll look at the application part of it after verse four. In God in the Wasteland, David F. Wells argues that the Church is enfeebled, in part, because it has lost its sense of God's sovereignty and holiness. David Wells goes on to say, and I quote, the fundamental problem in the evangelical world today is that God rests too inconsequential upon the church. Listen to this part. His truth is too distant. His grace is too ordinary. His judgment is too benign. His gospel is too easy. and his Christ is too common." God has become weightless to the extent that the church no longer allows him to shape its character, its outlook and its practice. They have largely abandoned their traditional emphasis on divine transcendence in favour of an emphasis on divine eminence. Now, what I'm saying about this is that people are looking today about God in the area here, down below. Now there has to be an equilibrium, there has to be a balance. There has to be a God up there, and there is a God who deals with people as well. Now both these things are important. But it seems that all of our preaching today, or most of our preaching, is that God is a way down there. And we're almost speaking of God as our best buddy, or our mate. or Bethlehem, God is far, far higher than that. And we have largely lost the sense of the holiness of God in the pulpit as well as in the pew. Modernity has invaded the church today and so we have produced a little God who we control and manipulate. I believe the greatest need of our day is to preach the glory and the majesty and the holiness of God. That is our greatest prerequisite need today. We need to call loudly for a new examination and a new presentation of God's omnipotency and of God's sufficiency and of God's sovereignty. And my friends, I am urging you We see the greatest need for this today in our churches from every pulpit in this land. It needs to be thundered forth again that God still lives, that God still observes, that God still reigns. It is a fact that the word holy applies to God more frequently in scripture than any other word. Yet God's holiness is one of the most difficult concepts of all for us to understand. Part of the reason is that we are uncertain about the derivation of the Biblical word of holy. It is also because holiness relates to God's very being. His intrinsic nature. His Tadoshness, the Hebrew word. He is separate from us. He is holy. That holiness belongs to the very essence of God's character. But of course the thing that makes it most difficult for us to conceptualize the holiness of God is that holiness relates to His distinctiveness. It is what God makes different. He is different from us all. He is incomprehensible for us. It is what makes God different from all of us here. And it is because we are so remote from Him in His holiness and that we find it difficult to conceptualise this attribute. Nowhere is the meaning of holiness to God more comprehensively than in the teaching and preaching of this prophet here, Isaiah. And nowhere is Isaiah's prophecy more helpful in this regard than in this great sixth chapter here. Here immediately, at the beginning of his ministry, Isaiah encounters God as the one who is essentially, his nature is holy. And here there are two, I think, aspects that this passage sets before us. Firstly, I want to look at a revelation of God's holiness. And secondly, a reaction to God's holiness. Firstly then, a revelation of God's holiness. The sixth chapter of Isaiah opens up with a precise reference to a date. Isaiah wants to locate this vision in time. We see it in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon the throne. He is describing the exact period in which this occurred. So this must be of significant import. Uzziah's reign had been beneficial to Judah. There had rarely been a king who sought the well-being of his people as Uzziah did. He was probably the greatest king since the days of Solomon. There is more to this than just a passing interest in dates. It is important. It is a significant year. It was a year that stood out as a turning point, a juxtaposition in the history of nations. In the Northern Kingdom, Jeroboam had also died. And further north, And an empire was spreading whose ferocity was to destroy Israel and terrorise Judah at the point of near collapse. And you see in the middle of this In 2nd Chronicles, if we had more time to look at it, but chapter 26 in particular, we find that near the end of his reign, Uzziah, he demeans the glory of God. And he ignored God's word. What an end! He had come to the throne at the age of 16. Very young. He reigned for some 52 years. He had followed the Lord wholeheartedly. He loved the Lord. He had followed the Lord as he ought to have. He had diligently sought God in the days of Zechariah. He reigned in an age of great and strategic expansion. Administratively, Uzziah was a genius. Militarily, he was brilliant. His fame spread extensively and universally. He had closed up many of the breaches in little nations defences. He had flooded the gaps. God had mightily used this King. He had been a blessing to so many others. Until, towards the end of his life, Uzziah committed an act of sacrilege by offering incense on the altar of incense in the temple. Uzziah's very name means, the Lord is my strength, but now he disobeyed the Lord. He took God lightly, he took God superficially, and the glory of God broke in upon him, and he ended his days as a leper. Uzziah had been called the king, as George Adam Smith says, with that glorious reign, with the ghastly end. So he became a very great warning to others. One of the greatest examples of leadership is under the chastening hand of God. And he ended his days as a leper, separate from his people, cut off from the temple rather than being separate from it. He has set before you and I as a warning so that we will not Make shipwreck like Uzziah did. You see the scepter was about to depart from Judah. Vastly. Perhaps you are vastly in your heart. Your heart for God is lukewarm. Or maybe even as cold as ice. Can you remember your first love for Christ? And what He meant for you. And you loved God's work. And you loved the place of prayer. You loved to talk about Christ. Perhaps now it is different. You used to walk with God. You constantly used spiritual conversation. You hated sin. You detested sin. But perhaps now it's very different. You know, it is the easiest thing in the world to grow cold spiritually and become indifferent. And our friends aren't even aware of it sometimes. But you know it, and God knows it. Robert Robinson was an old poet from a different century. He was travelling in America, outside New York. He was in a carriage And a young girl of about 16 was in that carriage and she began to hum a tune. And he heard that tune so quickly. And he listened. He listened to that humming. And it haunted him. Because he knew that that tune usually complemented a poem that he had written many years ago. And Robert Robinson knew that he had got into a back splitting condition. And he stopped and he asked the young girl, he said, do you know the tune that comes with that poem? And she said no. And he started to tell her about that poem. And it goes on like this. This is the conclusion of it. Oh to grace, how great a debtor. Daily I'm constrained to be. Let that grace now, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee. Listen to this. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Take my heart, O taker, seal it. Seal it from thy courts above. And he was tearful. And he broke down and he said to the girl, I would give a thousand words to get that position back again. What a terrible state. A backslidden condition. And that's the way Josiah was, in a backslidden condition. Isn't it significant that in the year of the death of this man Uzziah, Isaiah said he saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up. This was a year when those who had put their trust in princes were finding their confidence shattered, absolutely shattered. And by the very timing of the event, therefore, Isaiah highlights the enormous distance between the greatest earthly monarch and the Holy One of Israel. What a difference! We are uncertain whether Isaiah here is describing the earthly or the heavenly temple in this vision. But the important thing is that he is seen beyond the earthly temple to the heavenly one. Nothing that the glory of the Lord is his willingness and he is dominating it. That's what he's doing. What dominates the temple, as Isaiah's vision begins, is the glory and the presence of the Lord. I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Now the word that is used here for Lord literally means this is the Sovereign One. This is the Sovereign One. This Sovereign One is seated, where is He seated? He's seated on a throne. And Isaiah described that throne as high and lifted up. As a matter of fact, by an unusual combination in the Hebrew language, the words high and lifted up may mean either Sovereign Lord or throne, or indeed both of them. In Isaiah later on in chapter 57 verse 15, God is portrayed as the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy, who lives in the highest and holy places. But the picture is of an exalted figure, an exalted one, the glorious king of the ages, whose intrinsic holiness is manifested by the glory filling the temple here. And it is of course God's holiness which exalts Him above all that He has made, above all that the universe, above all that He has created. His holiness is far above all of these things. He is transcendent. He is lifted up. He is completely separate from sinners. He is the Exalted One, the High One. And you see God is not to be trifled with. God is not to be seen as someone like ourselves. We live in an age when much time about God is cheap and irreverent. Worship is often cheapened by concentrating on what we felt to be human needs. Entertainment takes the place of worship so frequently. I wonder if you remember about Nadal and the Bayeux. The two sons of Aaron in Leviticus chapter 10. How God struck them dead. Do you remember Ananias and Sethara in Acts chapter 5? God struck them dead. We are to take God seriously. The God that Isaiah encountered in the temple that day was truly awesome. That word awesome is overdone now isn't it? Especially in America. Everyone speaks of everything being awesome. But this truly, if this can only be used once in the universe, it is true of God. God is the one who is altogether awesome. Messiah went on from backsliding to lifting up his hand against the Lord. He had no respect. for the holiness of God. He dared to treat God as his equal. And as Isaiah looks on, the king dies in ignominy, a leper, isolated from his people. And Assyria in its resurgent impact is closing in upon this tiny little nation and there is a pervading sense of impending doom. There is a chill of terror here, a dread in the whole situation. Do you notice that when Isaiah begins to describe what he says, his description of God goes no further. than the frame of his robe. I wonder if you remember reading about it, I think it's Exodus chapter 24. And Moses and Aaron, and they speak about the glory of God. And Moses has this opportunity to see God. And if you were there, you know, you've been saying, you know, Moses is about to come back down to the mountain. You want to say to him, well, what does God look like? How does God look like? Moses isn't able to speak. And it's the same here with Isaiah. Isaiah talks of the train of his robe. He's unable to talk about the character of God. It's far, far too holy for a simple man to talk. And there is such a difference here. An absolute difference. And that is a significant thing. Because here Isaiah is discovering again that human language is an insufficient vehicle to describe God's holiness. Now it is true that God uses, He utilises accommodation language when we speak of theology. that God uses language, not that they are absolutely perfect because these words are insufficient of themselves, but God allows and he permits and he uses language as a vehicle to reveal himself to man. But it gets nowhere near, nowhere near the greatness of God. Isn't that something of the anticipation that you as a Christian will one day see Jesus Christ face to face, and you will know that the words will have been insufficient. It will not be glorious enough to see Him as He is, to worship Him, to bow down and cast your crown at His feet and cry unto Him. Won't it be a tremendous day? What a glorious day! So all Isaiah is able to say here, all his train filled the temple. It was, of course, the presence and glory of God which filled the temple. But Isaiah sees no further than the road. Notice in verses 2 and 3, how God is described by the seraphic-esque creatures here. Above it stood the seraphim. Each one had six wings. With twain he covered his he covered his feet, and with three 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." You see, that key word here, holy, means separate. It means set apart. It means distinctive. This Hebrew word, kadosh, which doesn't really have the equivalent English language, English word. But He is separate from you and me. God is different from His creation. God is different from His creatures. His distinctiveness, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. And you see, in Biblical terms, The holiness of God is a distinctiveness that belongs to His moral glory. Notice here that the seraphim use this word holy three times in succession. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. This is not repetition for the sake of it, of rhythm or meter. The Hebrew language has no word for verily. Indeed, it has no forms corresponding to our English superlatives like greatest or best or deepest and so on. So instead Hebrew repeats the word. So we find the Lord saying in the Aramaic language in the New Testament which is related to Hebrew. Verily, verily I say unto you, It is a way of emphasizing, of reinforcing that what he is saying is particularly true and significant. The repetition is a linguistic device to stress here. And this is the only context in scripture where a word is repeated three times. Indeed it occurs only twice here in Isaiah chapter 6 and then later in Revelation chapter 4 verse 8 where the heavenly beings cry aloud to God in precisely this language, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come. This emphasis you see teaches us one important thing, the holiness of God. And we need to grasp this. We need to try and comprehend this as best we can. The holiness of God is so vital and so crucial and so requisite. His distinctiveness from everything in His creation. And the Seraphim raise the word holy to the power of three, as it were, in order to impress its significance upon us here this morning. Then secondly, it is the reaction to God's holiness. The reaction to God's holiness. The response to God's holiness found in Isaiah 6 is observed in the three aspects of God's creation. Firstly, the all fallen creation, the seraphim. The Seraphim demonstrate their appropriate response as part of God's creation to God's holiness. Notice how their wings here, how they're employed, how they're utilised, how they're used. One pair of wings cover their faces. Even the unfallen, because these angels have not been fallen. They have not fallen on Genesis 3. These are the unfallen creation. And even they, even the unfallen, they cannot gaze on the holiness of God. Uncovered. The sight would in some sense be more than even the unfallen creation could bear. So they cover their faces. for their own sake. Because they cannot, they cannot bear the burning glory which is in the holiness of God. Could you look to the brightest sun? It would damage your eyes if you tried to do that for too long. But that is nothing in compared with the brightness of the glory of God. Nothing in comparison. Another pair of wings covered their feet. That grace Professor of Westminster many years ago. Westminster is not the place that it used to be, sadly, but Professor E.J. Young, he thinks that this is a gesture of humility and self-abasing modesty, and I think that he is right here. They are recognising that in the presence of the holiness of God, they require some moral covering. And here you see the third pair of wings is utilised in enabling them to be swift to the glad service of such a glorious God as this. Little wonder the Bible speaks of the splendour of God's holiness. That's why we sang Psalm 29 just a few moments ago. The majesty of God's glorious holiness. Exodus chapter 15. The incomparability of God's holiness in Isaiah chapter 40 later on. One of my greatest chapters, one of my favorite chapters in the Bible is Isaiah chapter 40. You ought to know Isaiah chapter 40, one of the great chapters. Here He is not just holy. He is holy, holy, holy. This is a God that we serve. Each word boosts the force of the previous one exponentially. And notice you see here also that these seraphim cry one to another. There is an important element here because it shows us that their reaction to an experience of God's holiness is not non-rational. It is rational. It is logical. Their minds are engaged in the occupation of communicating with one another about the holiness and the glory of God. They are actually speaking to one another and they are mutually encouraging one another to glory in God, knowledgably and rationally and verbally. And here you see, there is a lesson for us. That is, no rational being can employ his mind more comprehensively than speaking about the glory of God and about His holiness. In this exercise our mental processes will always be employed to the fullest possible extent. Isn't it so important to know that our best fellowship is when we are talking about the glory of God. Having the biscuits and the tea together It is important. It is important to have fellowship together with a cup of tea. It is important. But it is nothing compared with when we can speak together, person to person, about spiritual things, about our great God, about our Savior. And one thing that annoys me so much is that when we leave church on a Sabbath morning or a Sabbath evening or we're speaking about the football or the GAA or the hockey or the golf or the bogey or whatever it seems to be. And they'll do anything else except talking about God. Now that concerns me. That concerns me. We've got to speak about our Saviour. If we're not doing that, there's something wrong. The psalmist says, And he does this, he says in Psalm 34, O magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. And that is what these angelic beings were doing. Look now at the non-rational creation. In verse 4, you see the entire temple, the building was affected by the presence of the Holy One. by the sound of the voices that were magnifying God's holiness. The door-pulls and the thresholds, they were shaking. They shook like an earthquake. The reason for that was, of course, that the very foundations of the temple were being moved. They were animated. They were physically moving. The earth beneath Isaiah's feet was trembling. Do you see what is happening here? If the created beings, if the created beings God has made to worship Him will not tremble, then the non-rational creation will tremble. The whole earth shakes and itself speaks of the terribleness of God's holiness. Then think about the fallen creation, verse 5. The unfallen beings, as we saw, cover their faces and their feet, and they fly to do God's will. The non-rational creation trembles and shakes in the presence of God. But notice, the fallen creation, they are represented by Isaiah personally, and he cries out in what? Does he cry out, oh it's a lovely day? No, he doesn't. He says he cries out in despair, and in distress, and in helplessness, and in hopelessness. He says, woe is me, for I am undone. I am ruined. Verse 5a. I am ruined. You see, if we look at the previous chapter, You will find that Isaiah has been reviewing the sins of his people. He had been sent to pronounce judgment on the people. For example, in verse 18 of chapter 4, he cried out, Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cord of rope. Or verse 21, Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes. Or verse 22, Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink. In this chapter, you see, Isaiah is pronouncing words upon all sorts of sin in society. But notice, you see, that when he is faced with the Holy One Himself, all that Isaiah can say, Woe is me, not the people. Woe is me. I am learned. I am finished. I am without hope. The man is in deep distress, you see, of soul. His profession of fear has been orthodox, but empty, empty, with little heart-to-heart awareness of the grandeur of God. You see, aren't there so many people in our nation today? People who go to church, people who carry the Bible, people who say prayers, people who say mass, or people who are even baptized or even take communion. They'll do all these things. They read their Bible, they read of the Ten Commandments, read of the Lord's Prayer. But none of these things, but none of them, will ever, ever take anyone to heaven. It's absolutely crucial that a man or a woman or a boy or a girl has to be born again by the Spirit of God. There is no way of ever getting into heaven unless we enter through that way. No way outside of that. So often there is this religion that is empty. Empty inside. But here Isaiah is absolutely struck dead by this. The seraphim. The seraphim they serve and Isaiah's lips are unclean. And there is one overwhelming reason for the state of distress and conviction. And that is the defilement of his own sin. Which he is aware of when he is brought into the presence of the burning holiness of God. The seriousness of sin. My friends, the seriousness of sin. Now we have lost that today. I'm not speaking to you individually, I'm saying that we as a Christian people have lost the sense of sin. The terribleness of sin. Can I recommend to you the book by Ralph Bening, The Sinfulness of Sin, the Puritan paperback, that helps so much. And that is the sort of preaching that needs to be done in the church today. We have lost the seriousness of our sin. It's almost as if, you know, well let's not bother too much about our sin. It's only a white lie. It's only a sort of small thing. Don't worry too much about sin. But the Bible speaks of terrible sin. Dreadful sin. And God abhors sin. He is sin. And Isaiah sees it here. He didn't see it before. He was preaching all the others. But there wasn't a problem. But now he sees the glory of God. And he sees the dreadfulness of his sin. I wonder, do you know that amazing story of Victor Hugo's book, The Hunchback of Notre Dame? Quasimodo takes a beautiful young woman up into the tower of Notre Dame and there he looks at her face and he is downcast, he is depressed, he is deeply saddened and Esmeralda looks at him and she says to him, what is wrong? What is wrong? And he looks at her again and he replies, I never realised how ugly I was until I saw how beautiful you are. It's like that with God. It is seeing him in his utter holiness and it produces conviction of sin, my sin, what I did yesterday and the day before and it makes me conscious and keep my own sin. Isaiah says, I am a man of uncleanness and I dwell in the midst of a people of uncleanness. You see, Isaiah was completely struck by the incomprehensibility of God. Immortal, invisible, God only wide, in light inaccessible, hid from our eyes, most blessed, most glorious, the ancient of days, almighty victorious, thy great name we praise. All prayers we would render, O help us to see, tis only the splendor of light hideth thee. I want to finish in the application. This man, Isaiah, was cleansed and changed. He was metamorphosed, radically changed. Isaiah's experience of God's holiness had another and more wonderful dimension to it here. He had found that God displays His holiness in order that men and angels may stand in awe of Him as the Holy One. But God now turns his attention to his fallen creature. I just want to, as we go to a conclusion, I want to think, and I have just remembered, about a convention that happened many years ago. I wasn't there, but it was related through me. Many years ago in Portrush, there was a man from Reverend James Phillip from Edinburgh preaching. He was preaching on sin, and that that in comparison to the bright awfulness of God. And he looked at the people and he said, you know, looking at the Hebrew here of this sermon, he said, I don't see many of you people trembling at the presence of God. I see very, very few. And then he stopped and he said, he looked behind him and he, because there was a whole lot of clergymen there behind him. And he says, my friends, I don't see any of my colleagues trembling in the presence of God. Now that is what we need. That's what we need. That is what revival produces. That's what reformation produces. The awfulness of God. That is what is utterly required. I am without hope, he says. Utterly without hope. You see, a sheriff peels off from his flight path around the throne. He's almost diving straight for Isaiah. He is holding a burning coal that he took from the altar with torches. But not because it's hot. After all, a sheriff himself is a burning one. He took this crow with tongs because it is a holy thing. It belongs to the place of sacrifice and atonement and forgiveness. But this holy thing touches Isaiah's dirty mouth. And it does not hurt him. It heals him instead. It heals him. What we must see in the context of the entire Bible is that this burning coal symbolises the finished work of Christ on the cross. Christ went to the place of sacrifice. His dying love is the only power that can awaken people from the dead. And that's what we need. Not only does he provide it and apply it, he also interprets it. I wonder, do you notice the significance of that in verse 7? When the seraph touches his lips with the live coal from the altar, your guilt has been taken away, and your sin has been atoned for. Now he has clarified that to Isaiah in verbal form, as it needs to be clarified in verbal form to us, and that we receive the benefits of his atoning mercy. Now of course we know that the moment was a near foreshadowing of the day when God displayed His holiness more clearly than at any other time in the universe, namely at the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. where the one Isaiah saw, the suffering servant of Jehovah, became the sacrifice and the offering for our sins, and bore in his own body our transgressions." It is significant to note here, I think, that at that time the sun was hidden and darkness covered the earth. and Jehovah's servant knew the full force of a holy God burning with anger against him in his own soul. There again, also, heaven and earth trembled at the great woe of the Son of God as he cried out in desolation, in desperate, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? My God, my God! Why hast thou forsaken me? Is sin serious? Is sin serious? Matthew 27 tells us that the earth shook and the rocks were split and from the altar Calvary God brings to us the fruits of redeeming grace and he says this has touched you. Why has it touched you? Is it because of what you have done? No! Is it because you've taken communion? No! Is it because you are saved? It is because of what Christ has done at Calvary. Through that, for that reason and no other reason that you trust and you believe in Him. Your guilt is purged. Your sin is atoned for. And that is the door that opens to bring Isaiah into the place of servitude. I will finish very shortly, but I just want to leave three points, three sentences, three paragraphs in application. This speaks of the vision of God's glorious holiness. At this point, Isaiah's commission from God is heard. And for the first time here, God speaks. And the Lord said in verse 8, Whom, whom shall I send? And who will go for us? and the voice that Isaiah heard possibly in the light of verse Kings 22. It may have been a voice that was addressed first of all to the seraphs. That is at least a real possibility. And it's a very significant thing that here Isaiah hears the voice of the Lord. Whom shall I send? And who will go first? And he listens to that voice and he, listen to this, he interrupts He interrupts the conversation with God and the angels. He interrupts what may well have been a dialogue between God and the seraphim. He says, here, here am I, send me. It is of course the work of atonement that provides both the qualification and the motivation of service. The qualification because there is no possibility of proclaiming God's salvation until we have received it. You cannot serve God until you are saved. There is no possibility of declaring the glory of God. Until he has been cleansed, until we have been cleansed of the sin that would have silenced our lips. Remember Joshua chapter 24 says the people when he speaks of the need of the service of God and they respond, we will serve the Lord, we will serve the Lord. But the problem was that they had a light and superficial view of God and of his service. And Joshua replies, you cannot serve God. You can't serve the Lord. You can't take that call, for He is a holy God. And the qualification for serving Him is not first the call, but first the cleansing. First the cleansing. You cannot serve the church until you are saved. You cannot serve God unless you are saved. You cannot serve God unless you are walking with God. Listen, when you embrace Christ, You will, sir. John Oswald, one of the great commentators on Isaiah, he says, no wonder he wants to hurl himself into God's service. He has the sense of glad abandon of an awe-struck wonder at what God has done for him. And the question here is, would either, would either, he says to God, would either could I possibly do this? Could you send me And you see the amazing mystery in the world for him will be this, that God says to him, you go, you go. Because here is the recipient of divine grace, that the Lord is gracious. who has been bathed in the atoning mercy of God and his soul is enlarged within him. He experiences what the apostle is speaking of when he tries to explain his ministry and says the love of Christ constrains us. It constrains us to no option. It leaves us no option. My dear friends, we need to catch something of that spirit. That wide-eyed wonder at the possibility of serving God. A sense of the continuous, unbelievable privilege it is to serve the High, Lofty, the Name that is Holy. Wasn't it Isaiah who caught this vision? It was the Apostle Paul, Martin Luther, John Calvin. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, you remember Robert Murray McShane, the Puritans, you remember the Reformers, you remember the Huguenots, the Waldensians, you remember the men and women of God that gave their lives for Christ. Something that drives you, drives you to do service for God. We're not here because it's an occupation. A man asked me the other day, he said, what is your occupation? I said, I don't have one. I have a calling. There is a complete difference. Now of course there are real difficulties in serving God. It's not easy. It's not a rosy bed. It was particularly so for the Covenanters in the killing times in 1660 to 1688. Difficult times. But there is no greater privilege in all of God's universe than to be a servant of such a God as this. You don't need to be a minister. You don't need to be a pastor. But you need to say to God, I will go, I will go. There is nothing in the world to compare with it. We really do need to get hold of this glorious sense of this privilege. Are we sufficiently overwhelmed with the glory of God, of serving this living God, that we are ambassadors for Him? I conclude with a word about the way of this glorious God. You'll notice the chief thing about Isaiah's ministry here. In verse 9 we read, go and tell the people, keep on hearing but do not understand. Verse 11, you see faithfulness comes before success. I just want to make a couple of points, my time has gone but I want to go to the very end just to make that there is hope in these things. There is real hope and I want to leave you with encouragement. You see, people think of the Church with the difficulties today. Think of how small our congregations are. Think of how it seems to be that so few are being saved, so few are being converted. Well, I want to remind you that Jesus Christ is building His Church and not even the gates of Hades shall prevail against it. It means that though thrones and dominions crash and crumble, It reminds us that even our Parliaments, and our Taoiseachs, and our Presidents, and our Kings, and our MPs, and whatever we want to call them, they're all crashing, they're going down, until the day when God displays His Church. And this is what God is about to say to do in this world. The Church of Jesus Christ will remain the Holy Seat here, it tells us at the end of this chapter. Let me just remind you as I finish. He was that great 6 foot 6 Scotsman who was the Director General of the BBC a few years ago. He tells us how he went into a little meeting on one occasion when there were an avant-garde of young men. He asked them what they were speaking of because they were speaking quite animately and they were saying and almost shouting something that they really were excited about. Lord Reith wanted to know what they were talking about, and they were very reticent to tell him what they were talking about. But eventually one man, he stood up and he said, well, Lord Reith, we've been talking about how we can give the church, the Christian church, a decent burial. Because it's finished. Do you remember in the 1890s that Nietzsche told us that God was dead? And now the church is dead and we can see the evidence of that so we're kind of dying to kill this. And Lordly, as a Christian, he stood up with his cruel six foot six and he said, and I quote from him, young man, the church of Jesus Christ will stand at the graveside of the BBC and it will at the end of every other human institution. The church of Jesus Christ. shall reign forever. This is what God is doing above all other things. Throughout all of history, God is building His church. Jesus Christ has given His word on it. You know, with regard to Christ's church, He would say, My, I never knew how glorious that was. What a privilege it is for you and I to serve the living God. Westminster Chapel, or Westminster, one of the buildings there, just become the name of it, Abbey, Westminster Abbey, was so beautiful and an American man as lady, man as wife, looked at Westminster Abbey and it looked so terrible because they looked at it and they said, what is all that, that draping cloths all round it, what is it? And she looked at the brochure and she said, my, my, my dear, that is Westminster Abbey. And he said, what, it's terrible looking, it's dreadful looking. And it says in the brochure that in two years time it will look great. But the church, the church will look even greater in Christ's time. And it will not be a few people. And you will not be saying, Mark will not be saying to me in that occasion with only a few people. No, it will be utterly glorious. Because God has chosen a number in Christ before the foundation of the world. And that number will completely be converted and saved. That is our hope. That is our sovereign hope. So do not despair my friend. Do not discourage. Christ is building His church. And nothing and no one will ever thwart His plan. It will be absolutely according to His plan. It won't even be deviated in any way. It won't even be put to a full stop at any stage. He is building His church. He is building a church here in Dundon. He is building it according to His will. And nothing can thwart that. This is a Sultan God. This is the eternal God. This is this holy God who has challenged you in your own heart. And you've been converted, I hope, by the grace of God. And now He's saying to you, will you go? Will you go? And are you saying, here am I, send me. I hope that you are. Let us pray. We'll stand to pray. Our gracious, eternal God, we come with awe. We come with fear, O Lord. Lord, we are not the people that we should be. Even when we are changed and converted by the grace of God, Lord, we would love to love you more. We want to hate sin more. We want to detest our sin. We want to serve You, O God, with a great sense filled with the Holy Spirit. We want to be like Charles Haddon Spurgeon. And we want to be like Martin Luther. And we want to be like George Whitfield. But, O Lord, more than any of these, we want to be like Jesus Christ. Lord, we pray that this day that You will help us to proclaim Your Word to our neighbours, to our friends, to our family. and to see the absolute sense of the greatness of this God, this utterly great God. And Lord we thank you that we know you by your grace, by your sovereign grace. We thank you that you're building your church here in Dublin. And you're blessing your people here. You're blessing your people throughout Ireland. You're blessing your people throughout the four corners of the earth. And nothing and no one and not even Satan can thwart that. Lord this is you. You are the sovereign God. No one can change you. You are the same yesterday, today and forever. Lord, we thank you for the revivals of the past. Lord, will you revive your people? Will you revive your church again? Will you reform your people again? So that your name will be glorified and uplifted again in this nation, O God. Lord, to that end we pray. We are so unworthy. We are so unable ourselves. But Lord, you are the same. Lord, do this again for your glory. and for your utter sake. Amen. 1 to 6 maybe, 1 to 6. Again I apologise for going over my time. Psalm 145, do you prefer that one or the one over the page Mark? The second version, yes on page 302. So it will be 1 to 6 then. O Lord thou art my God and King, thee will I magnify and praise. Thee will I find in quiet and praise. I will be where Thou art every day. Until Thy holy name awakes. I will be blessed, and praise thy name until the day. I will be praised, and praise God his. His praise and love can only end. The mighty and glorious mighty I will be of the glorious race And honor all thy majesty I wonder where I will be born. Why then the voice shall be let go? Oh, I'm dreadful, oh, I'm so worn. And I wonder I'm home