Well, turn with me, if you would, in your Bibles to Isaiah chapter six, our text for this morning. Isaiah chapter six can be found on page 571 of the Pew Bible. A very familiar passage, I'm sure, to many of us. Isaiah chapter six, I'll be reading verses one through 13, the whole chapter. Isaiah chapter six, starting in verse one. This is the word of the Lord. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up. In 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. 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, send me. And he said, go and say to this people, keep on hearing but do not understand. Keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the hearts 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 a desolate waste, 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. This ends the reading of God's holy and inspired word. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for your word to us, and specifically this morning for Isaiah 6. We praise you, Lord, as the God who is high and lifted up, you who are truly holy, holy, holy. We ask that the Holy Spirit would illumine us as we look at this passage. And we praise you because we can come to you through Christ. For it is in his name that we pray, amen. Well, this may come as something of a shock to people who live in West Michigan, but I did not grow up here. It seems like a little bit of a strange thing. But most of the people I've met here seem to have lived here almost all their lives, if not from birth. I grew up in a little town south of Omaha where there's a big Air Force base. And a lot of the city is centered around this Air Force base. And every summer, every August, there's a big air show. And it was always quite a thing, especially as a young boy, to have all these planes coming from all over the country to participate in the air show every August. And then you could always remember where you were that first day in August where you heard the roar of the fighter jets, the F-16s, the F-18s, the F-22s, the F-15s, all these things that I loved as a kid, and that we didn't have at the Air Force Base, much to my dismay. And so they'd come in, perhaps on a low pass, and our house was over the flight path for many of them, and you'd hear it in the distance. kind of a low rumble and maybe a high-pitched squeal at times, depending on which way it was coming. And by the time it had passed over you, it was rumbling so deeply, it was so loud and powerful that you could hear it vibrating in your chest. You could feel as all parts of your body were shaking. And it was quite something as a little boy. It was very awe-inspiring, it was very shocking to realize the power that this engine had. But as we look at this passage in Isaiah, as we look at Isaiah 6, we see something that would make you completely forget the sound of a jet engine flying low over your home. We're seeing something much more impressive, something much more powerful, much more shocking. We're seeing God on His throne. We're seeing the Lord, the King, high and lifted up in His holiness, in His glory, in His might. And if we were to read through Isaiah, we'd probably be quite surprised at how many of the passages we know without even realizing they're from Isaiah. The book of Isaiah is referred to over 600 times in the New Testament. So if you pick up a New Testament book, chances are eventually you're gonna come to something from Isaiah. But despite all those things, there are perhaps no more famous passages in the book of Isaiah than this chapter six. It's something that we've probably heard a lot if we grew up in the church. If we've been listening to sermons, we've been reading the Bible on our own throughout the years. Sometimes Isaiah is referred to as the fifth gospel because of how often Christ is portrayed in it and quite clearly. And we'll see here in Isaiah 6 that we see the work of Christ that he was to perform, but perhaps not as clearly as some other parts in the book. Chapters one through 12 of Isaiah are about Judah and Jerusalem specifically. And generally, these chapters tend to be doom and gloom. There's a lot of bad news at the beginning of Isaiah. But as you read through it, you find that again and again and again, as the bad news is coming, the good news also comes unlooked for. The grace of God is proclaimed to his people who deserve the exact opposite. When Isaiah began ministering Assyria, the empire was rising as a world power. And in fact, from the time of Isaiah chapter six to the time when the northern kingdom of Israel was destroyed by Assyria was only 18 years. The end for the people of God was beginning as he was ministering to them. We'll see three things in our passage this morning. First of all, the holiness of God. Secondly, the hopelessness of Isaiah. And third, the heaviness of the message. The holiness of God, the hopelessness of Isaiah, and the heaviness of the message. And through it all, we'll see that because God is holy and we are sinful, our only hope for acceptance and cleansing before him has to come from him himself. So first of all, the holiness of God as we look at verses one through four of Isaiah chapter six. And we see here a vision of the great king. We read in verse one, that 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. So Isaiah is telling us very clearly at the beginning when this happened, in the year that King Uzziah died. And we can probably ask, as people who are not ancient Israelites, who was King Uzziah? What should we know about him? Well, he was a king in the southern kingdom of Judah for 52 years. He came to the throne when he was 16, and when he followed the priest as a young man, he did well. 2 Chronicles tells us that he followed after the ways of the Lord, that he followed in the footsteps of his father David for a while. Things went pretty well for a time, but towards the end of his reign, something happened that changed everything. Keep your finger in Isaiah. 6, but turn with me to 2 Chronicles 26, starting in verse 16. 2 Chronicles 26, starting in verse 16. By this point in his reign, Uzziah has become quite powerful, humanly speaking. And he's taken a census of all of his fighting men, he's seen how powerful he is in his own might, so he thinks, and he begins to be quite proud. He begins to think that I'm the one who's doing all these things. I'm the one who's truly in charge here. And in 2 Chronicles 26, starting in verse 16, we read these words. But when he was strong, he grew proud to his destruction. For he was unfaithful to the Lord his God and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. But Azariah the priest went in after him. with 80 priests of the Lord who were men of valor, and they withstood King Uzziah and said to him, it is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord, but for the priests, the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense. Go out of the sanctuary, for you have done wrong, and it will bring you no honor from the Lord God. Then Uzziah was angry. Now he had a censer in his hand to burn incense, And when he became angry with the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead in the presence of the priests in the house of the Lord by the altar of incense. And Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked at him, and behold, he was leprous in his forehead. And they rushed him out quickly, and he himself hurried to go out because the Lord had struck him. And King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death. And being a leper lived in a separate house, for he was excluded from the house of the Lord. So Uzziah had no right to enter into the temple to perform the priestly duties, and yet he went anyway. He was the king of Judah, but he did not have authority to go into the temple of the great king of the people of God, the king of kings, the king over all the world. And because of his disobedience, because he entered into God's presence as someone who was not consecrated and set apart and called into his presence, the Lord struck him with leprosy on his forehead. Now the fact that it's on his forehead is quite significant. The priests on their headdress would have a golden plate on their forehead with God's own name inscribed on it. It was a symbol that they were called by God, that they were consecrated by God, to come into his presence, that he owned them in a very special way, and that they were his servants in a very special way. And so when Uzziah has leprosy on his forehead, God is also making a mark. Not sanctified, not consecrated, not holy to me, but cursed. This is who you are. And so we see this in 2 Chronicles 26 and we see that Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death. This was the mark that was put on him until he died and he was not allowed to come to the house of the Lord because now he was unclean, now he was a leper. And so boys and girls, perhaps you can imagine the scene as the king is out and about in the streets and he leaves his house and the cry has to go up from the people, unclean, unclean. They couldn't get near him. because they couldn't be contaminated by his uncleanness. And so this is the context in which Isaiah comes into the presence of God. We know that in King Uzziah's reign, the people of God started to decline and it never really stopped, at least not much, until they were all carried away into exile. And Isaiah tells us that it was in this year that King Uzziah died that he saw God. He says in verse five, Now we can probably ask at this point, perhaps it's in your mind, how can Isaiah see God? And boys and girls, you've probably heard before that no one can see God and live. So what exactly is going on here? This seems to be breaking a rule that seems pretty open and shut. Well, the short answer is sometimes in the Bible, God would give a vision of himself to one of his people for a specific purpose. And he wouldn't show them all of his glory. We can think of perhaps Moses, who had to be hidden in a rock to only see the backside of God's glory. But it was still enough to cause quaking. It was still enough to be traumatic. Now we see something similar happening here. Isaiah is seeing God in a sense, but he's not seeing him as he truly is. We see there's smoke in the temple for one thing, which was something that happened when the priests would go in so that they could not see God, so that they could live. But he sees enough to get the message. He sees enough to get the point. Even though this was not the fullness of God's glory, even this was only a fraction of his holiness and glory that mankind could see, Isaiah was quite shaken up. Isaiah tells us about his throne. It is high and lifted up. He tells us about the train of his robe and that it filled the temple. He tells us about his servants, the seraphim, who each had six wings. With two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. He tells us about all this but he gives no description of the Lord on the throne. He can tell us all these things, but words fail him to describe what he is seeing. You ask him, well, what did you see? What did God look like? And all he can say, well, his throne was high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple, and there were these fiery spirits who were ministering to him, but he really had no way to describe the God who he saw. Now that phrase at the end of verse one is actually quite important. The train of his robe filled the temple. And this tells us where Isaiah saw God. He saw God in the temple. He had a vision of God in the temple in Jerusalem. And the temple was essentially a stone tabernacle, perhaps we can think of it as. It was a place where God dwelt in the midst of his people as they were no longer wandering through the wilderness, as they were in the midst of the land that he gave to them. And so instead of having a tent that could be put up and taken down, there was a permanent building there. And this was where God dwelt in the midst of his people as their God and they dwelt as his people. But as we look at the tabernacle or the temple before it, we see some divisions. We see that both of them had veils or curtains within them to separate different places. that there were different courts and different people could come into the different courts depending on a number of things, specifically how consecrated they were to the Lord. God was keeping himself separate from his people even though he was in their midst and the reason is because he was holy and they were not. Really the divisions were for their own protection because how can a sinner approach God? When Isaiah went into the temple, he walked right past many of these dividers. He decided to take himself in as a sinner, as one who was not consecrated to God, who had not gone through all the purification, who was not called and invited to go into the king's royal chamber. And he was struck with a curse. God's holiness reacted against this sin. But what Isaiah sees here in the temple, in this vision, is the temple of God without its curtain. And not the physical curtain, but the veil that separates the spiritual from the physical. Isaiah sees God. And in the very area where the Ark of the Covenant would be seen by most people, seen by the priest as he entered in once a year on the Day of Atonement, Isaiah saw the true throne of God. He saw God dwelling in a special way with his people. And of course, it wasn't as if God ceased to dwell everywhere when he was in the temple. It just shows that he had a special presence there in the midst of his people. That he was living in their midst, and this is what Isaiah sees. And the description of the seraphim tell us a lot. These powerful, angelic beings are presented with three pairs of wings. With one, they fly. With one pair, they cover their feet. And with one pair, they cover their face. Even these holy angels, these powerful ministering spirits, these flames of fire need to shield themselves from the sight of their God. The ones who are perfect in a way that we have a hard time fathoming. The ones who are angels who cause fear and terror when they appeared before mortal men can't even look at God. And they cover their feet because where God is is holy space. As one commentator said, they covered their eyes, not their ears, for their task was to receive what the Lord would say, not to pry into what he was like. And they remained there, not sitting, but above him, as servants ready to go and do his will as he sees fit and as he commands. And we read that they call out to each other and say, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And at the sound of their voice, the foundations of the doors of the temple shake. God hasn't even spoken yet. God is just there on his throne and only his servants who can't even bear to look at him are calling out and their voice is enough to shake the foundations of the temple. And we see that smoke also fills the house of God. to protect those there from seeing God, from being consumed, because it's too much for any creature, even the most powerful angel. What Isaiah sees here can only be called traumatic. It was not as if Isaiah was expecting to see these things. It's not as if Isaiah was looking into the temple trying to see God. Instead, Isaiah is taken into the temple to see the high and exalted God, who is quite a contrast to Uzziah, who tried to lift himself up. It's like if you've ever met someone who really wants you to think that they're in charge, when maybe they aren't. And what do they say? Well, I'm in charge. And you realize, if you really were in charge, you probably wouldn't have to keep reminding us. And there's this idea that perhaps what they think they are isn't what they truly are. And that's basically what Uzziah was. He thought he was in charge. And he went into the temple to burn incense before God because he thought it was his right. And God showed him who truly was in charge. And here, in Isaiah's vision, God sits on his throne in glory and holiness that are indescribable. Isaiah was in the presence of the one who spoke the world into existence and who is holy, holy, holy. And as we think about this, This should really inform our worship because the God we worship each and every Lord's Day is this God that Isaiah saw. That when we come to gather together as God's people to hear his call to worship and to respond to it with our praise, to receive to him and to respond in gratitude, we're hearing and responding to this God. This is not a flippant thing. This is not a light thing. This is not something that we decide to do on a whim, but it's something that this great holy, holy, holy God has called us to do. And as we come to worship him, we don't give him anything that he needs because he is in need of nothing. As Isaiah saw the Lord high and exalted, the train of his robe filling the temple, the house filling with smoke, his servants shouting, holy, holy, holy, and shaking the foundations of the temple, the last thing in his mind is, oh, he needs something from me. Because he doesn't. Even the things that we can offer him in response and gratitude were his in the first place. And we can think about how these sinless angels, these powerful flaming spirits thought a lot about how to conduct themselves in the presence of God. Something that perhaps is instructive to us. The message of Isaiah is for people who ignore this holy God. As we keep reading through the book, we see that Isaiah presents this holy God again and again in the incoming and judgment, and the call is to repent, and very few do. Very few people took this God seriously. This is the holiness of God. And we see the hopelessness of Isaiah in verses five through seven. We see here this idea of curses and blessings becomes very important. Isaiah was called as a prophet of God, as an Old Testament prophet, And we should probably ask at this point, what was a prophet supposed to do? What was Isaiah's purpose that he was serving God for? Well, simply put, an Old Testament prophet was God's covenant lawyer. A prophet was the man God sent to his people when they broke his law and he was suing them. If you remember, in Exodus, when Israel comes to Mount Sinai, they swear all these things we will do. They made a covenant with God. that he will do certain things and they will do certain things. And then we read the historical books and it's a record of again and again and again, the people breaking that covenant, the people sinning against their Lord and King, the people transgressing his law. And the prophets were sent by God to these disobedient, sinful people. Basically, the covenant Lord was suing his covenant people saying, you swore to do these things, to obey these laws, and you have disobeyed again and again and again. And at first, the prophets were coming to warn the people, repent or judgment is coming. These things that God promised in Leviticus and Deuteronomy as curses for breaking the covenant will come upon you if you don't repent. And eventually, as you keep reading in redemptive history, the people went so far that the hope of repenting was cut off. And God would say, even if you turn to me, it's gone too far. Even if you turn to me, you've desecrated my land. It's not your land, it's mine. and it will vomit you out as it vomited out the Canaanites who defiled it, who desecrated it. And these messages of judgment are often translated in our English translations with the word woe, W-O-E, which isn't a word that we say probably very often, most of us anyway. What it meant is perhaps tribulation upon you or the curse is upon you. This was a message that you had sinned against God and judgment was coming. This was a message of condemnation, judgment, and curse. Perhaps we can think of times when our Lord in his earthly ministry would say, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees. It was a message of condemnation. So that was the curse. And on the flip side, the prophets would often bring also a message of comfort and hope of God's grace to his people, even though they observe the exact opposite. And these messages would often start with blessed are. So blessed are, God's grace, and woe unto you, God's judgment. God's curse is coming to you. And six times in chapters one through five of Isaiah, we see that there are woes that God gives to Isaiah to pronounce upon God's people. Judgment is coming. But now, in Isaiah 6, here the prophet who was sent to pronounce woes upon God's people can do nothing but pronounce a woe upon himself. In the words of R.C. Sproul, for the first time in Isaiah's life, he understands who God is. And the very second that Isaiah understood who God was, for the first time in his life, he understood who Isaiah was. he realizes as a prophet of God that there's nothing in him to bless. There's nothing within him that should bring the phrase, blessed are you. All that's in him is sin and corruption. All that he deserves is cursing. He pronounces himself unclean as if he were leprous King Uzziah himself. And what was unclean? Well, we see in this passage that it's his mouth. that he's a man of unclean lips and he dwells amongst a people of unclean lips. And he's asking, how can he proclaim God's word from lips that are so corrupted? From lips that are so far from holy? In his self-condemnation, he's also despairing about his calling from God. How is he to do this? And we see here that Isaiah did not seek to wash himself or to cover himself or make excuses. He didn't vow to do better. Give me another chance and I'll make it right. Because suddenly he saw God in his holiness. Suddenly he saw what the standard was. And once he saw God in his holiness, he knew that he himself was hopeless. There was nothing in himself that could make this right. And we tend to, as sinful humans don't we, compare ourselves to others. While I'm Not perfect, of course, perhaps we'll say, but I'm not like that guy down the street. Or I've done some things, but I'm not like that girl at school. And the idea, of course, is, well, yeah, if you go by perfection, I can't make it. But I'm better than that person. At least in our minds. Which really is two lamps comparing each other to see who's brightest when the goal is the sun. No matter who's brightest, it's nothing to be proud of. And Isaiah sees God's holiness. And as we read the law each and every Sunday morning, we hear of God's holiness. We hear what his requirements are, and we realize, like Isaiah, woe is me. That we cannot look at God's law and say, oh, okay, blessed are we because we have kept it. the law of God, the holy law of God, and God's holiness are the great equalizers. Everything that Isaiah was thinking that he could compare himself to on earth was knocked out from under him when he saw the true reality. And as Isaiah is hopeless and despairing, we see through the smoke a seraph coming to the altar. We see that God responds to his cry. The seraphim are the servants of God and they only act at his command which tells us that what this seraph did was the command of his Lord. And we can ask, why a coal? Why did he bring a burning hot coal to Isaiah and press it upon his lips? Well, to understand this, we need to understand what's happening in Leviticus 6. And this was the section of God's law where he commanded what the high priest was supposed to do once a year on the Day of Atonement to make atonement for the people. We read, Aaron shall present the bull as a sin offering for himself and shall make atonement for himself and for his house. He shall kill the bull as a sin offering for himself and he shall take a censer full of coals of fire from the altar before the Lord and two handfuls of sweet incense beaten small and he shall bring it inside the veil and put the incense on the fire before the Lord that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is over the testimony so that he does not die. And as we read that and listen to it and think about it, we see a lot of parallels to Isaiah 6, don't we? We see coals and incense creating a cloud of smoke so that Aaron does not see God and die. And what are we told in Isaiah 6 when the seraphim are calling out, holy, holy, holy? The foundation of the temple shakes and the whole house is filled with smoke. It's this altar This altar on which the coals will be placed by the priest on the Day of Atonement that's here in Isaiah 6. The coals were taken into the Holy of Holies in the Act of Atonement. So when the seraph takes the burning coal from the altar, which was used on the Day of Atonement, what is being said to us here in Isaiah 6 is that because of the sacrifice offered on his behalf, Isaiah is cleansed. Because of this sacrifice, because of what happens on the Day of Atonement, Isaiah is able to go in. And of course we know, the Day of Atonement, the animal sacrifice in the temple, were not really what took away sins. That they all pointed forward to our Lord Jesus Christ. And so what God is doing to Isaiah through the ministry of the seraph is proclaiming the gospel to Isaiah. He's telling him, yes, there is a wall upon you. Yes, you are nothing compared to me. Yes, you deserve my condemnation. You are hopeless in yourself, but something has been done about that. We read in verse seven, behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for. This was the altar on which Uzziah tried to burn incense before he was struck with leprosy. And so the one who stormed into God's presence was cursed, but the one who recognized his sinfulness and cried out to God was blessed by this very same altar. This points ahead, of course, to our great high priest and final sacrifice, Christ. God provided what Isaiah needed and proclaimed his grace and mercy to him. And in the same way, God provides what we need and proclaims his gospel to us. Grace and forgiveness mean very little unless you realize the holiness of God that you have offended. We tend to think God automatically loves us, that we're just so wonderful and lovely. I think perhaps of a dog who does something wrong. And boys and girls, you've probably seen this. Dogs tend to do this. They'll do something wrong and then try to act cute and sweet in order to get out of it. And the idea is, I'm so cute that I'm going to get away with this. And sometimes they do, don't they? Well, sometimes we think that way, that yeah, we've done some things, but aren't we lovable? What Isaiah 6 tells us is that this is not the case. This is not the picture of the God we see in Isaiah 6, nor in the other parts of the Bible. Without an understanding of holiness, salvation has no weight or urgency. We don't realize what we need to be saved from, but we can also know that a sinner saved by grace can stand in the presence of the holy God and live. Salvation doesn't come from men forcing their way through the curtain to God. Salvation comes from God through the torn curtain by the grace that he presents to us in Jesus Christ. And so very briefly we see our last point, the heaviness of the message in verses 8 through 13. And we see that this is taking place in God's inner court. Isaiah has been brought into God's inner court, which was a picture to him of a king. This is what kings would do when they wanted to send a messenger to someone. They bring them right into their presence, into their throne room, give them the words to say, and send them out. So what God is doing is bringing his prophet into his throne room, giving him his message, and sending him out. We saw how Isaiah received grace, how Isaiah received what he deserved, or did not receive what he deserved for his guilt, but received the exact opposite. And we see now that he's responding in gratitude, guilt, grace, and gratitude. This is one of these passages that help remind us that the authors of the Heidelberg Catechism were just making up things. This is how things go. He served God in gratitude when God said, who shall we send and who will go for us? Talking to his inner court, his inner council, Isaiah responds, here am I, send me. And we know right away in verses nine and 10 that there will be no positive response to the prophet's teaching. That he's coming and telling the people to turn back to God and they won't. And right from the beginning, Isaiah knows the end of his ministry. Judgment and death and destruction and exile. That God's people will continue to reject the word of the Lord. That God's people had refused to listen to him up to this point and hardened their heart and now it was too late. Things were in motion which would not be undone. Verses 11 through 13 tell us the rest of redemptive history, that judgment was coming and that the forest of Israel will be cut down and then burned. Complete and total destruction or so we think. But we see that judgment and wrath is not God's final word. Now many people may not recognize what's happening here just reading Isaiah 6. It's not as clear as it is in the New Testament. But God commanded the seraph to make atonement by using the burning hot coal from the altar. We know that. We know that in God's message to his people, he promises that judgment is coming, but that he would leave a stump, a remnant, through which the promised Messiah would come. We see the holy seed is it stumped the reference all the way back to Genesis 3.15 to the seed of the woman who had crushed the head of the serpent. So he's promising the Messiah and he's making atonement for Isaiah. And then if we were to look at John chapter 12, we see a section of Isaiah 6 quoted and attributed to the ministry of Jesus. That even though Jesus preached the word of God to people, they did not hear, they did not see. And then John 12.41, says this, Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. The he and the him there are Jesus. So who did Isaiah see that day in the temple in this grand vision? Who was high and exalted, unable to be described by this sinner, by this creature in his glory and majesty? Who is holy, holy, holy? God the Son. God the Son ordered the seraph to take the burning coal from the altar and touch it to Isaiah's lips, taking away his guilt and atoning for his sin and enabling him to be his mouthpiece to his people. And through this mouthpiece, God the Son promised that although the forest of Israel would be cut down and burned, a stump would remain and he himself would take on flesh, live, die, and rise again to fully and finally take away the guilt and sin of his people to atone for them. We see here this promise of the gospel that Christ became unclean for us. Christ had a woe pronounced upon himself which we deserved and he did not. And so as we've seen these things in our passage, we've seen the holiness of God, this standard and this glory that Isaiah could only condemn himself because he saw. We saw that Isaiah was hopeless before this and that salvation came to him from God and not from himself. And we've seen the heaviness of the message, this message of judgment coming, that this holy God is reacting against sin, but that judgment is not his final word. This holy God is also coming to deal with sin. And so we can ask a few questions here as we close. We can ask, do we assume that just because we were born and raised in a Christian home, perhaps we went to Christian school and have been in church since we were old enough to remember that we're automatically good, that just because these things are true of us, that we're outwardly here, that we can walk into the presence of God? Or do we realize what Isaiah realized? That he was one of the children of Abraham, he was descended from Abraham physically and spiritually, he still had faith in God's promises, and yet he saw God and was terrified. He saw God and pronounced a woe upon himself. and what's the only reason he could stand in God's presence, not anything in and of himself, not his birth, or where he went, or where he spent his time, but atonement and forgiveness. That the one who was standing in front of him, who was holy, holy, holy, would one day come and atone for him, and because of this, he, as a sinner, saved by grace, could stand in God's presence. And as we come together each and every Lord's Day, we stand in the presence of this very God because of what this God did for us, because of what Christ did for us 2,000 years ago on this earth. And because of this, we can react to our salvation the same way that Isaiah did, in gratitude. And we heard the law already, we heard its condemnation, we heard the fact that we have not kept it, that we need to confess our sins and to hear the assurance of pardon. But now that we've heard the gospel, we can respond in gratitude. After we understand our guilt and the grace that we have received, we can respond by God, just as Isaiah did. And because God is holy and we are sinful, our only hope for acceptance and cleansing in his sight has to come from God himself. But the good news is it has. Let's close with the Apostle Paul's words of praise in Romans 11. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given him a gift that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever, amen. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we praise you and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Truly you are our God, the King, the one who is high and exalted. Holy, holy, holy are you, O Lord. We praise you, Father, for the redemption you have worked for us through Christ, and we pray that your Holy Spirit would apply this word to our hearts and keep it in our minds this coming week. We also thank you, Lord, that we can respond in gratitude to the grace that you have shown us when we were nothing but guilty. May you bless the gift and the giver as we give you our offerings, and we thank you for everything that you have given to us. We pray this in Christ's thrice holy name, amen.