Showing posts with label Isaiah 6. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Isaiah 6. Show all posts

Saturday, March 5, 2005

Believe the Glory

Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Hosts;
The whole earth is full of His glory. (Isaiah 6:3)
In Isaiah’s vision of the LORD, recorded in Isaiah 6, the seraphim, fiery angels of God, declared that the whole earth is full of God’s glory. Think of it — the entire earth is full to overflowing with the glory of God. Always has been, always will be.We don’t have to bring the glory down. It’s already here. Our job is simply to believe it, to get into agreement with it, to think, act and speak according to it.
Father, we need a much greater knowledge of your glory in our world. Give us wisdom and revelation by Your Holy Spirit, that we may know and experience You more and more, and so change our world. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

The Glory Comes

Above it stood seraphim…And one cried to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
The whole earth is full of His glory!”

And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. (Isaiah 6:2-6).
Isaiah saw the LORD on His throne, high and lifted up. The seraphim exalted God in His holiness with wave after wave of praise and worship. With each new wave, the doorposts of the temple shook and the whole place was filled with smoke, and the glory of God manifested before Isaiah’s eyes.

Today, the temple of God is not a building of stone, but is found in the hearts of His people, in whom He dwells. This is certainly true of the Church as a corporate unity, for the Apostle Peter said, “You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5).

It is also true of each individual believer in Jesus Christ. Paul said, “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price: therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

We are the temple of the LORD, and He is in residence. As we learn to see Him high and lifted up in our hearts and exalt His name in our lives, there will be a shaking and cloud of glory.

The shaking comes to remove everything in us that does not come from God, and therefore does not belong in our lives. God shakes out all the things that cannot be established in us, because they do no come from Him, in order to establish in us things that can never be shaken.

The cloud of glory is the presence of the LORD. “And it came to pass, when the priests came out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the LORD, so that the priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud; for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD” (1 Kings 8:10-11).

The glory of the LORD is the manifestation of His greatness and goodness. When His glory is with us, we cease from our own efforts, our own strength, our own glory, to rest in His. He abides in us; we abide in Him.

Lift the name of the LORD up high over everything in your life. Let Him abide in your heart, and let your heart abide in Him. Let Him shake out the things in your life that do not belong, and establish wonderful new things in you which can never be shaken. Let Him be your strength and your glory, and your life will be marked with His power and goodness.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Prepared to Declare God's Glory

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
  The whole earth is full of His glory!”

And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.
(Isaiah 6:1-4)
The seraphim are the fiery beings who minister before the LORD. Their name comes from the Hebrew seraph, which signifies fire. God is a consuming fire (Deuteronomy 4:24). He makes His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire (Psalm 104:4). Jesus came to baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire (Luke 3:16). Fire is a purgative, a cleansing agent. Fire purifies.

The seraphim are six-winged creatures. With two wings they cover their face, and with two wings they veil their bodies, because of God’s awesome presence. With two wings they hover round about God’s throne to serve at His pleasure.

They cry out to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts.” This is no static demonstration. They cry out continually to one another with the holiness of Yahweh, each time with fresh wonder and revelation. Their song is always new.

“The whole earth is full of His glory.” The Hebrew word for “glory” is kabod. It speaks of the weight, the abundance, of God’s goodness.

The glory of the LORD fills the earth. This is not a reference to some future event, or when Christ returns. It is a now revelation: Right now, at this very moment, the earth is full of God’s glory. It always has been. There was never a moment when this was not so.

The reason we have not experienced the fullness of God’s glory and goodness in the earth is because of sin. Sin renders us incapable of receiving it. For our sakes, God shields us from the bright fire of His glory, lest we be destroyed by it because of our iniquity.

Each time a seraphim proclaimed the holiness of God, the door posts were shaken, and the temple was filled with smoke. Isaiah felt the weight of God’s glory and became keenly aware of his own unworthiness, his incapacity to bear it. He cried out.
Woe is me, for I am undone!
  Because I am a man of unclean lips,
And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;
  For my eyes have seen the King,
  The LORD of hosts.
(Isaiah 6:5)
To be undone means to utterly perish, be cut off and destroyed. Isaiah had witnessed this in King Uzziah, who had been cut off and destroyed because of his arrogance before God. The uncleanness of pride in his heart showed forth as the uncleanness of leprosy in his flesh. But now Isaiah was seeing the true King, the LORD of all the hosts of heaven. And now he realized the uncleanness of his own heart, and recognized how that had filled his lips. For just as Jesus said, it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.

Isaiah was now in full repentance mode, not only for himself, but for his people, as well. He identified himself with their leprous hearts and corrupt lips, painfully acknowledging that he was just like them. He held back nothing before the LORD, but exposed himself completely. No justifications, no explanations, only repentance.

God, in His goodness, brought forth a solution.
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth with it and said:

“Behold, this has touched your lips;
  Your iniquity is taken away,
  And your sin is purged.”
(Isaiah 6:6-7)
The seraph, fiery servant of the LORD, took a live coal from the altar of God, the altar which was kindled by God and burns perpetually before Him (Leviticus 9:24; Leviticus 6:12-13). He touched the coal to Isaiah’s unclean lips and burned away all the iniquity. Now Isaiah was prepared to declare the glory of God.

God has a solution for you and me, as well, so that we might know His glory. The Bible says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). It is the ultimate cleansing, preparing us not only to experience the goodness of God for ourselves, but also to reflect His glory to others.

Monday, January 24, 2005

Who is High and Lifted Up?

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. (Isaiah 6:1)
This was Isaiah’s life-changing vision of the Lord. It not only transformed him forever but called forth things of God which have forever changed the world.

Now, Isaiah’s opening sentence is not a mere chronological reference. For it does not just tell us about the calendar, it tells us about the times in which Isaiah lived and the people to whom he was called to prophesy.

You can find out about King Uzziah in 2 Chronicles 26, where we see God’s assessment of his life and reign. “He did what was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father Amaziah had done. He sought God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of God; and as long as he sought the LORD, God made him prosper” (2 Chronicles 26:4-5).

King Uzziah did well for fifty years (quite a long reign for those times). “His fame spread far and wide, for he was marvelously helped till he became strong” (2 Chronicles 26:15). Uzziah sought after the LORD and the LORD helped him marvelously. Divine favor was upon him and he prospered and became strong.

But something happened when Uzziah became strong. It did not have to happen. There was nothing about his strength and prosperity which made what happened next inevitable. But it happened anyway. Here is what we read about Uzziah in the very next verse:
But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up, to his destruction, for he transgressed against the LORD his God by entering the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense. (2 Chronicles 26:16)
His heart was lifted up. It was lifted up, not because he was strong and prosperous, but because he did not keep his heart well. He let pride come in. He presumed upon God and unjustly assumed that he could go wherever he wanted to go and do whatever he wanted to do. He thought that the rules no longer applied to him, that the kingly anointing which was upon him also fitted him for priestly duty.

Azariah, the chief priest, went in with eighty priests of the LORD and called Uzziah down because of his arrogant behavior. “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. Get out of the sanctuary, for you have trespassed! You shall have no honor from the LORD God” (2 Chronicles 26:18).

Uzziah became furious, still standing with the censer in his hand, ready to burn incense. And as he foamed and fumed at the priests, right at that moment and in that very place in which he had no business being, leprosy broke out on his forehead. The uncleanness of his heart suddenly became manifest in his body. This sign of leprosy made it apparent to all, especially to Uzziah, that he had no right to minister in the Temple.

“King Uzziah was a leper until the day of his death. He dwelt in an isolated house, because he was a leper; for he was cut off from the house of the LORD. Then Jotham his son was over the king’s house, judging the people of the land” (2 Chronicles 26:21). Uzziah not only lost his health, he also lost his reign.

Jotham reigned only sixteen years. He did what was right in the sight of the, the Scripture says, “but the people acted corruptly” (2 Chronicles 27:2). Pride, the uncleanness of Uzziah’s heart, had infected the nation.

So these were the conditions in which Isaiah had his vision: the tragic end of a prosperous and healthy reign, and the uncleanness of an entire people.

“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up,” Isaiah says.

Uzziah saw Uzziah high and lifted up. Isaiah saw the LORD high and lifted up. Who is high and lifted up in your life?

Its not about us, its always about God. When we lift ourselves up, we will always meet with failure and loss. But let us learn to see the LORD high and lifted up, and we will be properly oriented for a life of prosperity, strength and joy. For God will marvelously help us.