Events and circumstances, moments in our lives, and crises that we experience, can sometimes define and determine who we are and how we respond to other situations in our lives. When we look backwards at those events, sometimes we can gain some modicum of understanding as to the influence our circumstances have had on us in developing our character. impacting the way we live, and, ultimately, teaching us more about God. Whether good times or bad times, our circumstances, and our reaction to those circumstances, influence our lives in many different ways. And it is in these difficult places of life that we find ourselves intimately drawn to God in worship.
So, it was in the life of the prophet Isaiah, who records a major event in his life that would define and impact his life and his ministry: the death of King Uzziah.
Isaiah 6
1 In the year of King Uzziah's death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple.
2 Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
3 And one called out to another and said, " Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory."
4 And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke.
5 Then I said, " Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts."
6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs.
7 He touched my mouth with it and said, "Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven."
8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here am I. Send me!"
Uzziah was the tenth king of Judah and, for most of his reign, lived a godly life. He was highly influenced by the prophet Zechariah and, unlike many of the other kings before him, never rebelled against God..............................................until the end of his life.
Under his influence, the southern kingdom attained power, wealth and success unlike any it had enjoyed since the days of Solomon. Because of his successful reign as king, Uzziah was well-respected and the people of his nation looked up to him as one of their greatest leaders.
In Second Chronicles 26, we find the following information about Uzziah:
1 All the people of Judah had crowned Amaziah’s sixteen-year-old son, Uzziah, as king in place of his father.
2 After his father’s death, Uzziah rebuilt the town of Elath and restored it to Judah.
3 Uzziah was sixteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem fifty-two years. His mother was Jecoliah from Jerusalem.
4 He did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight, just as his father, Amaziah, had done.
5 Uzziah sought God during the days of Zechariah, who taught him to fear God. And as long as the king sought guidance from the Lord, God gave him success.
6 Uzziah declared war on the Philistines and broke down the walls of Gath, Jabneh, and Ashdod. Then he built new towns in the Ashdod area and in other parts of Philistia.
7 God helped him in his wars against the Philistines, his battles with the Arabs of Gur, and his wars with the Meunites.
8 The Meunites paid annual tribute to him, and his fame spread even to Egypt, for he had become very powerful.
9 Uzziah built fortified towers in Jerusalem at the Corner Gate, at the Valley Gate, and at the angle in the wall.
10 He also constructed forts in the wilderness and dug many water cisterns, because he kept great herds of livestock in the foothills of Judah and on the plains. He was also a man who loved the soil. He had many workers who cared for his farms and vineyards, both on the hillsides and in the fertile valleys.
11 Uzziah had an army of well-trained warriors, ready to march into battle, unit by unit. This army had been mustered and organized by Jeiel, the secretary of the army, and his assistant, Maaseiah. They were under the direction of Hananiah, one of the king’s officials.
12 These regiments of mighty warriors were commanded by 2,600 clan leaders.
13 The army consisted of 307,500 men, all elite troops. They were prepared to assist the king against any enemy.
14 Uzziah provided the entire army with shields, spears, helmets, coats of mail, bows, and sling stones.
15 And he built structures on the walls of Jerusalem, designed by experts to protect those who shot arrows and hurled large stones from the towers and the corners of the wall. His fame spread far and wide, for the Lord gave him marvelous help, and he became very powerful.
16 But when he had become powerful, he also became proud, which led to his downfall. He sinned against the Lord his God by entering the sanctuary of the Lord’s temple and personally burning incense on the incense altar.
17 Azariah the high priest went in after him with eighty other priests of the Lord, all brave men.
18 They confronted King Uzziah and said, “It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord. That is the work of the priests alone, the descendants of Aaron who are set apart for this work. Get out of the sanctuary, for you have sinned. The Lord God will not honor you for this!”
19 Uzziah, who was holding an incense burner, became furious. But as he was standing there raging at the priests before the incense altar in the Lord’s Temple, leprosy suddenly broke out on his forehead.
20 When Azariah the high priest and all the other priests saw the leprosy, they rushed him out. And the king himself was eager to get out because the Lord had struck him.
21 So King Uzziah had leprosy until the day he died. He lived in isolation in a separate house, for he was excluded from the Temple of the Lord. His son Jotham was put in charge of the royal palace, and he governed the people of the land.
22 The rest of the events of Uzziah’s reign, from beginning to end, are recorded by the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. 23 When Uzziah died, he was buried with his ancestors; his grave was in a nearby burial field belonging to the kings, for the people said, “He had leprosy.”
When confronted by the priests, Uzziah became furious and raged against the priests. Uzziah’s power led to a prideful heart and his pride resulted in him doing something that was none of his business. Burning the incense was an act of worship with spiritual significance for the priests. But, only the priests were supposed to enter that part of the temple and burn the incense. Uzziah had decided that is was up to him to take care of God’s business.
God had not called Uzziah to do what he did. As a result of his disobedience, Uzziah was stricken with leprosy by the Lord, placed into quarantine and died in that condition. Uzziah is now remembered more for his disobedience than he is for his obedience.
Isaiah was greatly disturbed by all of this and the death of the great king. Uzziah had reigned for 52 years. His death signaled the end of a time of great prosperity and consistency. For Isaiah, the death of the king was an event that would have major impact on him and the Jewish nation. The King's death ushered in a time of uncertainty, change and doubt but his death also made Isaiah and the entire nation understand that their king died because of his sin.
Yet, for Isaiah, this was to be a time of rediscovery and renewal.
What was it that had such a profound effect upon Isaiah's life? Surely, it must have been that he saw the awful result of sin in the King's life. Uzziah was a godly king, yet, at the end of his reign, he decided to rebel against God. It was never his responsibility to enter the temple. It was never his responsibility to burn the incense. But, yet, we find in Second Chronicles 26 that because of his great power, Uzziah became prideful and he sinned against God. As a result, God placed upon the king a deadly disease and he died in quarantine, hidden away, yes, because of his leprosy, but. more importantly, because of his sin.
This had a devastating effect upon the prophet Isaiah, but, the crisis became an opportunity for revival in his personal life and an opportunity to discover more of God. This awful situation, which could have been a dark cloud over Isaiah’s life, was used by the Lord to bring Isaiah to a fresh encounter in his relationship with God.
When Isaiah has this great vision of God, he gains a deeper understanding about God and he develops a greater perspective about:
· God’s Position-“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne”. The throne of God represents His kingship and His rulership over all of His creation. The throne of God is representative of His authority and that He is in charge. There is only one throne and that is God’s throne. You don’t have a throne. I don’t have a throne. None of God’s people has a throne. Yet, we live our lives like each one of us has a throne. We live like we are in charge and we live like we are the center of the universe. We live like there is no other god but us. I live like it is all about me. You live like it is all about you. Forget about the little catchy phrase that has circulated for some time that is used in songs and in preaching: “It’s not about me; it’s all about You, God”. (Big theological word coming now) HOGWASH! We don’t live like it is all about Him. So, why do keep we keep using that phrase over and over and over and over and over (well, you get the idea) again? No, we need to somehow come to an understanding that it is all about God, that He is on the throne and He has all authority. He is King over all of His creation!
· God’s Perspective-“I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up”. God has a different perspective than we do. Isaiah 55:8 tells us that God's ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. Sometimes we question God. Sometimes we don’t understand why He causes or allows things to happen. But, we must come to the conclusion that His perspective is different than ours. We see things from an earthly perspective. God sees things from an eternal perspective. The challenge is to try to see events as God sees them. How? “Turn your eyes upon Jesus....look full in His wonderful face and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace”.
· God’s Preeminence-“and the train of His robe filled the temple”. In Isaiah’s day, one would determine a king’s status by his robe and the length of the train of his robe. Isaiah sees the Lord seated on a throne as King and the train of His robe (a wedding dress usually has a long, flowing “train”) filled the whole temple. The implication is that the presence of God crowds out everything and leaves room for nothing else. Oh, that the presence of God would so fill our lives that everything of this world would be crowded out of our lives.
· God’s Purity-“Holy, Holy, Holy”. In theology, there is an area of study that deals with “the otherness of God”. Although we are created in the image of God, there are the characteristics and virtues of Him that distinguish Him from all of creation. One of those characteristics that distinguish Him from us, that is part of His “otherness”, is His holiness.
"Otherness gives us a sense that God is so pure, matchless and unique that no one else and nothing else even comes close. He is altogether glorious—unequalled in splendor and unrivalled in power. He is beyond the grasp of human reason—far above the reach of even the loftiest scientific mind. He is inexhaustible, immeasurable and unfathomable—eternal, immortal and invisible. The highest mountain peaks and the deepest canyon depths are just tiny echoes of His proclaimed greatness. And the blazing stars above, the faintest emblems of the full measure of His glory (Matt Redman)”.
· God’s Providence-“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts”. The Hebrew word for “hosts” is “saba”.
The plural of “saba” is “sabaot” or “sabaoth”. In the hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”, Martin Luther wrote these words:
“Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing:
Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.”
“Saba” is a military term and is defined in English as “army”. “Sabaot(h)” is the plural of “saba” and is translated “armies”. When Isaiah refers to God as the “Lord of hosts”, “hosts” refers specifically to all the angelic armies of heaven. This name denotes His universal sovereignty and that he is the King of all heaven and earth.
· God’s Presence-“the whole earth is full of His glory”. God is omnipresent, that is, He is present everywhere. We cannot run from God. We can only run to Him. If we run to the east, He is there. If we run to the west, He is there. Whenever we try to run from Him, we will always find Him already there.
Then Isaiah says, "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said, ‘Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven’."
When Isaiah comes into the presence of God, he is convicted of his sin and the sins of his people. After his confession and repentance, he is then purged and cleansed of his sin and his sin is forgiven.
What Isaiah discovered was that even though he had a wonderful encounter with God, he was also convicted of the sin in his life. He discovers this principle: the closer one gets to the holiness of God, the more sin is exposed in a person’s life. This worship experience of Isaiah was truly a high point of his life, yet, it also led to the discovery of his own sinfulness. And so also for us: when we worship, we can receive great joy as a result of being in the presence of God, but we must also be mindful that true worship in God’s presence will result in our realization that we fall so short of His glory. Worship that assists us in obtaining a deeper understanding of the “Lord of hosts” will result in our confession and repentance of sin in our lives.
After all of this, Isaiah is spiritually ready to hear:
· God’s Plea- “Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" I love what Oswald Chambers (“My Utmost For His Highest”) says about this:
“God did not direct His call to Isaiah— Isaiah overheard God saying, ". . . who will go for Us?" The call of God is not just for a select few but for everyone. Whether I hear God’s call or not depends on the condition of my ears, and exactly what I hear depends upon my spiritual attitude. "Many are called, but few are chosen" That is, few prove that they are the chosen ones. The chosen ones are those who have come into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ and have had their spiritual condition changed and their ears opened. Then they hear "the voice of the Lord" continually asking, "...who will go for Us?" However, God doesn’t single out someone and say, "Now, you go." He did not force His will on Isaiah. Isaiah was in the presence of God, and he overheard the call. His response, performed in complete freedom, could only be to say, "Here am I! Send me."
Remove the thought from your mind of expecting God to come to force you or to plead with you. When our Lord called His disciples, He did it without irresistible pressure from the outside. The quiet, yet passionate, insistence of His "Follow Me" was spoken to men whose every sense was receptive (Matthew 4:19). If we will allow the Holy Spirit to bring us face to face with God, we too will hear what Isaiah heard-"the voice of the Lord." In perfect freedom we too will say, here am I! Send me." (January 16, updated version by James Reimann).
And now we see the climax of worship and the proper response to worship: obedience. The worship experience is not complete until there is obedience.
And, so it is, that in our deepest hour of crisis or in our times of sorrow, such as happened to Isaiah, that we can also experience a deeper understanding of God through our worship of Him.
Kenny
