Holy Lord, His Glory Thunders

Well, what a joy and an honor it is to be able to be here this morning and welcome Pastor Casey back. Such a great thing that you're here, and a tremendous opportunity — for me to be able to preach today — and I hope to do it honor and to be able to, as it was said in prayer, to be able to edify you this morning. Turn in your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 6 if not already there, as it was read this morning. And then when you go there, put a marker there and then flip over to 2 Chronicles 26. So first go to Isaiah 6, and then mark that, and then flip over to 2 Chronicles chapter 26.

The reason for that, for 2 Chronicles, is because that's the historical context of where Isaiah is at this particular time of this revelation that he's experiencing. The title for this sermon is "Holy Lord, His Glory Thunders." As a former artilleryman, I had to keep the word "thunder" in the title, and we'll see how that applies here in a second. It's not a stretch. It's in the text, and I just love the thunder in this text as it is revealed to Isaiah. "Holy Lord, His Glory Thunders." And the takeaway that we're going to be getting today is that God makes the unholy become holy, and it is the miracle of miracles. As we will see and reflect upon our own hearts, God makes the unholy become holy, and it is the miracle of miracles.

In this first verse in Isaiah 6, you'll remember as you're in 2 Chronicles 26 about King Uzziah — "In the year that King Uzziah died." Well, a little quick history lesson. The kingdom was united under King David and his son Solomon. King Solomon died around 930 BC. And then when the kingdom got divided, there were prophets in both the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom of Judah. Isaiah was the first major prophet that was predominantly assigned to Judah, which didn't come until King Uzziah died around that time period.

So up until this time, when Solomon died, there was about 55 years in the northern kingdom where there was bad king after bad king after bad king. And then we read in 1 Kings chapter 17 that God gives the prophet Elijah — and so that is in the year 874 BC. So 930 BC is when King Solomon died, and 874 BC was when God provided the prophet Elijah on the scene. So it's bad king after bad king after bad king — enter Elijah. And if you want to read just a mic-drop moment of the Scriptures, read 1 Kings 12 through 16, and you'll get so discouraged, so discouraged, and then you come to 1 Kings 17 and you're like, all right, we have hope — we have the prophetic word where God's going to reveal His word through the prophet Elijah. And that was in the northern kingdom of Israel, and that was in 874 BC.

So from 874 BC to when King Uzziah died in 740 BC, God gave the nation — and the northern kingdom of Israel — prophets: He gave them Obadiah, He gave them Jonah, we read about Jonah and his book. God gave the northern kingdom Amos, and at the same time as Isaiah, God gave the northern kingdom of Israel Hosea. And it was around that time when Isaiah was the prophet to both Judah and the northern kingdom, but predominantly assigned to Judah.

King Uzziah was the king of Judah — you might know the date 722 BC — and so as Isaiah was prophesying throughout his whole book, the northern kingdom was on the brink of being taken over and going down to Assyria. And then in the southern kingdom, you had a good king for 52 years in King Uzziah. And when he died, there was a crisis of sovereignty. Imagine: 52 years, and the majority of his reign was a good, God-fearing time. So if you look at 2 Chronicles chapter 26, you can kind of see the historical context of Isaiah there, where there's a summary of King Uzziah's reign with Judah. And at the end of chapter 26, you see Isaiah referenced in verse 22, where it reads in 2 Chronicles 26:22, "Now the rest of the acts of Uzziah, first to last, the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz has written." And that's referring to a separate account that's not in the canon, but I just want to give you the context of Isaiah and where he is in relation to King Uzziah.

And about how there's this crisis of sovereignty — the northern kingdom is getting to the brink of being taken over, their sister-sibling nation that has never really gotten together, has strayed from the Lord, has gotten prophet after prophet after prophet with Amos and Obadiah and Elijah and Jonah, and the northern kingdom just isn't getting together and getting back in alignment with God. And so here we have a point at the end where King Uzziah had pride, and God inflicted leprosy right there in the temple — if you read in 2 Chronicles 26, which we're not going to get into — and then later he died. And so a nation became extremely vulnerable at this particular time. I just can't highlight that enough.

So in this God-ordained time, God unveiled His throne to Isaiah, showcasing His kingship. So now flip back over to Isaiah chapter 6, and we'll start here. I'm going to have three divisions for this particular passage, predominantly talking about our memory verse from February — Isaiah 6:3. So we're going to break it up into three divisions. The first one will be "Holy, Holy, Holy." The second division will be "Lord of Hosts." And the third division will be the remaining part of verse 3.

So starting off with the first division, read with me the verses leading up to that point. In verse 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. 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. And one called out to another and said, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.'"

So this first division — "Holy, holy, holy." I want to stop there for a second and just think about the gravity of this one word repeated three times. There's so much to say about this that we're not going to get into, so I want to have that disclaimer, because we're going to focus on the understanding of this word: holy.

The primary meaning of holy is the word "separate." And so you can almost substitute the word "separate, separate, separate," acknowledging that the Creator is different from the creation. It is the acknowledgment by the heavenly host — "holy, holy, holy" — that He is the separate one, He is the most separate of all.

What is being separated? What's interesting is that this world wants to shout the exact opposite. This fallen world, in its nature, wants to shout "unity, unity, unity" while at the same time profaning what is sacred. How unbiblical and unholy is that? We must be fighting against this and pressing on to understanding who God is in His holiness. He is unity — without God, unity is temporary. But He is sovereign, He is love, He is mercy, He is pure, He is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. He is King, and this is across all space and across all time. And in that, He is separate. He is holy.

God is separate from everything besides Himself. On day one of creation, He separated the light — which was good — He separated the light from the darkness. This separation of creation God called good on day one. So it's not like, when we think about God being holy and God being separate, that it's a bad thing. There is a good thing in the separation between God and creation.

Before creation, there was no separation — God was eternal, He was unified within the three persons of the Godhead. "Apart from God nothing came into being that has come into being." I'll say that again: apart from God, nothing came into being that has come into being. And then later in that Scripture I'm pulling from, it says, "He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him." That sound familiar? It's taken from John chapter 1, verses 3 and 10.

In this context of knowing who God is, knowing about His holiness, and everything that entails — John 1, and the first half of John 1, you could just sit and relish and just reflect on those words. I would highlight John chapter 1 for you. Later on it goes and says in verse 11 of John 1, "He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him."

All throughout the Bible we see where God makes the unholy become holy. And here in chapter 6 there happens to be a confrontation of this holiness. We see the confrontation of the holy — where Isaiah has been revealed to this throne, and now there is a confrontation of the holy. So that leads to the first main truth: the holy exposes my unholiness.

The Lord exposes my unholiness. Last week we preached on John chapter 8 from verse 31 forward, and in verse 35 — I want to highlight that verse — is when our Lord says to His disciples there, "Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin." Hands up: anyone who has freely willed to remain holy in their life? Anyone? I want us to understand that we have an unholiness about who we are. We're not just pretty good. We're not just — "God understands us, so welcome the unholy into the holy." No. He is holy, holy, holy. The unholy does not belong in the holy. And so Jesus is teaching there in John chapter 8, "Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin." And so since all men commit sin, all are enslaved to sin and need a Savior — and only God is qualified to be that Savior.

So this idea of the holy exposing the unholiness: by personal experience and application of this particular truth, there are two times where this just screams at me. On my wedding day, when I was sitting in the front and the bride comes — when Rebecca came walking down the aisle, pure white — I was confronted with the holy. It's not that Rebecca is holy; Rebecca is a sinner just like I am. But it's a holy, sacred act, and I, being unholy, am being confronted with the holy. And so there needs to be a change right there. There needs to be a response to that confrontation that God has given these things in our lives to bring about change.

A second time that screams at me — and actually, a second time multiplied by four — is the birth of my children. The holiness, the sacredness of being able to hold your child: you're confronted with the holy, you're confronted with the innocent, you're confronted with the pure. And the unholy is holding this. And I'm just like, there — there needs to be a change right there. There is a change. And so there's a realization that a change needs to occur. There is something wrong with my unholy.

And if for some reason you say, "Yeah, I'm not going to raise my hand because I'm not — I'm not holy, but deep inside I'm like, yeah, but I'm a pretty good person" — no. Think about those times that you have had where, whether or not it's the times that I have said, you have been confronted with the sacred, confronted with something that is pure. And hopefully every Sunday here when we preach the Word, you are confronted with the holy. So this is one of the benefits of being in church. And so I ask you today: have you been changed recently after being confronted with the holy?

The holy exposes my unholiness. This is a biblical pattern that we see all throughout the Bible. When the confrontation of the holy happens — this is why the writer of Proverbs says in Proverbs 9:10, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." When you're confronted with the holy, you need to have a fear and a reverence, to be able to realize that you need to go forth and step forward in faith and have a change. The change needs to occur: from the unholy to realize that you need to be holy and to make steps in that direction.

And so also, in our fleshly state, since we've all committed sin, without Christ we are held in bondage. The unholy makes us feel comfortable, doesn't it? The absence of the holy makes us feel comfortable. I'll give you a couple of examples. When you watch TV or a video and a comedian is profaning everything left and right — everything that is sacred — a comedian just makes jokes about it left and right. Hey, my flesh feels pretty comfortable in that, doesn't it? You want to laugh, you want to have a good time, because what you know is sacred is now being profaned, and so now you can feel comfortable in this unholiness.

Another way where the unholy makes us feel comfortable is when you, or you hear someone else, shout out God's name casually. Even if you're joking around at church and you slip in the word "Jesus" or the name of God casually, you are in essence saying, "I'm the boss here, and I'm going to use God's name in a lower scenario" — so that everyone else knows and everyone can feel comfortable in the unholiness of this statement — and then laugh, laugh, laugh, or whatever the case may be. When you take the name of God casually, all of a sudden you feel comfortable, and that person feels comfortable, and we can all be unified in that unholiness. You see how quickly that can happen and we can remain in our unholiness. So that's a little glimpse of the weightiness of these three words of God being "holy, holy, holy."

This second division gets into the name of God. Speaking of God's name, let's hone in on "the Lord of hosts." So I'll read again the verse here for this second division: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory."

The name "Lord" is the most frequent name that the Bible uses to name who God is, and I would say that it is the most frequently misunderstood name. Even though it is the most frequent name all throughout the Bible — I believe the Blue Letter Bible has it at somewhere between five thousand and six thousand times that the name Lord is mentioned from Genesis to Revelation — it is a lofty title. And in our American culture, where we have freedom for the individual — not that that's wrong — but the focus and mindset of that steers our theology in a different direction on what we think about what a Lord is. We have a love of self, we even have a love of community, we want to have unity with our neighbors, but we don't really understand the name "Lord" in this context. We miss the gravity of that name, don't we?

This name "Lord" in this context also means Jehovah, and Jehovah is the existing one. I love that — He's the existing one. Refer back to John 1 to just unveil what that means. In the Septuagint — in Isaiah, the Septuagint translates the Hebrew into Greek — it has the word here Kyrios, and Kyrios is "master," emphasizing the power of God, simply present at all times.

Now, still in Isaiah, flip over to Isaiah chapter 46. I love reading this, seeing it in the Bible. It doesn't get taught, it doesn't get preached, but I want to relish this passage here. Isaiah 46:9–10 — well, start in verse 8: "Remember this, and be assured; recall it to mind, you transgressors." Back to verse 9: "Remember the former things long past, for I am God and there is no other; I am God and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, 'My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure.'"

God is transcendent. Transcendent — if you think about the prefix "trans," meaning "across" — to climb across is in essence what transcendent means: to go above and beyond a certain limit. It emphasizes the supremacy and the greatness of God. And in this text — "My purpose will be established" — why is that the case? Because He's transcendent. There's nothing and no one, no being, no force, nothing that can thwart the power of God. And for His purpose, He says, "I will accomplish all My good pleasure." That is what transcendent means.

Another verse — I won't have you go there, maybe just flip back over to Isaiah 6 and reflect on the verse that we're talking about — but in Romans 11:36, it's a wonderful verse. It's at the end of Romans, where it ends the teaching, the doctrinal section, where the Apostle Paul through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit has built this case of truth for Romans 1 through 11. And the verse reads, "For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen." That's Romans 11:36.

I can't help but share a quote from someone whom I admire. His name is H.B. Charles. He's a pastor up in Jacksonville, Florida, a couple of hours from here. He says about Romans 11:36: "I want you to understand the scope of God's greatness. This is the story of your life in one sentence. God is the first cause, the efficient cause, and the final cause of all things. He's the source, the sustainer, and the significance of all things. He's the source and the force and the course of all things. He's the originator of all things. He perpetuates all things. He terminates all things. He's the foundation of all things, the being of all things, the purpose of all things. He's the Alpha and the Omega and every letter in between." Amen.

"From Him and through Him and to Him are all things." We need to know our place, don't we?

This is the God whom we must preach.

This is Lord Yahweh, Jehovah, the existing one. When we have a God-centered theology and not a man-centered theology, this is the God — this is where we start to share the gospel, with the truth of who God is. It starts out with, "Let me tell you about God, the Lord, the existing one." And it's like, it doesn't matter if you believe it or not — He's the existing one.

If we get this right — a true understanding of who God is, Him being the Lord of hosts — if we get this right, the other doctrines should fall into place, should they not? Because He is holy. And when confronted with the unholy, well, we see our sin, we see our need for a Savior, and we see the need for the response of faith. There needs to be a change.

So we need to start here with understanding the Lord of hosts.

And if we get this wrong, well, we're going to get sin wrong, we're going to get our unholiness wrong, we're going to think we're pretty good, we're not really going to recognize our need for a Savior, we're going to see more of the humanity and dethrone the deity of Christ. We're going to see all kinds of different manifestations of faith.

It starts here with understanding who God is. This is the God we must preach. "For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things."

The Lord of hosts — the word "host" is explored in Luke 2, over Christmas, when the multitude of the heavenly host — or you could say, the heavenly armies — appeared with the single angel who announced to the shepherds about the Savior who would be born. And what did the angel say that this Savior was?

The angel said, "Christ the Lord."

Christ the Lord. He was announced before He was even born, Him being the Lord. The Master. Christ the existing one. Christ the Alpha and the Omega. He is the Lord of hosts. Like I said earlier, another word for "host" is "army." And so He is the Lord of armies, as some translations say. He is Master of armies, He is King of kings and Lord of lords.

Which leads us to the second truth in the second division: all lords must answer to the Lord of lords.

All lords must answer to the Lord of lords.

One of the most sobering things that I enjoy — but I don't do often enough — is walking through a cemetery.

This coming Saturday, after we have our men's breakfast, we're going to walk over there and try to help improve it in different ways. But when you walk through a cemetery,

you are confronted with something that is the consequence of being unholy —

with the reality of things. And when I think about this, I often think as I'm walking through a cemetery, "Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling." Because that's going to happen to all of us. And the reality of that sinks in. All throughout the Bible we're confronted with the either-or. And we have the whole Bible now to help us interpret what that means. It's not either "you obey Me" or "you perish" — no, it's: you are either in Christ, or you're not.

And that is extremely, extremely important. So I ask you the question: have you trusted in Christ to cover your sins? Or are you putting your trust in your own works?

Even when you profess Christ and you acknowledge, as you're going forward and conforming yourself to Christ — are you always going back to Him? Or are you looking in the mirror and saying, "I'm not so bad"?

We need to understand that when we confront the holy, we see how unholy we are and our need for Christ — for Jesus and the work that He has accomplished. Paul Washer was known to say:

"A believer is not someone who merely intellectually believes in Jesus — the devil intellectually believes in Jesus. A believer is someone who has fallen upon Christ and trusts in Him alone for salvation."

Yes, our acts and our sanctification give evidence for our justification — it's not the cause of it. As we're going through our sanctification, we need to be reminded of that. Even those who have been walking with Christ for 50-plus years need to be reminded of that, even if you're on day one or if you're lost.

It is God who declares, by His sovereign, electing grace — which is the miracle of miracles — where He makes the unholy holy.

By His sovereign, electing grace, this happens.

And so I genuinely call you this day to turn to Him —

and even if you're not in alignment with Him today,

you could be singing the song that we sang earlier this morning — "As the deer pants for the water" — but maybe you're holding back, and maybe you're like, "Well, I'm not fully in with Christ because of this sin or that sin."

Well, I want to encourage you to call upon His name, come back into alignment with Him, and to trust in Him and His righteousness and everything that He has done. Because He is holy. And not only is He holy and separate, but Christ fulfilled the gap to provide the way, so that those who would believe would come to Him and be made holy.

So I would call you to that for this time. Understand this: when you call upon the name of the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved. Romans 10:9 is not a condition to be met — it's merely stating the fact. It's not a condition that, "Oh, if I believe, then You will cleanse me." No, it's not an Old Testament conditional as we heard a couple of weeks ago with David Parker. We need to understand that it is unconditional — you are not conditioned to do anything — but it's stating the fact that those who believe in the Lord Jesus will be saved.

God will not cast you out when you cast yourself down at His throne, and He will give Himself the glory in doing so, because you will recognize your need to be holy in order to be accepted into the presence of the holy.

It's a one-time justification, it's a regenerate act of God,

but you now live a constant life of repentance — turning away from your unholy sin and turning to the holy Lord of your life.

So the third division that we're going to get into here is the remaining part of this verse. Let me read Isaiah 6:3 again.

"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory."

At first, this phrase called out by the seraphim seems contradictory to the holy, doesn't it? When you think about the holy being separate, but here in the same chant, in the same calling —

He is in the world, He is full of His glory, but He is holy. So you see the seeming contradiction here. How can God be separate and yet the whole earth be full of His glory? Or you may say: how can God allow such suffering and evil, and how does that co-exist with His greatness — and still allow the suffering and everything to occur? How can this earth be full of His glory, and yet we see these things with our own eyes and our own minds?

To answer these questions and to understand what "the whole earth is full of His glory" means, we look to the law.

What did the law do?

It was a boundary, was it not?

Back in Genesis, they had all the trees to eat from — they were able to freely eat, as it says in Genesis 2. God gave them such abundance, but not the one tree — and that was, I would say, a small ask, a small command, relative to the abundance of what God provided. "Don't eat of this one tree, but everything else you can freely, freely eat."

With this law, we can understand God's character, can we not? We can understand how the abundance of the garden was full of His glory. But to understand that, the law gives us a clue on what this means. The law teaches a cosmic lesson: God is holy, and we are not holy.

And God said that it was good when He created us. It's not good that we're unholy — this is the reason why He removed us from the garden — but when God originally created us, He created us in a way where we can have fellowship with Him. And so as we dig more into the law, we later see how God gave the law directly to Moses and the Ten Commandments. So if you want to go there, we can flip over to Exodus chapter 20.

This first commandment in Exodus chapter 20 was taught very well here by Dr. Scott Callahan, who is the Dean of the Institute for Public Theology. What he does at the Institute for Public Theology is the theological education work of Founders Ministries. You can find that sermon if you want to start there — it was on October 15th, 2023. Dr. Scott talked about a lot of things, but he emphasized this first commandment. And I want to highlight it again and point out some of the things he pointed out in the sermon. Because I remember three things I took from that sermon, and they're very important to understand here in the context of what the law is and how this helps us understand that the earth is full of His glory.

In Exodus 20:1–2, it starts out: "Then God spoke all these words, saying, 'I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me.'"

The first point that Dr. Scott made was that this first commandment is not a conditional commandment, but it is merely stating the fact that it is impossible for you — those whom He has delivered out of slavery, out of bondage — it is impossible for you to have other gods. It's just stating that fact, is what Dr. Scott was saying about this verse.

And it was in essence saying, "If you have the Lord, you do not have other gods. And if you have other gods, then you don't have the Lord."

His second point was in the words "before Me." This helped me understand what "before Me" means. It wasn't "before Me" as in having other gods after Me — as if God is some sort of rank in a godness hierarchy, and it's okay to have God two, God three, God four, but just not before Me, as if He's the number one God and it's okay to have others after Him. No. This commandment is talking about "before Me" as in "in the face of Me."

"Before Me, you shall have no other gods" — in the face of Me. And God is omnipresent.

He is omniscient. He knows this inside and out.

And so we are to have no other gods in His face.

And the third point he made was that in this particular commandment, the word "you" is not in the plural form as we sometimes read it, but it is in the singular. And Dr. Scott went and pointed throughout the congregation, and it says, "You shall not make for yourself an idol. You shall not worship them or serve them. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain." And so forth as the commandments continue there in Exodus chapter 20.

That really made it personal.

And so what does God's law have to do with this last phrase here in Isaiah 6:3? Well, the law emphasizes God's glory.

And how does it do that? God knows that we need the law,

because we are prone to seek our own way, to not fall in line with His authority.

Even in salvation, we see professing Christians claim self-deciding victory and impose this incapable burden upon others — that this decision is what saves you. Like what we call here easy-believism. And this is going our own way as far as having this idea of God approving of our behavior, of our actions. We can see that in that way.

There's also this idea of wanting to create something sacred that's not really there. In some worship services, we see emotionalism. There's nothing wrong with having emotion in church. But where there is emotionalism that is chaotic and rampant,

God's glory is not found in self-generated emotion.

It's found in the sacred.

Does that make sense?

When we self-generate our unholy emotion, God is not pleased. But when we emphasize the sacred and have this reverence, the fear of the Lord — okay, now we can begin to worship.

The first thing that God says before He issues out His Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:1, He says, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery."

God wants you to know — and now that we have the holistic Old Testament and New Testament —

God wants us to know that He and He alone delivers His people from the bondage of sin.

Before He gives His law here in the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, He wants us to know: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery."

So all these other commandments reveal what God holds as sacred, which demonstrates how the whole earth is full of His glory. We think about commandment number two — no other idols. There's a pure and righteous way to worship God. You and I must be passionate about things in the same way that God is passionate about things.

You and I — those of us who are regenerate — must continue bending our fallen desires of the flesh and coming into alignment with the desire of the Spirit.

Commandment three is not to take His name in vain, not to misuse His name casually, let alone profanely. And the name is in essence a banner over your life. And when you're using the name of God casually, you're saying, "God, I don't need You as the banner of my life — I'm going to put in, insert whatever banner and name that you want to lift up over your life." You're putting a banner over the unholy and you're lowering your reverence for the holy.

And commandment four — remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

No matter where we are, whether we're in India, Winter Garden, Kentucky, the hospital taking our last breath — God willing in a hospital — or in an alleyway getting beat up against our own will, or receiving praise from men, or in the valleys of Afghanistan — whether it be anywhere on this earth, we spiritually rest in Christ. He is everywhere, He is capable, and He is willing, and He does prepare and give this rest to those who believe, who are in Him. And we must remember Him and keep that holy.

Number five — honor your father and your mother. The Master of Armies created you and me specifically. If you have your senses and you're listening, it means all the things of being a human being — you have a mother and a father. And that is a gracious thing, that you have a mother and a father, every single one of us. God has given us natural, biological authority for us to be able to look up to and model after, whether they're good or bad, whether God has given that to you.

So this goes, in essence, to the fact that God has called authority sacred. That's why we see when people take office, they swear an oath and say, "So help me God." This is a picture of what it means to have that sacred position of authority.

Commandment number six — you shall not murder. How precious is each and every life that we have across the whole earth, along with our bodies, made in the image of God. Number seven — you shall not commit adultery. How wonderful is marriage.

The sacred trust that is in a marriage. And that is all over the earth — the whole earth is full of these marriages. Not everybody, but the whole earth is full of these things that are sacred. Number eight — you shall not steal. So we see how glorious it is to own property. Isn't that a sacred thing? When you have something that God has given to you, you can do what you want with it. That's a very sacred thing. We should not be taking that for granted. Maybe it's land, maybe something that God has given to you. It could be a toy, right? When we think about the things we get at Christmas — wow, like, now this is mine. Or if you get land — there are so many things to help us understand the sacredness of property.

And then commandment number nine — you shall not lie.

Imagine if people were to take their word seriously. The words that come out of our mouth are sacred, are they not? And so when we think about our words, we think about the promises that we make,

we need to be very careful not to lie.

And then commandment number ten — you shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.

It's a wonderful thing to be content with what you have. A wonderful thing to be content and to be happy with what you have, with what God has given to you. That's a sacred thing.

So, feeling convicted yet? When we go over the Ten Commandments, there's a reason for that. I'm coming back around to why God has given us these commandments — because we know we have not measured up. We know we are unholy. And so we need to embrace these things that God has ordained as sacred and understand that the whole earth is full of these sacred things. In God's grace, we are able to witness children being born, marriages happening, property being kept. We are living in a blessed land right now, where we're able to see a lot of these sacred things come to pass.

So here's the comforting news after being convicted by walking through these things and being confronted with the holy through the Ten Commandments.

The main truth for this third division is that God makes the unholy holy.

God makes the unholy holy.

How does God do this today?

He does this using the authority of His own Word.

Being justified is to be declared righteous by His Word. Nobody summons Jehovah's decision to make you holy.

We are incapable of summoning the Lord of lords. We just don't do that. Does that make sense? When we read God's Word, we can understand that. But as a universal call, we can urge you — through the reading and the interpretation and the explanation of God's Word — to come to Him, knowing that it is God and God alone who makes the unholy holy. So we can be comforted by that. Not only is God willing to make the unholy holy, but He paid the cost. It's not like there are conditions to this — it's not like, well, if you do A, B, and C, the Ten Commandments, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, no, no. Just understand that God provided — Jehovah Jireh —

and put your faith in the One who took your place at the judgment seat.

So as we conclude here, we look at what happens to Isaiah after the seraphim recites this. We read the rest of this passage.

The thunderous part.

Isaiah 6:4–7. "And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. 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.'"

And then verse 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. 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.'"

We remember the teaching of Jesus in the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:8. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

But how did Isaiah respond when he saw God? He saw his unholiness. He pronounced judgment upon himself. He said, "Woe is me, for I am ruined." The King James says, "For I am undone."

This is the reaction of a regenerate heart when confronted with the holy.

There's a video that our family likes to watch, as we conclude. I'll just talk about this for a second.

It's a clip by R.C. Sproul. And R.C. Sproul does a very good series on the holiness of God. But he talks about this one phrase which helps us really understand what it means that God makes the unholy holy.

And he talks about one time when he was in class as a seminary professor.

A student raises his hand and asks a question. It's a question about the Lord's Supper. And the student says — you may have heard this — "What's the big deal about bread and wine?

Why can't we just have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Coca-Cola?"

And R.C. Sproul, as he's telling it, says that he was just filled with rage as he responded. He's like, "You want to know why? You want to know why we don't use peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Coca-Cola? He said, because Jesus never consecrated peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Coca-Cola." He's like, "I'm going to kill him," is what he said.

And then he goes on to explain to the class he's lecturing, he says:

"But what does make the bread and wine so special? What makes any moment in history so special?

What makes a piece of real estate become holy ground?

Why is it so special for Noah and Abraham to stop in a particular place and make an altar?

Why do we take something common and make it extraordinary because of its significance?" He says, "It's not because of the intrinsic value of these objects. What makes something sacred, what makes something holy, is the touch of God upon it.

When the One who Himself is other and different

touches that which is ordinary, it becomes extraordinary."

And so may the Lord of hosts touch your heart today,

turn your common life into a sacred life because of what He accomplished. And may the Master of Armies deliver you from bondage as you consider responding to the miracle of miracles — making you go from unholy to holy. And so as we close today, I want to invite you: if you're thinking about membership, this is the time to come forward,

and to reflect. We're going to be standing around today. If you have any questions about the church or anything — how to move forward in your journey with Christ, whether it's joining this church or anything else to exercise your faith — the invitation is open. So let me close in prayer.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of Your glory.

And we praise Your name.

When we are confronted with these things, God,

we are humbled by our unholiness. And we look to You for what You have accomplished. You lived 33 years being surrounded by trees that You were not allowed to touch. The law was great — Adam and Eve just had one tree.

But when You came, the price was great.

You had so many temptations — beyond measure, beyond what any of us can fathom. Yet You conquered and overcame the world, and You remained holy.

And You died and took Your last breath. You were buried.

And those of us who believe in You — our sins are buried with You, as we understand the ordinance of baptism. We look to You and we understand that when You rose from the dead, we can share in this resurrection. We do not accomplish this, but we know that we will go — those of us who believe — from this life into the next, with eternal life.

Thank You, Lord Jesus, for this wonderful gift that You have given to us.

And so as we go about this day, I ask for You to continue to bless us, keep our eyes open, give us opportunities to be confronted with the holy, even though it's the painful truth of what our unholiness looks like. But we know that this unholiness does not remain unholy for those who put their faith in You. And so we thank You for these opportunities, and we ask for continued more. In Jesus' name, amen.