Isaiah 6:1-8, “Now that this coal has touched your lips, your guilt has departed!”
Today’s text comes from Isaiah 6: 1-8, which is a vision of Isaiah seeing Heaven open and seeing an awesome and majestic God, high and exalted, on His heavenly throne. Simply put, Isaiah was taken up in God’s Holy presence.
At this point, we will focus on where Isaiah saw his vision; he was in the temple, as we can read in vs. 1, “… His (God’s) train of robe filled the temple.” Isaiah was at the temple, focusing on God. Many people nowadays are not experiencing God, let alone seeing vision, hearing God, or feeling God’s presence intimately. Is God dead in our days and times? Is that why many people no longer experience God?
Aggie, Catherine, and I recently went on a ten-day reformation tour. We took Eurail from Germany, France, Switzerland, and England. On these trains, we met many people, young and old. Whenever I had a chance, I asked them if they believed in Jesus. A very otherwise kind, helpful, and informative young people, almost all of them said they were atheists. The land of Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and John Wesley, where the waves of reformation were strong and powerful, where the revival of Methodism swept the nation, reforming every fiber of societies in England, the churches or cathedrals of these lands are being empty of worshippers nowadays; instead, so many tourists taking pictures filling places which once were worshipping places. Every street is filled with people sitting in pubs, eating and drinking. It didn’t matter what day of the week; it was difficult to eat without making reservations. I wondered, ‘Do any of these people go to Wednesday night worship or Bible study, or do they go to church on Sunday to worship?’ If the streets are empty of worshippers, in its places, atheists are filling in.
When we went to Oxford, we saw a street evangelist preaching, “God is alive. Jesus is the savior of the world. Many professors at Oxford tried to prove that God doesn’t exist, but they failed….” I was almost tearful hearing God’s message in the middle of the streets of Oxford University. We enthusiastically responded, “Amen,” “Hallelujah.” I felt refreshed after that worship moment.
Do you wonder why you do not hear God, see visions of God, or feel the presence of God often enough? Perhaps you might not be aware of God’s talking to you through the Bible, people, or even audibly. Or perhaps your focus is not on God, busy and distracted by so many things of the world? Do you feel that you cannot seem to read the Bible? Even if you look for something else to read to kill time, you rarely read the Bible, even if your heart knows you need to read the Bible. Then, that tells you that your focus is not on God; there is not much room for God in your heart, being busy and distracted by the things of the world. God can be found by those who seek God and focus on God. God speaks to those who are ready to listen and whose focus is on God.
Some people treat God so lightly, as something to get over with. I met a patient who nodded when asked if she wanted a prayer. However, she answered the phone when I was about to pray; she told me to go ahead and pray while she was talking so that she could “get it over with.” I felt so insulted on behalf of God. I told her, “I will pray when you are ready,” and I immediately left the room. Do you want to have a relationship with God intimately? Do you want your prayers to be answered? Do you want to hear God? You need to focus on God; your life should be at the “temple,” focusing on God. I am sure you know that “temple” here doesn’t necessarily mean the building, but the “temple” in your heart where you can meet God.
Secondly, when we truly meet God, we realize how sinful and inept we are in His presence. In verse 5, Isaiah cried out, “Woe is me. I am lost (ruined). For I am a man of unclean lips…” We already know that Isaiah was at the temple. He did not cry out that he was a sinner when he was at the temple. He realized and cried out that he was ruined only when he was in the presence of God by encountering God. Isaiah was a religious man, chosen by God to be a prophet. Yet, until that moment, he was caught up in the presence of God; he did not realize that he was a sinner deserving of death. Only after Isaiah encountered God in God’s presence did he realize he was a ruined, a lost man. Many people do not know that they are sinners. That is why they have problems with preachings of repentance and sins. I have been told to preach messages of hope instead of beating down on people when I was preaching messages of hope. The message of hope can be felt only after we realize that we are sinners and are rescued by God of our salvation. Isaiah, with all his religiosity and religious activities, didn’t know that he was ruined and lost until he met God in the true sense of the word.
I was like that, too. I was a very religious person from early on. I dedicated my life to God when I was twelve. I prayed more than most people I knew, except for my parents. I fasted from time to time in my junior and high school years. After I became a missionary professor, I gave all I had or earned in scholarships and helping others. I was super arrogant, judging and criticizing those who were not like me. I knew I was a sinner, but I also thought I was more righteous than those people I pointed my finger at. God could not put up with me any longer; He pulled me out of the mission field, taking everything away from me, –my job, position, status, and reputation, and putting me in the refiner’s fire instead. During that time, God showed my heart, which was dead, putrefied, and rotten, with brownish, gray, and greenish colors. At the same time, God showed me Jesus’ heart, a brilliant fuchsia color, twinkling with light, living, and beautiful. I got the powerful impression from what I saw that if my heart is not transplanted with the heart of Jesus, I will be a dead person forever. I couldn’t stop crying then and asked God to help me. From then on, whenever I hear about “sinners” or “repentance,” I automatically identify with and apply it to myself with tears and thanksgiving. To me, the message of repentance and God calling sinners is the most vital message of hope. If I do not hear the message of salvation through repentance, being covered by the blood of Jesus Christ, and being forgiven, my heart does not respond. Have you met God? Do you know that you are a sinner, in need of Christ’s blood until you go to heaven?
This brings us to the last point. We need Christ’s blood to have eternal hope of salvation. When Isaiah cried out in desperation, a Seraph brought a “live coal” from the altar, touched his lips, and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” We must note here that this “live coal” was taken from the altar of incense, which was standing in front of the holy of holies in the Tabernacle, where the burning coals should always be present. This altar of incense is made of acacia wood, which is covered with gold. Acacia wood symbolizes the humanity of Jesus and the gold of His divinity. Also, the burning coals were from the altar where the sacrificial animal was to be burnt in the outer court of the Tabernacle. In other words, typologically speaking, through the sacrifice of Jesus, our sins are purged, and all our impurities are taken away. Only through Jesus can we stand in the presence of God. Jesus is the only way for us to approach God.
Unless we are touched by the blood of Jesus washing away our sins, our hearts remain unclean, evil, and deadly. Only when the live coal from the altar of God touched Isaiah’s lips were his sins atoned for. In the Jewish context, “lips” mean “heart,” as we read in Matthew 15:18, “But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart…” Only after Isaiah was purged of his sins was he able to hear God’s voice clearly, having the ears of God, heart, and mouth of God, being a messenger of God. When our hearts are defiled and uncleaned, we cannot see people as God sees them. In God’s eyes, all of us are the same, being created in the image of God, regardless. God does not see or discriminate against people based on what they have or do not have, as sinful humans do. In God’s eyes, a person’s soul is worth more than the whole wide world, no matter who and what they are. When we are merciful after God’s heart toward people, we can find mercy in God. We need the Holy Spirit to convict our sins, seeing the need for Christ’s blood to purge our sins so that we can be sent to those we need to rescue. Come Holy Spirit, we need you! Amen!