Encounters with God is a sermon series about the theophanies or divine appearances and how they reveal the stunning character of God and his heart for a world that is lost without him.

Isaiah has a vision of God, high and lifted up, and is confronted by the holiness of God. A supremely holy God can seem like a threat to people who struggle with sin. But surprisingly, holiness is both the reason God is able to save us and is the future for all people in Christ. Recorded on Dec 12, 2021, on Isaiah 6, by Pastor David Parks.

Sermon Transcript

All year, we’re talking about The Greatness of God. And today, we’re continuing a sermon series called Encounters with God. In the Bible, when God appears to someone it’s known as a theophany or divine appearing. And these encounters are wild stories, God never seems to act how we would expect. But these appearances reveal the stunning character of God, and his heart to save a world that is lost without him. Well today, we’ll consider the surprising encounter with God and the prophet Isaiah. In this theophany, at first, the vision of God as high and lifted up is quite terrifying because of the holiness of God. But then we realize, with Isaiah, that the holiness of God is not only wonderful but is also tied directly to the very purpose of the church, to our purpose/mission today. It’s a story of surprisingly good news. If you have a Bible/app, please open to Isaiah 6:1.

Isaiah 6:1-5 (NIV), “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” 4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. 5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.””

Let’s pause here. So Isaiah goes into the temple and who should he find there, but the Almighty God himself, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the Lord of hosts. Have you ever been surprised at church by the presence of God? Sometimes during worship, I just get this sense of awe and power at the presence of God. But probably not exactly to this degree. Isaiah finds himself transported into the throne room of heaven where the Lord is seated on a throne like a king, high and lifted up. Now, sometimes dates are difficult to determine in the Bible, but we actually know that it was the year 742 BC when King Uzziah died. Isaiah lived during a time of extreme uncertainty with the threat of war/violence all around the nation of Judah. [Map slide] During this time, the northern kingdom of Israel had fallen to the Assyrian Empire, so the most powerful empire in the world was literally on its doorstep. This would’ve been terrifying because the Assyrians were the first civilization in history to have a professional army, not just a collection of local militia’s. As a result, for about 300 years, the Assyrians conquered everybody. Because this was a time of exile for the people of ancient Israel and Judah, there were many prophets at work during this time. Similar to the time of the Exodus, God was speaking a lot during the time of the exile so that his people wouldn’t miss why all this was happening. Other prophets who were active at this time include Jonah and Hosea in the northern kingdom of Israel and Micah and Isaiah in the southern kingdom of Judah. One more history nerd fact: the ancient Greek poet, Homer,