Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Isaiah and the Altar

Episode Date: May 19, 2023

We’re looking at historic accounts of people who had direct encounters with the living God. Isaiah 6 is a seminal passage: all of biblical religion is in here. It tells us so much about what it means to be a Christian and what it means to really meet God. In this passage, Isaiah’s just going to the temple like he’s gone to the temple hundreds of times before. It’s the Sabbath day. He walks into the temple, and the very last person in the whole world he expects to actually see is God. This passage tells us four characteristics of the Christian experience: 1) the reality, 2) the diversity, 3) the beauty, and 4) the festivity. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 24, 1996. Series: Daring to Draw Near. Scripture: Isaiah 6:1-8. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel and Life. Throughout the Bible, we see accounts of people who have had direct extraordinary encounters with God. In today's sermon, Tim Keller is teaching through one of those extraordinary encounters, what happened, and what it means for us today. After you listen, please take a few seconds to rate and review our podcast. Your review can help others to discover our podcast and experience the hope of the gospel.

Now here's today's teaching from Dr. Keller. Isaiah six, verses one through eight. In the year the king of Zion died, I saw the Lord, seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above Him were serifs, each with six wings, and with two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying, and they were calling to one another, holy, holy, holy, is the Lord Almighty. The whole earth is full of His glory, and at the sound of their voices, the doorposts

and the thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke. 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. Then one of the Iveseriffs flew to me with a live colon in his hand, which he had taken with tongues from the altar, with it he touched my mouth, and said, see, this is touched your lips. Your guilt has taken away and you're sinned atoned for." And then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send?

And who will go for us? And I said, hear am I, send me. This is God's Word. Now we're in a series which I've been calling daring to draw near. And in the evening services, what we've been doing is looking at people who had close encounters with God, direct encounters with the living God. You know, spiritual experience is a big deal now. You can walk in in any bookstore and see that.

But what we've been doing is we've been looking at the historic accounts of people who've really met God face to face. Now, most of them are kind of difficult, how do I say it, not difficult? Well, difficult. Most of the passages we've been looking at are not real well known. They tend to be a little bit enigmatic. They tend to be somewhat difficult to read. They're not very well known.

This is not the case here. And I had to make a decision. I had to either say, wow, I say a six. If you've been around here, you know that I refer to it a lot. I can't help it. You know, I've preached on it before. I can't help it. This is a seminal passage.

I mean, all of biblical religion is in here. I mean, every verse. No, every phrase, in some cases, every word can be a point to a sermon or a sermon. I mean, it would be extremely easy, and in fact, it would probably be more responsible to do what I am doing, would be to go through and say, there is so much, all of biblical religion can be broken out of here. It's amazing, and it is a terrific map for Christian experience. It tells you so much about what it means to be a Christian, and what it means to really

meet God God and the marks of real Christian experience, not just what you're supposed to believe as a Christian, how you're supposed to live, but what does it mean to have a Christian experience? What does it mean to actually experience God? Boy, there's nothing like this verse of this passage. Now, rather than break it all down, what I've just decided to do is give you an overview, sort of fly over it. And some of you know that you'll see verses and when the sermon's over, you'll say, why didn't he talk anything

about that? Well, because this is just too rich. I can't get to it all tonight. But what I'd like to do is as I stood back and looked at this, I said, what does this tell me about real experience of God? And I saw, let's see, one, two, three, four, unfortunately, five. There's five things that I like to note here. Five observations I like to make. This tells us about the reality, the diversity, the beauty, the humility, and the festivity of Christian experience. Got that?

The reality, the diversity, the beauty, the humility, and the festivity in order right through the passage. And unless these are characteristics of all Christian experience. Here, first of all, let's just go over it. We're flying over this like a helicopter. I've been finding this is a good way to do things this year. First of all, the reality. In the year the King as I had died, I saw. Now, this won't be a long point I don't think, and this might be kind of basic, but one of my

old pastors, one of my old mentors who died this year was Jack Miller, and Jack Miller has a great little talk on Isaiah 6. And he says the reason that Isaiah, one of the reasons that Isaiah was so absolutely astounded, one of the reasons that Isaiah was so absolutely knocked to the ground by this is that like most any Ezra Israelites, in fact almost any religious person, he was going to the temple. Like he'd gone to the temple, dozens and dozens and hundreds of times in his life. It was the Sabbath day, he was going up to the temple. Like he'd go on to the temple, dozens and dozens and hundreds of times in his life. It was the Sabbath day he was going up to the temple. And so he walked into the temple and like almost anybody who goes to the temple, anybody

who goes to church, anybody who goes to sinning, anybody who goes, you know, like anybody else, he walked in and the very last person in the whole world he expected to actually see was God. See, he saw. I mean, he'd always experienced, he'd always, you know, felt the presence of God. He'd always been inspired very often. But one day, he came in and he saw. Now, the Bible continually tells us that Christianity is not simply about rules and regulations and beliefs, it's about tasting that the Lord is good, seeing God, knowing God, that's not knowing about Him.

And the little word saw means Isaiah moved from knowing about God to knowing God this day. Isaiah moved from saying his prayers to praying. Isaiah moved from being a nominal believer to being a real believer. He saw God. It shocked him. Now what does this mean? Just this. And actually, if any of you, we know that a certain percentage of you are come back in

the evening and you were in the morning, so some of you came to the morning service. And in the morning service, we were looking at the place where Jesus throws the money changers and the animal sellers out of the temple precincts because He says, my house should be a house of prayer. And he says, because of all the cacophony, all the clamor of buying and selling and offering up the animals, nobody's praying. In other words, it's become mechanical, it's become religious, it's become busy. And nobody's actually meeting God.

You're going to temple, you're not seeing God. You're going to church and you're not actually meeting God. You're going to temple and you're not seeing God. You're going to church and you're not actually touching God. And it reminds me of Mary and Martha. And I want to remind you of Mary and Martha. Mary and Martha were two friends of Jesus and Jesus came to stay with him. And right away Martha says, oh my goodness, I have to serve Jesus. And so what should she do? You read about this at the end of Luke chapter 10.

It's a great little story. And all we know about it is that Martha started going running around, running around their house. Frantic. There was so much to do. Jesus is here. I've got to go shop. I've got to go, I've got to cook.

I've got to clean up. And she was running around, that's Martha. Serving Jesus, of course, being very busy for Jesus, doing all these things in Jesus' name. And Mary was sitting right at Jesus' feet, looking up. We're told she sat there and she communed with him. She listened to him. Her face was lifted up toward him.

She beameded him and he beamed at her. And at one point Martha runs by, I guess, the living room, you know, and there's Jesus and Mary in the den sitting there, and she's pretty perturbed. And she looks at it and she says, Lord, will you tell my sister to start serving you? And Jesus says Martha, she is. In fact, he says Martha Martha, you are troubled by many things, what Mary has chosen the best part. This is what he's saying, Martha, you've let your religion squeeze out knowing God.

You are so busy. You have so much that you're doing. And you are doing everything in my name. But beneath all the religiosity, you're not actually seeing me. You're not actually knowing me. You're not actually feeling me. You're not actually contacting me. And so I need to start right off.

In other words, the first point tonight is actually what's the last point this morning, but it went by pretty briefly. So even if you were here, I don't mind saying it again. This is saying that the reason Jesus Christ died on the cross, the reason He went to all that agony, was really not so much so that you could run programs, not so much that you could go to meetings, not so much that you could do all your religious duties. You know, people without Jesus Christ dying, people have been doing their religious duties

and they have been doing their disciplines and they've been fasting and they've been, you know, and been trying to obey and they've been trying to obey all the rules and they've been trying to help hurting people and they've been going to meetings and they've been doing that for you. You know, Jesus Christ didn't die for you to do that.

You can do that without Jesus Christ dying. The one thing that Jesus Christ died for was so that you could have access to God, so that you could see Him, so that you could come into His presence and not be consumed. That's the whole point of Jesus' death. Jesus says to Martha Martha, Mary's doing the one thing that I really came to have with you. Mary's sees me, feels me, you know? She knows me, she has access to me. Christianity is an experience.

It's not just an experience, but it's not less than that. And I think you have to ask yourself, you might be very proud of how much you know your doctrine, you might know your Bible very well. You might have a great deal of, you might have quite a record of ministry experience. You might have been in many, many churches. You might really feel kind of good about that. You may look around and say, oh, these other people, they don't have their act together

biblically. You also may really be a pretty clean living person. And you may have a very spotless record. But you see, so what? Martha, that's Martha's stuff. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't do those things. The point is, do you see him? Do you actually know him?

How's your prayer life? Are you connecting with him? Is there a tremendous joy that you draw on every day or fairly often that just leads you out into the rest of the day and enables you to face life? You see, is your daily Christian behavior the overflow of an already filled cup. Or is it actually a response to an emptiness? Are you doing it to convince yourself that God must like me?

Look at how busy I am. Look at all the things I'm doing for him. See, all of your business and behavior can be a response to a lack of knowing him. It can be a response to an emptiness, to a lack of experience. Instead of the response to the presence of the experience and to the overflowing, the bubbling of it, the reality of Christian experience.

One day Isaiah came to church and he couldn't believe it, he actually saw him. Every single time you sit down to pray, every single time you come to church, you ought to be asking for the same thing. You should be after it. You should be saying, well, I'm here. It's another Sunday I'm doing my duty. God better be good to me. I'm trying to get into that.

I'm trying to do that. I'm trying to get this high-come-to-church. I'm expecting these things. So you're making worship a means to an end. Come on Martha. Be Mary. Now, isn't that what he said? Secondly, this is something pretty interesting and it's really very, very different. I would like to show you one of the things we learn in here is the

diversity of Christian experience. We've seen the reality now that diversity and you know, now diversity is an inward and so you know it's a positive word, everybody likes diversity, but actually the diversity I'm talking about isn't really at all like the kind of diversity that the word now a day means. But here's what I mean by that. Isaiah's call to ministry, Isaiah's experience is really, in many ways, extremely different

than Jeremiah's. Isaiah comes in and he gets this amazingly lofty and majestic experience of God. He says, I saw the Lord. Now look, seated on a throne, high and lifted up. I'm sorry. Some of you may have noticed that as I read this new international version, I find myself going back to the words of the authorize the King James version, which are kind of etched in my heart like in stone. I saw the Lord, seated on a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. This exalted, he's high.

See Isaiah thought of God as really being kind of a buddy. I'll tell you why in a minute. He thought of God in a very familiar way, and what he needed was to see God is so high and he is so low. And God has everything and needs nothing. And he's nothing and needs everything. And that's the experience he has. But now look, when Jeremiah comes and God meets Jeremiah,

which is the very next book over, albeit it's 66 chapters away, because Isaiah is a very, very large book. But if you go to the very first chapter of Jeremiah, we see the call of Jeremiah. Is it like Isaiah's not much, at least not on the surface. It says, and the word of the Lord came to me, Jeremiah, saying, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.

Even before you were born, I set you apart. Ah, sovereign Lord, I say, I do not know how to speak. I am only a child, but the Lord said to me, do not say I'm only a child. You must go to everyone I send you to. Do not be afraid of them for I am with you and I will rescue you to clear the Lord. And then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said, now I've put my words in your mouth. See today I have point you over

nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down to destroy and overthrow to build and to I mean, I've never throw it a building to plant. Utterly different. Isn't it amazing? Just to read those two. Here's God who actually says very gently, you know, you have too low of you of yourself. And Jeremiah says, oh, I couldn't possibly do all that. And God says, I am near you. And here is Isaiah, who obviously has to high of you of himself.

And God does not give any communication of nearness, but only gives a communication of loftiness. And see, the diversity is very, very important. One of the reasons why. Now, this is something of a speculation. But I think, I'm not the only one who said this. And I think it makes a great deal of sense. One thing we know about Isaiah, we don't know much,

but we know his father was Amaz. And in the very first verse of the first chapter of the book of Isaiah, Isaiah we're told, was his father was Amaz. Amaz was the brother of the father of Isaiah the king. In other words, Isaiah was a member of the cultural elite. Isaiah was of the royal family. That makes Isaiah very different than most of the other prophets.

Most of them tended to be people from the lower classes. Nobody's socially no-bowl. Amos, remember what Amos was? Amos was a bruiser of Sikamor fruit. That was his job. Before he was, you know what? Sikamor fruit only ripened when it was hit, which by the way tells you a lot about what my god is doing to you, what he's doing right now.

But anyway, it only ripened if it was hit. And sickenmore fruit was cheap and only the poor bought it and the only people who harvested it were also poor people. And that was what Amos was. He was a bruiser of sycamore fruit, and he was called. And most of the profits were like that, but not Isaiah. And the reason it's pretty interesting to us in New York is, there's more Isaiah's around here than any other place I know.

Isaiah's are people who go to the right schools. Isaiah's are people from the right families. Isaiah's are people who have all the right schools. Isaiah's are people from the right families. Isaiah's are people who have all the right connections. Isaiah's are smarter and thinner and very well dressed. And as a result, when they consider the ministry, and probably Isaiah had considered the ministry before this came, probably almost for sure. This is what people would be saying.

They would say, well, if a key young leader like you, I mean, if a young man like you would go to the ministry, boy, that would be something. You might really be able to turn this morubin church around. I mean, people would know that you're somebody and you could really do good. Well, if one of your type come and see, Isaiah surely was prone to that.

And as a result, when God shows up, God is as high as I can be. And Isaiah gets a nosebleed just looking at him. And there is no sweetness and light, and I'll be near you and don't be afraid and don't worry. And I've known you from the beginning. Absolutely not. I saw the Lord high and lifted up. See, and his train filled the temple. Nothing like that at all. Isaiah got what he needed and so did Jeremiah. Now listen carefully. It doesn't mean that there isn't something that they

all have in common. And if you look very carefully, you will see that Isaiah was lifted up so that, Isaiah saw God lifted up and made him feel like nothing so that God could come and show him his mercy. Isaiah didn't think he needed an emergency, so how could he experience it? So he had to be humbled into the ground before he could see the mercy. On the other hand, Jeremiah is very much the opposite. Jeremiah had to be brought into a relationship with God and experiences mercy, okay? Before he really was able to see, in some ways,

the sinfulness of sin. Because you know, until you really know God as a friend, do you really see how wicked your sin is? See, mercy, to give you a quick example, this is an old illustration, but I haven't used it a long time, but it's so good. One minute I heard a minister say this many, many years ago, he said, he said, listen, if I was at your house and you weren't, and a bill came due, and I paid it, and then I called you up and said, guess what? A bill came due, and you were supposed to pay it, but I paid it and then I called you up and said, guess what, a bill came due and you were supposed to pay it,

but I paid it. What do you think of that? And the answer is you wouldn't know what to think because you have, until you know the size of the bill, you don't know how grateful to be. Is that right? Sure, now if it's a dollar postage do on a package, you know, the postage do and you paid it.

You'd say, oh, gee, thanks, that's all. But on the other hand, if it was the IRS man You know, the postage do and you paid it. You'd say, oh, gee, thanks. That's all. But on the other hand, if it was the IRS man, who said, you owe $40,000 in back taxes, otherwise we're putting a lien on your property tomorrow. And if your friend paid that bill, that's different. It's, don't you see? You don't know whether to say thank you,

whether to get on your knees and kiss the feet. You have no idea. He said, you don't have't have any idea until you know how big the dead is. You have no idea how great the mercy is. They go together. Your sense of your need and your debt increases the sense of his grace. And they both are there, but the order depends on your situation. And it is very, very dangerous for us to take the way we found God and look and see the order and the shape of our experience and then impose it on anybody else and then say,

well, you're not coming the way I came. See, it's very, very easy for some of us to have been just devastated early on with this tremendous sense of our sinfulness and our wickedness. And you talk to somebody else who's just recently come to Christ and you say, well, tell me about it. And they don't tell you anything like what you went through and you start to say,

I don't know if this person's a real Christian. Be careful. There have never been stronger calls for justice than those we have heard in recent years. What does the Bible have to say about it? And how does God's Word help bring about justice? In Tim Keller's book, Generous Justice, you'll discover that the Bible gives us a rich

and complex understanding of what justice is and what it means to live it out. The book provides a biblical framework for justice, one that calls every Christian to a life of generous justice, fueled by grace. Generous Justice is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel and Life share the hope of the Gospel with people all over the world.

So request your copy today at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelandlife.com slash give. Now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. In fact, you wanna know something very interesting? Yeah, well, I'll tell you anyway, because it's pretty interesting. I've already mentioned him. There's two guys that I've listened a lot to. I've listened to their tapes.

I knew one of them personally when I didn't. And I've gotten a lot from them as a preacher. They're both very good preachers in their own way and in a very different way. One was Jack Miller. One was David Martin Martin Lloyd Jones. Jack Miller went over to London three or four years ago and preached a conference to a bunch of guys who had sat under David Martin Lloyd Jones was a great British preacher

in London in the middle part of the 20th century. He was a great man, a great orator and Jack Miller is a minister here in America. Jack Miller went to preach to those guys and Jack Miller tells lots and lots of stories about himself, lots of them. He's always talking about himself, and this happened to me, that happened to me. At the end of one of the talks, some older man got up and blasted Jack,

and said, I sat for 30 years under the sermons of the doctor, and he was a great man of God, and he never, ever, ever, ever, in all of his sermons, ever told a story about himself. Never referred to himself, ever, and he considered that proud. We see, that was very wrong and very short-sighted because Lloyd Jones wasn't Isaiah. Lloyd Jones, before he went into the ministry, had risen to the top of the medical profession. Back in the 1920s in Britain, he really was. In a very class-conscious place like Britain in those days,

he had made the top. And one day he saw a man who was also at the top, about 10 or 20 years down the road from him. And a woman he loved died, and that man walked in and sat down in front of a fire, and stared at the fire for two hours and said nothing. And Lloyd Jones suddenly realized that if you have everything the world can possibly give you and he did, it doesn't mean you can face the realities of life.

He was deeply troubled, he was deeply humbled, and he was in Isaiah and he came to faith in Christ and he was absolutely humbled. And as a result, you never ever, ever see him talking about himself. But you see, there's other kinds of people that actually need the mercy of God to even begin to talk about themselves. Some of us need God's mercy to open our mouths and others of us, need God's holiness to finally shut up. And it depends.

And if you read through the book of Isaiah, you will see no references to himself anywhere. None. And if you read through the book of Jeremiah, you see constant references to himself. We have to be very careful. The diversity of Christian experience. I told you this is interesting. Unfortunately, that's only the second point. All right. But let me be more brief, but let me hit the rest. The third thing we learn here, not only about the reality of Christian experience in the diversity, but the beauty now. Here's what I mean.

What are these serifs doing? They have six wings, and with two they cover their feet, and with two they cover their eyes, and with two that they're flying. And what does it mean? Well, the commentator's first of all tell us that the two covering their feet is actually an act of modesty.

To cover your feet was a way of saying, I'm not worthy. And the two on their back showed that they were ready to do the Lord's bidding quickly, they were coil to spring, they were ready to swiftly do whatever he wanted. The two over their face meant that they were having trouble looking at the brilliance of the holiness of God. And the question that immediately comes up is, how holy must this God be? If the angels can't look directly at Him, any more than you and I can look at the sun,

what is the holiness of God? It's all of His moral excellence, know, bowled up into one. It's not, it's his incredible generosity, but not just that. It's his unbelievable justice, but not just that. It's his bottomless grace, but it's not just that. It's his total trustworthiness, but it's not just that. It's all of that put together, like a prism, you know. You know, you can see the spectrum of light, but when it all comes together, it's brilliant

white, see. And that's what they saw. And yet they couldn't see it. They couldn't bear to look at it. And yet, why are they trying? Because they love it. Because they're praising it. When they say, holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty. Heaven and earth are full of ey glory,

Hosanna in the highest. They can't stand to look at it directly. I mean, it almost hurts to do it, but they can't not look at it because they love it. And this is one of the great marks of Christian experience. Jonathan Edwards wrote a book, he wrote many books like you say, I know, but let me tell you about one that's very important. It's a hard book to read, but a very important book.

It's called The Religious Effections. And it's about, it was Edwards' effort to try to write down a series of characteristics that he thought distinguished real Christian experience from counterfeit. And it's an extremely interesting book, but the only one I'll bring up right now is the third of the 12 distinguishing marks was that only a real Christian who's experienced the grace of God will have this

as part of their experience, and that is, they will be attracted and they will love the beauty of God's holiness. And here's his reasoning. And this actually touches on the morning sermon too, in some ways. Sorry about that, but I can't help but unfortunately both of these sermons happen in the temple. And so it was difficult for me not to cross pollinate. The illustration I use this morning, I'll say right now, if somebody loved you, you thought.

And when they suddenly, they were going to marry you. And suddenly, just not too long before the marriage, it turns out that you lost all the money that you had in the stock market. You just all is all gone. And you turned to your loved one, you turned to your spouse to be and you say, I need your consolation today. I'm really discouraged. I just lost everything I need your consolation today. I'm really discouraged. I just lost everything

I have in the stock market. What suddenly this person says, I think the what is off. Why? Well, you lost all your money. You know, things are going to be different now. And you know, you would be outraged and you would be, you would feel violated because you would know this person doesn't love me for who I am. This person loved the money more than me. This person was using me. Now, Edward says, how do you know if somebody loves God? You can't know it if they're fascinated and they're praising his power.

Why? Because if you're using God, the power is very attractive. Power is like money in the bank. I certainly would like to have a powerful God. I would certainly want to be in with a powerful God. That God's power could be used for me. In other words, the power of God can benefit you.

The power of God, therefore, is something you can be very excited about and not let him at all. And power of God, therefore, is something you can be very excited about and not let him at all. And he also says, what about the wisdom of God? Well, you see, if you were just using God, you could still be very excited about the wisdom of God. You could say, ah, the wisdom, I want a God like that, who knows everything. And boy, that will really come in handy for me.

You see, you could just be marrying God for his money and be excited about the power. You could just be marrying God for his money, be excited about wisdom. In fact, let's go further. You could be very excited. You could be marrying God for his money and be very excited about the idea for forgiveness.

Oh, yes. Now, this is pretty interesting. Edward says, a person who's just very, very excited about God's grace, he says, well, that's very important. Boy, it's important, but he says, you know, a person who's just very, very excited about God's grace. He says, well, that's very important. Boy, it's important, but he says, you know, a person who's just marrying God for his money, who doesn't love God, he's just using God, just finding a way to make use of God,

could be very excited about a God of forgiveness, but here's the one thing, he says, nobody, nobody, but a real Christian could ever love God for his holiness. Because the holiness of God is of no benefit. The holiness of God is a terrible threat unless you know that you are redeemed and adopted through Jesus Christ. And the holiness of God is only attractive if you finally love God for just the beauty of

who he is to look at his perfections, to look at his excellence, to look at his moral beauty and perfection, and to be attracted by that. That is the mark of the seraphs, and that is the mark of real experience of God. Finally, if you are, if you're attracted to the holiness of God, if reflecting on that, amazes you and deeply, and you find it deeply enjoyable and deeply comforting, and you find your

heart going out to it, the holiness of God, only He says a real Christian, only an angel, you see, the angels are like that, because you see, they say, I see who he is for who he is. Now, there's a whole lot of other marks, by the way. Edward says, if you love him for who he is, then you will be unconditional in your obedience. If God says, I want you to stop doing that. I know that you wanted so badly, but I say you should stop doing it. You do it immediately, right?

There would never be any condition on your obedience because the reason you obey God is to please him out of the joy of who he is. But if a person says, I served God, and I didn't get into the grand school, I wanted. I served God and I'm not married yet. I served God and all these things have gone wrong in my life. What good is God? The answer is you know God at all, you know, no God at all.

You never did. Because you know what you're saying? You're saying to God, oh, I guess the wedding's off. I mean, he should be as outraged as you would be. But you see that the most important and the easiest to understand sign that you really have met the real God, and you really love God for who he is, is you're attracted by his holiness.

And you know what? The Bible says in some astonishing ways that if you gaze at the holiness of God and love it, and if you just, if you meditate on him and say, I love that, you will become like that. Don't forget Sarah Smith of Golders Green in the Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis. It's just a novel, but it tells us about a lady named

Sarah Smith who in real life was very ugly, kind of unhappy. I mean, you know, uninteresting, lovely to look at, but when she gets to heaven in the great divorce, here's what it says about her. It says, the beauty of the woman's soul was so filled with the beauty of holiness that she was unbearably beautiful. Few men even on earth says the narrator looked

on her without becoming in a certain fashion, her lovers, but it was the kind of love that made them not less true, but more true to their own wives. I don't even remember she were wearing clothes for the almost visible penumbra of her courtesy and joy produced in my mind a great and shining train that followed her across the happy grass. Now why am I reading that? When I read that I get a glimpse of what it means to be holy and it's beautiful. And if you find your heart going out to that, like the serif's, too, I can't even look at it.

And yet I can't not look at it. You know that you've been touched by the grace of God and that you're finally communing with the real God. One last thing. Somebody's going to say, hey, I wrote these down. What do you mean last thing? I said, reality, diversity, beauty, humility, I got to skip it, sorry. We've tried to talk about it.

The festivity. At the very end, you've got this amazing thing. It says, then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? And I said, here am I. Send me. Now, we see him falling down and boy, don't you, I wish, and some of you know there's a lot to say about this where he says, what was me? I am ruined. I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people

of unclean lips. He suddenly sees a sin because he sees God. He doesn't know himself until he sees God. And so he's down the dumps, but from the altar, from the place of sacrifice, from the sacrifice, a cold touches his lips. And because of forgiveness, he has turned into someone who will do anything. Do you know what the job description is? Actually, I didn't have it printed in here, but it's pretty interesting. It says, you see, and then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us?

And I said, here am I, send me. And right after that, God says, wait a minute, let me give you your job description. And he comes up with one of the most interesting job descriptions in history. It says, here am I, send me. And then the Lord said, go and tell this people, be hearing but never understand, be seeing but never perceive. Let the hearts of this people be callous, let their ears be dull, let them close their eyes.

Otherwise, they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed. Then I said, well, how long will this last, O Lord? And he says, until the city's light ruined and without inhabitants, until the houses are left deserted, until the fields are ruined and ravaged, until the Lord has sent everyone far away, and the land is utterly forsaken. But as the tear of Menth and Oak leave stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed will grow again in the land.

What he says is, Isaiah, I want you to go someplace, and I want you to preach, but I want you to realize that for the rest of your life virtually no one will ever listen to you. There will be great fruit eventually. Eventually, your words will be read all around the world. Eventually, the holy seed that you plant will cur him up. But in your whole lifetime, no. All they'll ever do is they'll be mad at you, they'll hunt you down, they'll never listen to you, never. Here am I, send me. What's going on there? He saw what you and I need to see, too. When he went in, he saw the Lord on the throne. It was the year the king as I had died.

What does that mean? Israel was up in an uproar because there was no king. In fact, if I had had a little bit of chance to tell you that was the very beginning of all terrible troubles. The Syria was rising up and it was a great empire and was gonna come down on Israel pretty soon and everybody was all upset.

Isaiah comes in and he sees the Lord on the throne. The throne is not empty. He sees the Lord in charge. Things are not in trouble. And the reason he's so excited and he's not anxious anymore is he's seen the Lord. Now, why are you anxious? Why are you upset? I read a little article once in a self-help magazine that said, now, if you want to overcome worry, put a rubber band around your wrist.

And whenever you find yourself worrying, grab it and pull it out and let it smack back and say to yourself, worrying doesn't solve anything. Now, here's what I suggest to you. You don't need a rubber band. You need to see the Lord of hosts high and lifted up and seated on the throne. The one who is high and lifted up which means he's utterly in control but who loves me and who has put his coal on my lips and as it received me and has put his arms around

me is on the throne of the universe. If you know that, you don't care about whether people will do this or that. You don't care whether you'll be a successor failure. You don't care. He's on the throne. That's what you need to see. You don't need a rubber band, you don't need a technique. You need to see the Lord.

High and lift it up. Come to the altar. ask to see Him. And that will make you able to get anything, to do anything. This is Christian experience. Let's pray. Our Lord, help us to come to the temple. And if we come in and we see the Lord and we experience you, we will leave bold, alive, spiritually awake, joyful, courageous, pure, strong, deep, full, and wide open. And that's what we ask.

Nothing less. Because that's what you ask. Nothing less. Because that's what you offer. Nothing less. And it would really be an insult for us to seek less. And so we ask that you would help us to seek and that we would find it. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Dr. Keller. We pray you were encouraged by it. To find more gospel-centered resources like today's teaching, you can sign up for email updates at gospelandlife. Keller. We pray you were encouraged by it. To find more Gospel-centered resources like today's teaching, you can sign up for email updates at gospelandlife.com. That's gospelandlife.com. This month's sermons were recorded in 1996 and 2009. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.