Please enjoy The Gospel as found in “The Leather Journal.” A ministry of Dr. Phil Newton. From https://www.invertedchristian.com/
Please enjoy The Gospel as found in “The Leather Journal.” A ministry of Dr. Phil Newton. He is the pastor of South Woods Baptist Church Memphis, TN. His other sermons can be heard at https://www.southwoodsbc.org/sermons/ This is brought to you by https://www.invertedchristian.com/
“A Ruined Man and a Coal from the Altar”
“Then I said, ‘Woe is me, for I am ruined!” (Isaiah 6:5)
Visions of the Lord are rare in the Scriptures. We think of Moses and the gentle blowing, Ezekiel with the brilliant throne and voice sounding like an army camp, and John seeing the radiant throne with a vast host worshiping the Lord. Isaiah had one of those few visions which left him totally dumbfound (that’s common!) and in utter despair. “Woe is me, for I am ruined!” He was accustomed to delivering prophetic woes declaring divine judgment upon the nations. Now, at the sight of the Lord seated on a throne with “the train of His robe filling the temple,” at such a sight of One whom He recognized as “lofty and exalted,” he felt the full weight of his sin and unworthiness” (v. 1). He immediately knew of his condemnation and utter helplessness before the One whom the seraphim called, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory” (v. 3). Isaiah may have been able before this vision to give a textbook definition of holiness as absolute purity, uniquely other than the weak, faltering, finite around Him. But now he sees God as holy, so holy that the seraphim multiply their worshipful declarations. Utterly holy, holy in every way, holy through and through, holy without any hint of impurity, altogether holy. Such a sight left him “ruined,” conscious of how nothing in him could commend or give him standing with this God who reigns over everything.
“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” (v. 5). The expression “unclean lips,” indicates one as a sinner through and through. Nothing about him, no thought, word, deed, motive, or action, not even his prophetic service, could give him standing with this lofty and exalted Lord of heaven and earth. Unless the Lord God in mercy took action to cleanse him of his sin, he had no chance to continue.
From around the throne a seraph took a burning coal in his hand and touched Isaiah’s mouth. Hot, burning, searing—the coal peeled away and consumed his iniquity. The seraph declared, “Your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven” (vv. 6–7). The Lord, out of infinite mercy, had taken action to forgive this sinful man. That hot, burning coal pictured the deep heart work that the Lord alone can do. In Isaiah’s language, touching the mouth with the coal was tantamount to the whole person. “The things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man,” Jesus taught (Matt. 15:18). All of him, every sin affecting and infecting him, had been forgiven. The Lord acted in mercy.
That sight of the Lord acting to cleanse a sinful person cast a long shadow to a cross outside Jerusalem. Hundreds of years later, God incarnate, Jesus Christ, felt the white-hot wrath of God on our behalf. The fire of God burned not upon an altar but upon His Son, so that weak, ruined sinners, having nothing to commend themselves to God, might have the coal from the altar of a cross burn away their sin. But this coal was not taken with tongs from the altar but found in the life of the holy Son of God laid on the cross to fit sinners for living with the Lord God forever. The utterly holy died in the place of the utterly unholy so that forever, we might be counted holy to Him who is altogether holy. The gospel believed creates holy people to live as holy people in the face of a holy God. Isaiah’s burning coal experience foreshadowed what Jesus did when the fire of God burned upon Him on our behalf. Ruined sinners find life in the cross of Christ.