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INJ
Isaiah 6:1-8
'Holy, Holy, Holy'
Divine Service
Trinity Sunday | 2 June 2007
Dear Saints,
Isaiah sees the glory of the LORD and hears the angels singing, and he says the only thing that you can say, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” Woe. Woe. I am undone. Mortal eyes are not supposed to see these things and mortal ears are not supposed to hear these things, they are too lofty, too bright, too good, too holy, holy, holy.
But don't you feel for poor Isaiah. So down on himself, it embarrassing. “Come, come, Isaiah. You go to far. You're a good guy. A prophet and a priest, serving the Lord in his temple. You're really not that bad, and you keep going on like this, talking about how you're unclean, you're really going to hurt your self esteem. And besides, it makes you no fun to be around. Do be so hard on yourself.”
So the little pep-talks we give each other exposes the deep-seated idolatry that clings to our flesh like grease under your fingernails: we think that we are holy. This is what I'm telling you: even though we say that we are sinners, and even though we know that to be true from the Scriptures, our sinful flesh has a death grip on the false doctrine that we're really not as bad as the Bible says we are. The sinful flesh simply cannot concede that it is dead, woefully dead and completely without any thing good.
Here's another way that deep idolatry come out. One of the questions asked most often to pastors is about the bushmen in Africa. “What about the people in Africa who have never heard about Jesus, how can God send them to hell?” Why is it always the people in Africa? I'm sure there's plenty of people in Aurora who haven't heard of Jesus. Anyhow, my answer to that question now is, “I'm glad you're concerned. Would you like to help support the seminary in South Africa so more pastors can be sent out to preach to those people? Every dollar you give will be matched by one from LCMS Human Care and World Relief.” I've spent at least a few hours with the bushmen who had heard the Gospel, and believe me, they are very thankful for the preaching of Jesus and are thirsty for more.
But back to this question concerning those who have not heard. That image of God and the person that has never heard of Jesus shows us how we think of God and man, and about what man deserves. What is underneath the question in the idea that hell is unfair, and that it is not deserved. That there is some injustice in God keeping people out of heaven “just because they haven't heard of Jesus.” Do you see where I'm going with this? People who have never heard the Gospel ought to be allowed in heaven, that's the thinking here. And why should they be allowed in? They haven't done anything to deserve hell. Really, we are all not that bad.
What about you? What have you done to deserve to go to hell? Really, do you think like that? Do you know that you're whole life you've been earning hell, working for it, deserving it. That innumerable things that you've done, even this morning, even during this service have earned God's wrath and judgment.
We said it, “I, a poor miserable sinner, confess unto Thee all my sins and iniquities, with which I have ever offended Thee...” “Ever offended,” that means always and in every way we have offended God. That's what sinners do: offend God. “...and justly deserve Thy temporal and eternal punishment.” Hell is what is deserved, not just by the bushman who never heard the Gospel, but by you and I as well. Hell is what is just, it is the filling up of justice. But, again we come back to it, we don't think of ourselves as offensive to God, totally, utterly, completely unpleasing and unpleasant to His Divine Majesty. We don't think that we've deserved hell. We think that we are holy.
“Come now, pastor,” you might be thinking, “Don't get too excited. There's got to be some middle ground between thinking that your a rotten bag of worms or as holy as the angels. I'm willing to admits that I could be better, that I'm a little bad.”
Friends, I'm willing to admit that as well, but we must, if the Scriptures are true, go all the way. We are not sick, we are dead in our trespasses and sins. Utterly dead. Completely dead. Totally dead. One-hundred percent dead.
But the flesh can't have it, and somewhere there's a small little not-dead part of us that the sinful flesh clings to. A small little “at least I'm not like so-and-so.” A tiny little, “I'm really not that bad.” A little extra something that thinks we deserve good things in this life. That's what I'm aiming for this morning, because as long as we hold on to these lies about ourselves, me make God into a liar, and we exalt ourselves to heaven.
So we must come back to what the Scriptures say about is and about God. “No one is righteous. No, not one.” [Romans 3:10] Our hearts are utterly wicked. “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” [Genesis 6:5] “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” [Jeremiah 17:9] “The hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.” [Ecclesiastes 9:3] “But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.” [Matthew 15:18-20]
Our Lord Jesus testifies that “light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” [John 3:19] That's talking about us, our sinful flesh. We are completely unholy. That title belongs to God alone.
As Hannah prayed in ancient days, “There is none holy like the LORD.” [1 Samuel 2:2] None, no other, God alone is Holy. His name is “Holy”, as the blessed Mary sings, “For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and 'Holy' is His Name.” [Luke 1:49]
And this, dear saints, is why Isaiah came undone. He, an unholy unclean man, was seeing and hearing the awesome holiness of the Blessed Trinity. Oh that the Lord would grant this to us, that the light of His holiness would so shine on us that all of our sin and death and wretchedness would be exposed, and that we would begin to know the depth of our sin and darkness. Because then, when we know how bad we really are, then we know how good the Lord is to us.
Isaiah said: "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!" Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: "Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for." [Isaiah 6:5-7] An unholy man made holy, not by his own efforts, but by the touch of God and the promise of forgiveness.
This same holy, holy, holy Lord is filling this church today. There is nothing in yourself that you can hold on to, that can protect you or give you a foot to stand on. We must, before the holiness of Trinity, like Isaiah, come undone, confess our sins. We must know that we have deserved death and wrath. And then, with sweetness, with joy, we must know that the holiness of the Lord is not meant for our destruction, but for our life. The gifts the Lord gives are made sweeter when we know how little we've deserved and earned them.
The Lord, today, will touch your unholy lips with something much greater that a coal from the Lord's altar, but the very body and blood of Jesus, the holiest things in all of creation. And this touch comes with the promise of the forgiveness of all of your sins. “Take and eat, take and drink, this is the cup of the New Testament, shed for you for the forgiveness of all of your sins.” “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin is atoned for.” You are holy, by the forgiveness of your sins, by the spilling of Jesus' blood all over your guilt, holy enough to stand before God and to be glad in His presence. Amen.
In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
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Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller
Hope Lutheran Church | Aurora, CO
