Last week, we looked at the moment of Simon Peter’s conversion. Jesus revealed more of His power to Simon Peter, and his response to Jesus was profound. He fell to his knees before Jesus and cried out, “Go away from me, because I’m a sinful man, Lord!” (Luke 5:8 CSB). This was the moment when Simon Peter realized exactly who Jesus was, and it caused him to tremble before Him. He saw his extreme depravity compared to the glory of the Lord. He was convicted of his sin, and so, in fear and awe, he crumbled at Jesus’ feet. That is why the first thing Jesus said to him when he did this was, “Don’t be afraid” (Luke 5:10).
I want to talk more about this, and look at other places in the Bible where we see this same response to seeing the Lord. Last week, I quoted from Ellicott’s Commentary, which said that “Isaiah cried, ‘Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips’ (Isaiah 6:5). So Job cried, ‘I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee; wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes’ (Job 42:5-6).” Let’s look closer at those references and another one I found as well.
The first reference is from Isaiah 6:5. Isaiah is remembering how the Lord called him to ministry. He describes the vision he had. Starting in verse 1-4, it says, “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphim were standing above him; they each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Armies; his glory fills the whole earth.’ The foundations of the doorways shook at the sound of their voices, and the temple was filled with smoke.”
Isaiah saw this vision, and it shook him to his core. Verse 5 tells us his response. He says, “Then I said: Woe is me for I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips and live among a people of unclean lips, and because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Armies.”
He says, “Woe is me for I am ruined!” This word for ruined, according to Strong’s Concordance, is damah, and it means, “to cease, cause to cease, cut off, destroy, perish, silenced.” In modern language, he would have said, “Oh no! I’m dead.” He’s dead because he knows: he is a man of unclean lips, he lives among people of unclean lips, and because his eyes have seen the Lord.
In Maclaren Expositions Of Holy Scripture, the author writes, “It was not joy that sprang in Isaiah’s heart when he saw the throned King, and heard the proclamation of His name. It was not reverence merely that bowed his head in the dust, but it was the awakened consciousness, ‘Thou art holy; and now that I understand, in some measure, what Thy holiness means, I look on myself and I say, “unclean! unclean!’”
Isaiah saw the Lord, and he realized his sinfulness. I wonder if he mentions his unclean lips specifically because he would like to join the praises of the Seraphim as they cry Holy, holy, holy, but he realizes he is too unholy to even speak those words. His vision of the pure holiness of the Lord in His temple revealed to Isaiah just how unholy he is and how unholy is the place he lives in. If he stays as he is, unclean and unholy, how can he speak for the Lord or praise Him?
The Lord provides for his cleansing. Verses 6-7 say, “Then one of the seraphim flew to me, and in his hand was a glowing coal that he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said:
Now that this has touched your lips,
your iniquity is removed
and your sin is atoned for.”
This glowing coal removes Isaiah’s sin. The seraphim declares to him that his sin has been “atoned for.” How touching Isaiah’s lips with the coal does that, I don’t know. But obviously the Lord offered cleansing to Isaiah in this manner. This is a vision, and so I think we should understand it as representative of the way in which burnt offerings were given for the cleansing of sins at that time. And of course, it is representative of how the Lord imparts His righteousness to us and cleanses us of our sin through our repentance and faith in Him now.
Then, just like Jesus gave Simon Peter a task to do, the Lord does the same with Isaiah. Verse 8 says, “Then I heard the voice of the Lord asking: Who will I send? Who will go for us?
I said: Here I am. Send me.”
I don’t want us to miss the significance of that exchange. It is so similar to Simon Peter’s encounter with Jesus. Both men have an epiphany and see the Lord’s glory, and both men have the same response: one of repentance. Then the Lord gives them a task to do. Not only that, but the tasks assigned to them are essentially the same. With Simon Peter, Jesus tells him that from now on he will “catch” people. We know that the way he will do that is by telling them about Jesus. Here in Isaiah’s vision, the Lord wants to use Isaiah to tell others His messages. The Lord will speak through Isaiah to other people, much the same way the Lord will speak through Simon Peter.
Just like He did then, I think it’s correct to say that the Lord still speaks this same directive today to all of us believers. He certainly asks this same question today to each of us: “Who will I send? Who will go for us?” May we answer as Isaiah did, “Here I am. Send me.”
But the problem is, only those of us who have truly encountered the Lord will be accurate mouthpieces for the Lord. I say “accurate” because there are a lot of people who claim to speak for the Lord, but they are not speaking accurately. They are speaking lies and misrepresenting God’s Word. I hope, for their sakes, that they are merely deceived, and that they aren’t doing this deliberately, but I don’t know. I don’t know how people can be so wrong and not realize it. Other than, it’s clear by their words and actions that they have never encountered the Lord. They have never met Jesus. For if they had, they would tremble at their sin, and not celebrate and boast of their sin and others’ sin. I think they may have only heard about Jesus, possibly even studied other people’s ideas about Him, but they haven’t actually encountered the real Jesus.
Which leads us to the second text that Ellicott referenced, for this is what Job 42:5-6 describes, which says, “I had heard reports about you, but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore, I reject my words and am sorry for them; I am dust and ashes.”
If you know Job’s story, then you know how the Lord allowed his faith to be tested. Terrible, tragic things happened to Job. Finally, because of that, just as Job 40:1-2 says, “The Lord answered Job: Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who argues with God give an answer.” Job replies that he spoke before, but he’s sorry and won’t speak again. Then the Lord speaks to him and describes His majesty, using the most beautiful prose ever written, by the way. So then Job says that now, now after realizing just how holy and perfect and amazing the Lord is, that he is sorry and he repents and declares that he is dust and ashes. He realizes that before he really saw the Lord, he had only heard about Him. He hadn’t truly known who He was before.
At this “seeing” of the Lord, Job has the same response as Isaiah and Simon Peter. He humbles himself and repents. The ESV uses the word repent in Job 42:6. It says, “therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” In the ERV, it says, “I promise to change my heart and my life” instead of using the word repent. I like that, for that’s what repentance is, isn’t it? It’s more than just feeling sorry. It’s turning and changing. Job repents. He is appalled at his sinfulness and arrogance he had expressed before. He knows that compared to the Lord, he is just dust and ash. He is nothing.
This fear or awe that he experiences when He sees the Lord produces knowledge. And more than that, as Proverbs 9:10 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” Now, Job has wisdom, now that He has seen the Lord.
Selwyn Hughes, in the notes within the Every Day with Jesus Bible, said, “No one has done anything mighty for God without a new vision of God’s holiness. We will be of little use to God unless we know how to tremble before him, for otherwise our own ideas and feelings of self-sufficiency will soon take over.”
I agree 100% with Hughes. People can do all sorts of things “for God” but it doesn’t mean God is in it. This is the problem I am seeing so clearly today. We have too many people speaking “for God” but they aren’t saying anything remotely close to what the Lord says. They are not wise. They may claim they speak for God, but they are wrong. They don’t possess true wisdom. Unless a person’s words match what Scripture says, they are false prophets. The only way we know if something is correct is if it lines up with what the Bible says. In a lot of cases, these people are not only of little use to God, but they are blaspheming Him and confusing other people. They are leading people astray, away from God. My prayer is that they would do as Job did, and silence their mouths and repent. They need to encounter the real Jesus and learn to tremble at His words.
For a long time, I was afraid to be a pastor. I still have a fear that I will speak incorrectly and lead people off track. There are strong warnings in Scripture that make me very nervous. As James 3:1 (ERV) warns, “My brothers and sisters, not many of you should be teachers. I say this because, as you know, we who teach will be judged more strictly than others.” I have realized, though, this fear is healthy. It causes me to cling to God’s Word and to pray with fervor that the Holy Spirit would help me stay faithful to Scripture. Nobody needs my ideas. Whereas, we all, myself included, desperately need to hear God’s Word. Only the words that come from the Lord have the power to change hearts and minds for Christ. If we want to fulfill the Great Commission and be a part of leading others to Jesus, then not only must we answer “here I am” but we must first know the fear of the Lord.
In that same Bible’s notes, Hughes quotes from A. W. Tozer, who said this very thing so much more profoundly than I. He said, “No one can know the true grace of God who has not first known the fear of God. Always there was about any manifestation of God something that dismayed the onlookers, that daunted and overawed them…I do not believe any lasting good can come from religious actives that are not rooted in this fear. Until we have been gripped by that nameless terror that results when an unholy creature is suddenly confronted by the One who is holiest of all, we are not likely to be affected by the doctrine of love and grace.”
Yes! If we are to experience the true grace of God, we must be converted. For to be converted means we have experienced the true grace of God. How are we converted? We come to see the Lord for Who He truly is: God’s Son, the Savior of the world. How do we know if we’ve met Him? We fall to our knees, trembling in fear at the glory and holiness of God, aware that we are dust and ash. We see our unholiness and we cry out for forgiveness. The way we know if we've met Jesus or not is if we have been convicted of our sin.
This should be basic Christianity 101: God is holy and we are not. Is this the message the Church is speaking today, though? I’m afraid that often it isn’t. The message I hear more often is that God loves us just as we are and therefore we don’t need to repent. God is made out to be a desperate heartsick lover who pines for us humans. Can you see how offensive that must be to Him? God is infinitely much more profound and amazing than we are. Yes, what He has made is good. We are created to be wonderful beings. Creation is beautiful. Nature is awesome. It is good. But we do not compare in any way to the One who made all of this. He is not lacking anything if we do not worship Him. He does not need us to complete Him or give Him meaning. It’s not God’s privilege that we worship Him. It is our privilege that He loves us.
This is why our response to Him must be one of worship. If it’s not, then we still do not understand Who He is. God is love, but He is not infatuated with us. God indeed loves us while we are still sinners. He loves us so much that He died for us. We definitely cannot clean ourselves up and stop sinning on our own. But He loves us so much that He does not leave us in our sinful state of being. Simon Peter left his livelihood and followed Jesus. Isaiah’s lips were cleansed. Job did not speak untruths about God. They were forgiven, and they were changed. They were not the same people they were before they saw the Lord. Just as Tozer describes, they were overawed by the Lord, and that fear of the Lord produced repentance and change in them.
Isaiah went on to prophesy and speak for the Lord. Look at what he quotes the Lord as saying in Isaiah 66:1-2. “This is what the Lord says:
Heaven is my throne,
and earth is my footstool.
Where could you possibly build a house for me?
And where would my resting place be?
My hand made all these things,
and so they all came into being.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
I will look favorably on this kind of person:
one who is humble, submissive in spirit,
and trembles at my word.”
God says, “I will look favorably on [the] one who is humble, submissive in spirit, and trembles at my word.” If we want God’s favor, which is a word that simply means approval, then we must be humble, submissive to Him, and tremble at His word. That means that we must be not be proud; we must be obedient and full of the fear of the Lord.
To see the kind of humility that God is looking for, let’s look at the person whom the Bible describes as the most humble person ever. Numbers 12:3 says, “Moses was a very humble man, more so than anyone on the face of the earth.” That’s quite a statement, isn’t it?
When God first spoke to Moses in the burning bush, Moses had the same sort of reaction that Simon Peter, Isaiah, and Job had. Exodus 3:6 says, “Then he continued, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.” When God gave him direction and told him that he was going to be His mouthpiece, Moses was not confident or conceited. Verse 11 tells us, “But Moses asked God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’”
Moses knew that on his own, he would fail. He needed God to help him. He saw the Lord, was overawed by His presence, and he, in humility, submitted himself to God’s leading, and for the rest of his life, he trembled at God’s word. He had the characteristics that Isaiah says the Lord is looking for in people.
If we want the Lord to look favorably on us, we too must be humble, submitted to God, and tremble at His word. The only way we become these things is if we understand Who God is. And of course, if we haven’t met Him, we won’t know who He is. There is only one God, triune in nature, Who out of His great love for us, sent His Son Jesus, who, being fully God and fully man, humbled Himself, submitted His will to the Father, and died on the cross for us. When we encounter Jesus, and see Him for who He truly is, that should cause us to tremble in fear and awe. If we don’t have that response, I question whether we’ve truly met Him.
Let us pray for the Holy Spirit to help us come to a correct understanding of the awesomeness of God. If you are realizing that you don’t know if you’ve truly met the Lord, it is not too late. Pray that He would reveal Himself to you in such a way that you could “see” Him for Who He truly is. My prayer is also for the Church at large, that God would work on our hearts and bring revival, causing us to humble ourselves, submit to His will, and tremble at His Word. That way we can accurately take God’s message of salvation to our lost world.
Pray: Heavenly Father, we tremble in awe before You. You are the God of the universe, and we are amazed that You love us. Thank You. We bow our hearts before You today and ask You to cleanse us of our sins. Please help us by Your Holy Spirit to live in submission to Your will. Help us to obey You in all things. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
Comments