#137. Holy, Holy, Holy: Isaiah's Vision of God That Changes Everything | Isaiah 3–8

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This is The Dwelling Place from Entrusted Ministries.

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I'm Stephanie Hickox, As we glean from

Isaiah chapters three through eight,

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I'm in awe of a God that is holy, holy,

holy, and yet desires to dwell with us.

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and I'm confident that as we reflect on

this aspect of His character, we'll be

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increasingly and reverently transformed,

and that will bless our families.

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On a less serious note, we're

in one book of the Bible today.

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Woo-hoo.

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We won't be flipping around but there's

so much beauty to meditate upon.

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In chapter three, God's words

continue to speak of the coming

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judgment, but as is consistent in

Isaiah, interwoven are words of hope.

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Verses eight through 11 tell us, " For

Jerusalem has stumbled and Judah

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has fallen because their speech

and their deeds are against the

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Lord, defying His glorious presence.

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For the look on their faces

bears witness against them

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" They proclaim their sin like Sodom.

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They do not hide it.

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Woe to them, for they have

brought evil on themselves.

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Tell the righteous that it shall

be well with them, for they shall

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eat the fruit of their deeds.

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Woe to the wicked, it shall be ill

with them, for what his hands have

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dealt out shall be done to him."

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God continually blesses the

righteous and the faithful.

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In chapter four, it's prophesied, " And

seven women shall take hold of one man

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in that day, saying, ' We will eat our

own bread and wear our own clothes.

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Only let us be called by your name.

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Take away our reproach.'"

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This means so many men will have

died in battle and the captivity

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that women will far outnumber them.

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But in 4:2, " In that day, the

branch of the Lord shall be beautiful

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and glorious, and the fruit of

the land shall be the pride and

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honor of the survivors of Israel.

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And he who is left in Zion and remains

in Jerusalem will be called holy."

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This phrase, branch of the Lord, also

translates to a shoot or a sprout, and

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it's exactly what Jesus was referring

to in John 15 when he said, " I am

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the vine, and you are the branches.

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He who abides in Me will bear much fruit."

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in chapter five, God introduces a

metaphor that He is the vinedresser,

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and Israel is the vineyard.

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He declares, " I worked the vineyard,

but it hasn't produced fruit."

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instead, it's produced wild grapes.

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Now, when I was little, we moved into

a home that had a grapevine with wild

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grapes, and they were pretty good, but

that's not what this is referring to.

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This means sour grapes that are useless,

and it can even be translated stinking

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things then Isaiah issues six woes.

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The first, " Woe to those who join house

to house, who add field to field, until

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there is no more room, and you are made

to dwell alone in the midst of the land.

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The Lord of Hosts has sworn in

my hearing, ' Surely many houses

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shall be desolate, large and

beautiful houses without inhabitant.

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For ten acres of vineyard

shall yield but one bath.'"

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This woe is against those who pursue

material wealth and have their

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focus on accumulating more and more.

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Next, " Woe to those who rise

early in the morning, that they

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may run after strong drink."

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This is against the pursuit

of pleasure and alcohol.

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The next woe was against

those who mocked the prophet.

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In 5:20, we read the fourth woe.

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" Woe to those who call evil good and

good evil, who put darkness for light

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and light for darkness, who put bitter

for sweet and sweet for bitter."

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Pride is rebuked in the fifth woe.

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Woe to those who are wise in their own

eyes and shrewd in their own sight.

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And finally, injustice is condemned.

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Woe to those who are heroes at drinking

wine and valiant men in mixing strong

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drink, who acquit the guilty for a bribe

and deprive the innocent of his right.

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And this is contrasted with God's

character if we go back to verse sixteen.

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But the Lord of hosts is exalted

in justice, and the holy God shows

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himself holy in righteousness

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After these woes, Isaiah writes,

" They have rejected the law of the

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Lord of hosts, and have despised

the word of the Holy One of Israel.

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Therefore the anger of the Lord was

kindled against his people, and he

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stretched out his hand against them, and

struck them and the mountains quaked."

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And their corpses were as refuse

in the midst of the streets.

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For all this, his anger has not turned

away, and his hand is stretched out still.

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Often when we think of that picture

of God's hand being reached out,

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it appears to be a merciful gesture

that He's continually available

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for us to reach out and grasp.

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But it can also be symbolic of His

coming judgment, and that's what it

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means here because the next verse

tells us, " He will raise a signal

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for nations far away and whistle for

them from the ends of the earth."

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You'll likely be familiar with chapter

six And it's worthy of our outmost

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attention, so I'll read it in its entirety

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In the year that King Uzziah died, I

saw the Lord sitting upon a throne,

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high and lifted up, and the train

of his robe filled the temple.

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Above him stood the seraphim: each

had six wings; with two he covered

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his face, and with two he covered

his feet, and with two he flew.

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And one called to another, and said,

" Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts:

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the whole earth is full of his glory."

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And the foundations of the thresholds

shook at the voice of him who called,

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and the earth was filled with smoke.

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And I said, "Woe is me, for I am lost!

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For I am a man of unclean

lips, and I dwell in the midst

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of a people of unclean lips.

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For my eyes have seen the

King, the Lord of hosts."

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Then one of the seraphim flew to me,

having in his hand a burning coal that

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he had taken with tongs from the altar.

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And he touched my mouth and said,

" Behold, this has touched your lips.

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Your guilt is taken away

and your sin is atoned for."

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And I heard the voice of the

Lord saying, "Whom shall I

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send and who will go for us?"

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Then I said, "Here I am.

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Send me."

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And he said, "Go and say to this people,

' Keep on hearing, but do not understand.

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Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.

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Make the heart of this people dull and

their ears heavy, and blind their eyes,

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lest they see with their eyes and hear

with their ears, and understand with

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their hearts, and turn and be healed.'"

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Then I said, "How long, O Lord?"

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And he said, "Until cities lie waste

without inhabitant, and horses without

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people, and the land is a desolate

waste; and the Lord removes people

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far away, and the forsaken places

are many in the midst of the land.

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And though a tenth remain in it,

it will be burned again, like

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a terebinth or an oak, whose

stump remains when it is felled.

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The holy seed is its stump."

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This threefold repetition

of holy, holy, holy

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Is called the Trisagion.

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It Is the only characteristic of

God that is stated three times.

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the purpose is to reveal the

extent of God's holiness.

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Isaiah responds just as he should,

recognizing his sinful state.

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And when the coal is touched to his

lips, it's a cleansing and a purification

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students of the word have struggled

for millennia that God would blind the

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eyes and close the ears of the people.

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But as has been consistent

throughout the word, God doesn't

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harden people who weren't already

hardened Remember, we just read

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Tell the righteous that it shall

be well with them, for they shall

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see the fruit of their deeds.

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When God allows wickedness to

blind and deafen, he's simply

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removing his grace and his mercy

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Allowing people to choose.

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In essence, he's saying,

"You won't seek me?

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Then I will let you experience the

consequences of life without me."

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And it's remarkable to me that Isaiah

is told from the beginning of his

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ministry that it won't bear fruit.

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For all of the beauty of his words

and the conviction with which

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he writes and speaks, God tells

him, " It's not going to work.

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These people are going to be judged."

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But in the presence of a God

that is holy, holy, holy, Isaiah

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is still committed to the call.

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This encourages me to live a life of

endurance for the Lord, to have a faith

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that is greater than the fruit I see

before me And when you and I struggle

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to parent consistently, an attempt to

invest in communication in our marriages

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or fight to experience growth

in work or in ministry.

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When it doesn't happen, it's not

necessarily an indication that God's

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favor isn't upon us or that we're not

doing what He's asked us to It can

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be one of the purest calls to follow

Christ in something that results

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in so much opposition and hardship.

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And if we can still say at the end of

it, "Jesus, you are worthy of it all,"

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it's one of the most glorifying things

we can do for the Lord So when you get

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into bed at night, on those days where

your kids don't obey, your voice wasn't

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heeded, when the laundry is piling up

and there's a mountain of dishes in your

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sink, when you feel that you're working so

hard but things don't seem to change, you

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can ask your Savior, " Were you honored

today by my life, by the sacrifices I

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made, and did I become more like you?"

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If we keep our eyes fixed on

eternity, we can press on.

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In chapter seven, God commands

Isaiah to go to wicked King Ahaz.

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God offers to show him a sign, and he

feigns humility, refusing But by God's

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response, we can tell that the posture

of his heart wasn't honoring And to this

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wicked king with impure motives, God

issues the most beautiful of promises.

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you're sure to know it.

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In seven fourteen, " Therefore the

Lord himself will give you a sign.

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Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear

a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

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He shall eat curds and honey

when he knows how to refuse

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the evil and choose the good.

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For before the boy knows how to refuse the

evil and choose the good, the land whose

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two kings you dread will be deserted."

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The Hebrew word here certainly does mean

virgin, and so this prophecy couldn't have

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been fulfilled entirely in Isaiah's time

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It definitely points forward to Christ

The fact that he was eating curds and

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honey reveals that he will be born at a

time of political and economic oppression

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This is kind of like a coagulated cottage

cheese mixture And as you may already know

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that the name Emmanuel means God with us.

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Isn't it beautiful that that's stated

the chapter after we read that God

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is holy, holy, holy on His throne?

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Isaiah continues this emphasis on

God's holiness in chapter eight

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But first, God tells him, "You're

going to have a son And you're to

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name him Mahir-Shalal-Hash-Baz."

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Tara-Leigh Cobble says this basically

translates to, " It's about to get bad."

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But I continue to think of Christ

In verse twelve, " Do not call

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conspiracy all that this people

calls conspiracy, and do not fear

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what they fear, nor be in dread.

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But the Lord of Hosts, Him

you shall honor as holy.

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Let Him be your fear, and

let Him be your dread.

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And He will become a sanctuary and a

stone of offense, and a rock of stumbling

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to both houses of Israel, a trap and a

snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem."

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Peter wrote that Jesus was the rock

of stumbling and stone of offense.

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He was so clearly God in the flesh, but

the Pharisees and the nation of Israel

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had blind eyes and deaf ears, refusing

to see the salvation before them.

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In fact, John 12:39 tells us, " Therefore

they could not believe, for again Isaiah

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says," He has blinded their eyes and

hardened their heart lest they see with

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their eyes and understand with their

heart and turn, and I would heal them

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And verse forty one says, "Isaiah

said these things because he

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saw His glory and spoke of Him."

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John is quoting right from Isaiah

six and saying that Isaiah saw Jesus

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seated on the throne in his glory

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But reading on in John, Nevertheless,

many even of the authorities believed

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in Him, but for fear of the Pharisees,

they did not confess it so that they

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would not be put out of the synagogue.

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For they loved the glory that

comes from man more than the

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glory that comes from God."

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Let's pray now that that

would not be true of us.

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Heavenly Father, we rejoice that you are

a God that is holy, holy, holy Thank

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you that when we confess and believe in

your Son, He is not a stone of stumbling

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or a rock of offense, but that He

bestows His own righteousness upon us

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We're humbled that you have chosen to

open our eyes and our ears, and we pray

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you would continue to transform us into

women that bring you glory, even when

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we tend the vineyard and still don't see

the produce Through the Holy Spirit,

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enable us to do good works for your

glory, and I pray that we would one day

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see the fruit As we parent our kids

and point them toward your holiness

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Allow us to have humility and recognize

our own sinfulness as Isaiah did.

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We pray we would live lives of

repentance, not elevating ourselves,

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and that our children would know that

we're pursuing you together may your

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holiness prevent us from sin, purify our

motivations, and strengthen our resolve.

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And finally, I ask that we would not

fear what the world fears, but that

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you would be our fear and our praise

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Jesus, we know you're seated on

the throne now interceding for us.

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It's in your name we pray.

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Amen