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February 15, 2021 12:01 am
What we need more than anything today is to know who God is. Today, R.C. Sproul turns to Isaiah's vision of the Lord to meditate on the transcendent majesty and sublime holiness of our Creator.
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Coming up next on Renewing Your Mind the glory of God is so bright it's so blazing that even the angels in heaven have to cover their eyes with their wings given special equipment by their Creator to deal with the overpowering practice starts to London awesome perfection of the creator of the universe. It is mysterious because such holiness is foreign to us. But one thing is certain, we begin to realize just how holy and perfect God is, in effect, every aspect of our lives. Dr. RC Sproul.
Recently I had the serendipitous experience of playing with the software of my laptop going into one of the search modes in this Bible software into the concordance section of it and looked up the term glory and I looked up each individual specific reference to glory and I have to say to you, it took me quite a long time but I mentioned that to you tonight. For this reason that when the Scripture speaks to us about the character of God, perhaps the aspect of God's character that is mentioned more frequently than any other is his glory, and if we do a simple word study of the etymological derivation of that word glory. We know that it comes from an ancient Semitic root means heavy or weighty. It's a word used to describe a quantitative substance, something that can be way on a scale and yet when it is used with respect to the character of God, it takes on a different meaning to refer to the weight of the significance of who God is. When I made this study of the glory of God.
One of the phrases that I read over and over and over again is that it says of God that God has set his glory above the heavens, which is to say in Hebrew terms that God has made a display of his Majesty and set it at the pinnacle of creation and it says of God that the whole earth is filled with his glory, and if you notice the glory of God. On the way over.
It's not that God has planted clues to his glory in esoteric places that only the most profound speculative philosopher can glean from this evidence know the world is filled with his glory can't turn without bumping into it. It's all around us. John Calvin put it this way.
He said all of creation is not just a theater but he said it's a glorious theater. Now when he said it's a glorious leader. He didn't mean that the theater itself is so spectacular in its architecture that one marvels at the theater know what he meant by it's a glorious theater. Is that what is being shown every day in this theater center stage is glory. It's a theater glory and it is a theater of the glory of God with anyone on the site, but we walk as it were, through this glorious theater wearing blindfolds blindfolds of our own making. So even if we squint as hard as we can. We can't see through the blindfold and we ask ourselves where's the glory where is God in this place, all I see are the sordid evidences of misery and suffering of ugliness and affliction, all the while were surrounded by the glory.
Chapter 6 prophet Isaiah begins with these words in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on the throne, high and lifted up looking verse one talks about the Lord L below. The more literally it on the verse three song. The Seraphim and talks about the Lord LORB how many of you have that distinction in your Bible is not a misprint but rather the editor of the English Bible you have in front of you is trying to alert you to a significant distinction that occurs in the Hebrew text even though the same word is used here. The word Lord in English. Two different words are being translated by that English word will anytime you see LORA you can assume that the Hebrew word behind it is the sacred touch her grandma time.
The ineffable name of God the Memorial name of God that was revealed by God to Moses in the Midianite wilderness. Remember when God called Moses out of the burning bush and said Moses. Moses take off thy shoes from off thy feet, and someone had told Moses to go to Pharaoh and say let my people go, and those that who shall I say, sent me ever wondered about that. I can't get over that. I have two problems with that text. Don't get me wrong, I believe, but I wonder if the Bible just give you a short sketch of what happened. I wonder how the world Moses ever got in the sea Pharaoh the first place and imagine becomes that of the Royal Palace and ease this decrepit nomad from the desert got this crooked stick in his hand and he knocks on the door and a guard consumer uses a Moses. So what is I want to see the Pharaoh what makes you think you have an appointment not have an appointment. Why should I let you in the signifier is what I was talking to this Borchard in the world and thus he played some games with that stick in front of the guard at the beginning that's only happens from the other half is probably goes to the people of Israel. Hundreds of thousands of slaves aces ladies and gentlemen, have your attention, yes here's what to do were going to carry off the biggest wildcat strike in the history of labor-management relations in order to do it against the most powerful government on the earth. Oh yeah, who says and Moses said the Bush told you see the problem. He has and so he says to God, who shall I say has sent me, who are you, God said you I am who I that's the name that is guarded in the 10 Commandments that is the sacred name of God that is never, ever, under any circumstances to be taken in vain.
And if anything exposes our culture to the unmitigated wrath of God. It is the frivolous way that we use is named the first word Lord is the word add-on add-on that comes from that root and it means sovereign again if what is happening here is the king has died and there's this sense of loss of vacancy of a vacuum of leadership in the land Isaiah comes aces King desire is dead and that very year I saw Adonai I saw the sovereign one, the one in whose hand the entire destiny of this nation. I saw as John tells us in the New Testament and Old Testament Christoph innate I saw the coronation of the King of the Kings of the Lord's lifted sometime in his exultation.
I didn't see the King of Kings in his humiliation which he so graphically describes in Isaiah chapter 53, which is like an eyewitness account of the cross.
But Isaiah in chapter 6 sees him high season lifted up the season enthroned in heaven. His train filled the temple. That is the magnificence of his garments were so complete that there were was enough room to contain and then he goes on to describe the phenomenon of the Seraphim above it stood the Seraphim. Each one had six wings were to we covered the space with two he covered his feet with doing flu and I've often wondered why I say give so much anchor these details what difference does it make what the Seraphim look like how many wings they had. This is lesson in biology as it but he'd house us something very important about the inner court. God is seated on his throne in spectacular glory and what Isaiah sees one God removes the veil and lets him look directly into the inner chamber of the heavenly place. He seems the sovereign one in his exalted glory being ministered to and surrounded by the Seraphim. Now obviously the surfing is a plural form refer to angels now.
You notice in our study of biology that when God makes creatures each creature that he makes is made suitable for his or her environment to go to the sea and you look at the fish. The fish of scale sufficient for insufficient deals weighed up. But why do they because their natural environment, their habitat is in the water and if you look at the birds you see that the birds have fathers and that they have wings because they were made by God to course through the air. We don't have fathers and we don't have wings because that's not our natural habitat. So God makes us and adapts us for her environment. So one of the Seraphim have six wings what we know why they have two of them.
The use of the fly around but the other two they said they cover their face. I can get over the why did the angels of God, whose natural habitation is the internal chambers of heaven itself have to cover their face. The rumor Moses again when he went up one of the mountain and they had already had manifold experiences of the astonishing power of God, and he says okay God show me the big one. Let me see your glory. Let me see your face, God said he said Moses I love you.
Don't you remember no one can see my face and live off I will do all carve a little niche out of the rock care and I'll put you in the cleft of the rock, and I will pass by, and I will let you see what the Hebrew calls the hindquarters. The backward parts of Yahweh but my face shall not be seen. And so for a brief instant, God passes his glory backwards past Moses as Moses is concealed in the cleft of the rock gets an instantaneous glance, the reflected glory of God, a backward glance and what he comes away from that situation and comes down from the mountain. His face is shining with such intensity, reflecting that manifest glory that he has to cover Moses face is radiant from a reflection of the glory of God. If you're in his unveiled presence, the glory of God the effulgence of his radiance is so intense, so over powering that even the angels of heaven cannot look directly into it the glory of God is so bright, so blazing that even the angels in heaven have to cover their eyes with their wings given special equipment by their Creator to deal with the overpowering practice to recover their feet.
We don't know exactly why that references their but presumably it's a reference to the creaturely mass of the angels and even the Angels is exalted as they are our to give obeisance and manifest their humility before the grand majesty, God. But, beloved, as you know, the thing that consumes me about this passage is not the anatomy lesson of the Seraphim.
It's their message. The message they declare as a heavenly choir, a chorus that sings in antiphonal response throughout the echoing chambers of heaven itself as the one Seraphim sings to the other end to the others and to the others the same refrain echoing across the chambers of heaven hallway hallway hallway, the Lord of hosts, who was filled with I've mentioned before that this English-speaking people, we could read this text, a thousand times in this significance because in our language. If we want to make emphasis if we want to make sure the people get the point. We have all different technical devices literary devices that we can use to give emphasis we can underline we can put!
Forever, you can use bold print we can set things in brackets were in italics and all those things say this is important in the Jewish people had all those techniques as well.
But in addition to that they had one other very important technique and that is if they wanted to show the importance of something the emphatic importance of it.
They simply repeated it simply repeated the funny passage in Genesis where this great pit is described in the Hebrew there is simply the same word for pit repeated for pit. The idea is that their pets and their pets.
It's one thing to fall in a pet if you fall apart your trouble. But if you fall into a pit that you may never get out because a pit pit is the prettiest of all possible. Our Lord uses this technique when he would say to his disciples in the course everything that Jesus said was important, but there were things that even he deemed to be of special importance they would preface his word by saying all laying on Main, I say to you. Amen, amen. He said at the beginning of the end truly, truly, I say the apostle Paul writing to the Galatians expresses his apostolic astonishment that they had so quickly remove themselves from the gospel unto another gospel which was not another gospel in a war since I if anybody preaches unto any other gospel than that which you have received even if it's an angel from heaven, what, let him be on a tame, let him be anathema. Let them be damn that's that's part stuff coming from the apostle and then when he says that you hear me again I say to you, if anyone preaches any gospel, the other the ones you received and be damn, he repeats it.
I would say that God is holy, it doesn't even say that God is holy, holy, TC Bible says that God holy home twice, three times, not the comparative degree beloved, but the superlative degree. The only attribute of God that is ever raised to the 3rd° in all of Scripture is his holiness the Bible doesn't say that God is love love love or grace, grace, grace, mercy, mercy, mercy or justice, justice, justice, or wrath rap rap or omnipotence of lipids and evidence, but that he is holy, holy, hallway, that's the supreme emphasis and when that emphasis is grasped and when the people of God catch that same vision, same thing that happened though I say Your and we are driven to the ground and stuck Darcy Spruill teaching on the holiness of God. Listening to Renewing Your Mind on this Monday I'm Lee Webb, thank you for being with us today. The message we just heard really is a hallmark of Marcy's ministry said that the holiness of God affects every aspect of our lives as we heard today. It's something that we as believers need to understand on a deep level, this message is part of a series we call the central truths of the Christian faith. 12 messages on critical topics such as the nature of man, the atonement and the authority of Scripture Alastair Begg James Montgomery Boyce Sinclair Ferguson and John MacArthur explore these key truths of biblical Christianity will send you all of the messages on a USB drive that when you contact us today with a donation of any amount ever including a bonus series on that USB drive. It's RC's classic collection. 10 of his most requested messages you can give your gift and request the series online@renewingyourmy.org or you can call us at 800-435-4343, but I hope you're taking advantage of all the resources we made available online, you can always visit our archive of past renewing of my programs in 1 Easy Way to do that is with our free link in your app among the many things you'll find there are audio and video clips, articles and blog posts to search for linear in your app store, but I hope you make plans to join us again tomorrow as we explore another essential truth of the Christian faith. Satan is a liar he is a deceiver incessantly propagates lies that destroy God's truth. One of those lies is that the Bible is not the word of God and that life courses at the foundation of everything, absolutely everything Dr. John MacArthur on the authority of Scripture.
Tomorrow on Renewing Your Mind