Page 16 - Isaiah Student Worktext

All that just to tell you why it significant to say, ‘In the year King Uzziah died’, which contemporaries
would have made note of…by the way, it was somewhere around 740 BC.

Isaiah would long remember that year, not because King Uzziah died, but because of the vision he was
given.

He SAW the Lord, sitting on a throne as John would centuries later. His robe was so magnificent that it
filled the temple and obscured a direct viewing of God. ‘Seraphim’ were above the throne. This is the
only place that they are mentioned in scripture. The name means ‘burning ones.’

Six wings: two to cover their face because they were unworthy to see the Lord, two to cover their feet,
again out of unworthiness and two with which to fly.

V. 3-4 To repeat the word ‘holy’ three times is to emphasize how overwhelming this attribute of the
Lord is. To repeat it over and over simply magnifies it.

They sang that the whole earth is filled with His glory. No doubt we can attest to that in just the beauty
of His creation. If you can stand at the rim of the Grand Canyon or on the seashore and NOT see His
glory…you are just not looking.

The presence of God shook the temple. This is repeated in Acts 4: 31, after the prayed, the building they
were in was shaken. Again, it was the presence of God. Oh, that He would shake our churches!

V. 5 ‘Woe’ is a commonly used word in Isaiah, but generally applies to the nation of Israel, who should
be sorrowed knowing that God is unhappy with them.

In this case, Isaiah said ‘woe is ME’. He recognizes his unworthiness to have even seen what he’s seen.
He acknowledges his sinfulness and the sinfulness of the people of Israel by saying he was a man of
‘unclean lips’.

V. 6-7 I’ve never had a seraphim fly up to me and I’ve never had a burning coal applied to my lips, but I
can tell you without a doubt that God has often reassured me of my salvation and my forgiveness…my
iniquity being taken away.

Our merciful God, instead of just wiping out all of us as unworthy sinners, instead commands our
purification…if we are repentant.

God has spoken through a donkey, to Balaam in Numbers 22: 28. He spoke through one of those who
allowed the Jews to put Christ to death (Caiaphas who said that it was ‘expedient’ that one Man should
die for the many). He even spoke through Pharaoh.

How much more can He speak through each of us?

V. 8-9 I can’t say that my own calling was quite this dramatic, but I heard it clearly, nevertheless.

I still wasn’t sure if that was truly what God wanted me to do. An advisor told me way to find out was to
do it. If it wasn’t the right thing, God would make sure that I knew.

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