Do You Know the God You Worship? - part 2

(If you're just now joining, going back to part 1 will help things make a little more sense.)

Man number two: Isaiah. Here's his firsthand account of standing before the LORD's throne:

I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. . . . At the sound of [the seraphs'] voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. -Isaiah 6:1,4

Notice Isaiah doesn't provide us with as much detail as John in regards to what he saw. But what he does record sounds quite parallel to John's description.

The train of his robe filled the temple.

Does this start to tell you how huge our God is? Imagine an earthly king sitting on his royal chair inside of his huge royal palace. He's got his fancy robe on that drags behind him when he walks. Now imagine the dragging train of his robe taking all available floor space inside of his palace. Seems pretty absurd, this man wearing enough fabric to clothe his entire country. He'd drown in that much robing.

Now let's bring this image up to God-scale (we're pretending we're able to do this, remember?). How huge God's temple must be! I mean, seriously, this is the same God Who created not just the moon and stars, but our entire galaxy, and billions of other galaxies to boot. There's a mighty big universe out there. And our God is bigger than that. How could a temple possibly hold Him?

Isaiah says the train of his robe filled the temple. I can't imagine God choosing to wear an oversized robe just for the fun of it. He's going to wear one that fits, and just the draggy part of His robe is big enough to fill His massive temple. How much greater and bigger is the One Who wears it!

As if that's not enough to comprehend, suddenly the very foundations around Isaiah begin to shake. Smoke (or something similar) rolls in. Isaiah must have felt like Jack did after climbing the beanstalk up to the giant's house. In the presence of a huge God, surely everything surrounding Isaiah was massive. And then an earthquake hits. Not just your average California 8.0 earthquake. This is an earthquake of God-sized proportions.

What a terrible and awesome sight to behold! I can't even imagine what my response would be, so I am in no place to judge Isaiah's reaction. Yet I can't help but wonder why he said the words he did:

Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty. -Isaiah 6:5

This declaration stumped me. In the very presence of the LORD, why would Isaiah be immediately concerned about his unclean lips? Personally, I can think of a few other things that would seem a little more devastating.

I still don't know the answer for sure. Isaiah was a prophet. His life was devoted to speaking the words of God to the lost people of the day. Maybe in the presence of God, Isaiah realized how unworthy and unacceptable was his tool used for God's purposes.

Standing before a perfectly holy God will do that. His holiness and purity shines the spotlight on the deepest sin hiding in our hearts. His eternal perfection brings us to ruin. We cannot expect to stand before the LORD and not be brought to our knees.

Praise be to God our Father for sending Jesus! Because of Him, our "guilt is taken away and our sin atoned for" (Isaiah 6:7). Jesus stands in front of that spotlight, and thus we are allowed to stand in the presence of God without condemnation.