This was the moment that dramatically transformed Isaiah’s life. The prophet walked into the temple, as on any other day, with no indication of the life-changing experience that awaited him. There he came face-to-face with God; and the personal presence of the Lord overwhelmed him.
As he stood that day on the temple floor, God pulled back the veil allowing Isaiah to see into Heaven. Isaiah says, “I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple.” Isaiah saw the Lord Jesus sitting on His heavenly throne, elevated high above every throne in existence. The long skirt of his robe filled the heavenly temple, telling of his unsurpassed majesty, power and authority.
Angelic Seraphim hoovered adoringly above him, waiting eagerly for any chance to serve him. And in voices so loud it shook the earthly temple in which Isaiah stood, they continuously sang out “holy, holy, holy”. Not once, not twice, but three times this heavenly host highlighted that one trait. The Lord is “holy”.
This powerful witness of the Lord’s holiness laid bared the prophet’s own heart. The seraphim’s “Holy, Holy, Holy” provoked in Isaiah a keen sense of himself as “sinful, sinful, sinful”.
He felt shattered before the holy God by the sense of his own sinfulness, and that of his people. He cried out, “Woe is me!”
But the Lord didn’t leave him there. Responding in mercy to Isaiah’s confession and repentance, immediately a seraph was dispatched. The seraph took a hot coal from the altar and placed it in the prophet’s mouth, purging him of sin. Isaiah was reconciled to God.
Then Isaiah heard the Lord’s voice calling Him into service. The Lord asked, “…who will go for us?” Without hesitation, the humbled prophet responded, “Here am I. Send me.”
That same “holy, holy, holy” Lord Jesus Christ, stands ready now to forgive every penitent sinner who comes to him. To deliver from sin, give eternal life, and set on a right path of obedience and humble service.
Come to him now.
---Beverly Nickles
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim. Each one had six wings. With two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. One cried to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.”
The posts of the door moved at the voice of him who cried, and the house was filled with smoke.
And I said: “Woe is me! For I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar in his hand. And he laid it on my mouth, and said, “This has touched your lips, and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged.”Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”
Then I said, “Here am I. Send me.” (Is. 6:1-8)