"THE TRUE TEMPLE FLOWING WITH GLORY"

Isaiah 6:1-13  In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.  Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.  And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.  Then said I, 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 mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. {undone: Heb. cut off} Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.  Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me. And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.  Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, And the LORD have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.  But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.

When you are not serving God, you are on the throne of your own life.
• God is not on the throne of your life until you dedicate yourself to Him and live for Him, and not for your own desires and wishes.
• People who have truly seen God’s glory are never the same again.

When Isaiah saw his glory, he also heard what he called “seraphims” praising and saying, “Holy, holy, holy; the whole earth is full of God’s glory.”
• This caused the doors of the throne-room to shake.
• We noted before that the doors or the “thresholds,” as the margin says, shook in anticipation of fulfilling that declaration of filling the earth with God’s glory.
• Through those doors would the glory flow out from God.
• Revelation shows it like a River of Life, clear as crystal.

And immediately, when Isaiah heard the seraphims cry concerning God’s glory filling earth, he thought: “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 mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.”
• He saw God’s glory and heard of it filling the earth, and immediately his first reaction was to think of himself and his “unclean lips” and dwelling amongst others of “unclean lips.”
• The reason he thought about that, was because HE WANTED TO DECLARE WHAT HE SAW TO EVERYONE TO WHOM HE COULD DECLARE IT.
He thought about his unclean lips, for in order to speak about this wonderful glory of God filling the Earth, he somehow knew he had to be holy and cleansed, himself.

As soon as anyone truly sees the glory of God, that one is going to suddenly want to tell others about it.
• One is going to almost “bust” with the desire to tell it to the world.
• That is how you can tell if someone really saw the glory of God or not.
• They cannot keep it quiet.
• They have a burden to tell it to others.

The doors shook at the declaration of the Earth being filled with God’s glory, in anticipation of getting that glory out into the world.
• Through the doors that glory would flow like rivers of living water, in Ezekiel 47.

And like those doors, Isaiah shook and desired to let the world know!

Like a doorway, Isaiah considered his mouth as a means of flowing forth the rivers of God.
• God’s voice sounded like many waters in Ezekiel 43.
• To speak God’s Word is to actually be a CONDUIT or threshold that  flows forth the rivers of living Water.. The Word of God.
• God’s word is SPIRIT and LIFE.

John 6:63  It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life.

Revelation 1:15  And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.

Revelation 14:2  And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps:

Ezekiel 43:2  And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east: and his voice was like a noise of many waters: and the earth shined with his glory.

Ezekiel 47:8-9  Then said he unto me, These waters issue out toward the east country, and go down into the desert, and go into the sea: which being brought forth into the sea, the waters shall be healed. And it shall come to pass, [that] every thing that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither: for they shall be healed; and every thing shall live whither the river cometh.

1Corinthians 9:13  Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar?

1Corinthians 10:18  Behold Israel after the flesh: are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?

Isaiah was “cut off” and therefore could not speak of this news.
• Isaiah had two things against him, that were connected together.
• (1) He was CUT OFF.
• (2) He was a man of unclean lips.

This is a direct reference to mankind’s plight since his expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
• We were cut off from God due to sin.
• We became unclean.
• He had to be UNITED TO GOD again and also have his sin removed from him.

Isaiah 59:2  But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.

Isaiah 6:6-7  Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.

Revelation 8:3  And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.

Isaiah’s mouth became a CENSER.
• A man whose mouth was unclean and sinful, became a man whose mouth was like a censer.

Hot coals from the altar were put into a censer that had incense stuffed into it, and the coal would cause the incense to burn and rise and flow out.
• Isaiah’s mouth burned with fire from altar, and was ready to speak forth a sweet smelling savour of God’s Word.

The coal came from the altar.
• Christ was sacrificed on the altar of the cross, so to speak.
• His death, we learn in the New testament, was as necessary for us as a sacrifice was necessary to remove sins in the Old Testament.
• In fact, the Old Testament sacrifices on altars prefigured the day Christ would die on the cross for our sins.
Isaiah had to come in contact with the altar before he could speak forth God’s word.

Isaiah wanted to SPEAK of the glory of God as much as the doors QUAKED in anticipation of pouring out the glory.

Isaiah felt a desire to somehow become ONE with the temple in which he saw God’s glory.
• The temple doors were ready to pour it out and Isaiah felt like his mouth could also flow forth with God’s glory.

In fact, God wants us to become ONE with His temple.
• His true temple is not made with hands.
• We read the Bible make references to the fact that, in all actuality, God does not dwell in temples made with hands.
• HE DWELLS IN HIS PEOPLE, who are not made with hands.

Isaiah was feeling the very thing that God wanted to do in the NEW TESTAMENT DAYS OF JESUS CHRIST.
• He would make people into His temple.

1Corinthians 3:16  Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

Taking the coal from the altar and purging Isaiah’s lips was like PURGING THE DOOR SO THAT IT WOULD BE HOLY ENOUGH TO POUR FORTH GOD’S GLORY.

Ezra 8:28  And I said unto them, Ye are holy unto the LORD; the vessels are holy also;

In Church we call the front region of the sanctuary the ALTAR.
• It is not an ALTAR because of itself.
• We only call it that because we often pray right at this part of the church, and give our lives to the Lord.
• Many people have walked up here to give their lives to God for the first time after a sermon was preached that God used to touch their lives.
• People have received the baptism of the Holy Ghost here.
• But you can receive God’s Spirit anywhere.
• You can give your heart to Him anywhere.
• And wherever you are when you give your life to Him, you can call that place an altar.

This altar is Christ’s altar.
• He died on the cross AS YOU.
• And when you accept that as your only way to glory, and really realize YOU DIED in His death, and you choose to be baptized into His death by baptism in Jesus’ name, you can say that you truly have been touched by coal from the altar.

Isaiah was no longer CUT OFF from God because the coal from the altar touched him.

You can only truly speak about God when you have been UNITED TO JESUS in His death and resurrection.

Isaiah, in a sense, actually came into UNION with the temple.
• His mouth was now ready to FLOW FORTH WITH GOD’S GLORY.

Only by dealing with the altar of Christ’s death, will you ever be united to God.
• He became part of the temple.
• The temple is HIS CHURCH.
• Paul told the Corinthians that as a GROUP of Christians truly baptized into Jesus’ death, they were corporately the TEMPLE of God.
• They were what 1 Peter 2 called LIVELY STONES (plural) which build up into a SPIRITUAL house, not a physical house of cement blocks.

1 Peter 2:5  Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

The coal touched Isaiah’s lips.
• The altar related to HIS MOUTH.
• We need to CONFESS that we believe Jesus died as us.

If eyes are like windows, then surely our mouths are like DOORS of the temple.
• Isaiah’s mouth became a door or threshold of the temple.
• And as Ezekiel saw waters flowing out of the doors of the temple in ch. 47, Isaiah would speak forth words of spirit and life.

True temples of God have God inside them, sitting on a throne.
• True believers do not curse and swear and run their own lives as though they were their own bosses.
• True believers are Servants of the Most High God.
• They are sons and daughters of God.
• God sits on the throne in their lives.
• They do the will of the Father and not their own wills.

Your life becomes a carriage for God’s glory.
• You are committed to the services of the Church to hear the preaching of the Word of God, explaining all that God’s word says about your new Christian life so that you can understand it better, and do God’s will more perfectly.

You become an ARK OF THE COVENANT.

Exodus 25:22  And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.

Numbs 7:89  And when Moses was gone into the tabernacle of the congregation to speak with him, then he heard the voice of one speaking unto him from off the mercy seat that was upon the ark of testimony, from between the two cherubims: and he spake unto him.

So Isaiah was cleansed.

Isaiah 6:8  Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here [am] I; send me.

Being PRIEST or SPOKESMAN of God is not something you can CHOOSE to do simply because you want to.
• You must be CALLED of God to do it.

Hebrews 5:4  And no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as [was] Aaron.

Isaiah prefigured Jesus Christ.
• This is a symbolic prophecy of Jesus Christ who would come to the world and preach GOD’S GLORY to Israel.
• We know this, because we read the following verses and find them referred to in John’s Gospel as being fulfilled in Jesus’ ministry.

Isaiah 6:910  And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.  Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.

John 12:37-41  But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him: That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with [their] eyes, nor understand with [their] heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him.

So Isaiah prefigured Jesus and His ministry of God’s glory to the world.
• But earlier I preached how we could be speak God’s glory, using Isaiah’s prophecy as a lesson to us.
• Does the fact that Isaiah prefigured Jesus exclude us from being God’s mouthpieces?
• No.
• For, those baptized into Jesus’ death are as united to the Lord.

John 2:19-21  Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body.

Ever hear the axiom, “Birds of a feather flock together”?  Well, “Stones of the temple, together assemble.”

Hello, stones!

God’s Church, made of souls united to Jesus in His death and resurrection, is the true temple that flows with Glory everytime a saint of God speaks of Him.
• Come and unite to the true Temple.