The beginning of Isaiah 6 is how Isaiah got VISION! He saw the Lord!
Isaiah 6 starts off,
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”
At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
It then continues with Isaiah's (and probably what any of our reactions would be upon seeing God) in verse 5:
“Woe to me!” I cried. “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.”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
Isaiah saw the Lord and then saw his sin! He probably felt so dirty and condemned and ruined! The moment where the seraphim touches the coal to Isaiah's mouth is breath-taking! Isaiah's guilt for his sins (along with his sins) were completely obliterated!
Louie told a personal story of a moment when he first truly saw Jesus and the cross. You may be a believe and feel your faith life is good and strong. Louie was 15 years old and saw the Lord and realized for the first time how much He went through for him! Louie was completely broken before God, and was embarrassed because his guy friends wanted him to go to some banana split place... but that's beside the point.
Think of a time when you were broken before the Lord after finally seeing the cross!
Louie named a few ways to know you really truly saw God!
1.) You don't see Jesus's cross. You see YOURS! Your eyes have been opened by God. Christ died on YOUR cross, not His own! WE are the perpetrators who crushed Jesus!
Isaiah 53:6-9 says
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
We can't dodge the blame! We turned, like sheep, to go our own way. It was not just THE cross, but MY cross!
2.) God was not just a passive by-stander at the Cross. He was the instigator! (vs. 10) "Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer..."
At the cross, the curse of our lives was completely gone. There is no traces of it left anywhere. "It is finished!" Condemnation is No More!!
In Galations chapter 6, Paul wrote a letter to the church in Galatia. He saw Jesus and fell down as if dead, and was physically blinded by the light of God! Paul claimed to be the worst sinner and the lowest person in the world, until He saw the cross!
"Amazing Grace,
Jesus was crushed for our sins; I was crushed so that Jesus is the only One I see! He is our vision!
And Jesus accepted it. He had communion with His disciples, then took them up the Mount of Olives to the Garden of Gethsemane, which literally translates into "olive press". Jesus asked the disciples to pray with Him because He had this huge weight on His shoulders from a huge decision He had to make. He signed off on His own death! He prayed 3 times to His Father, asking if there was any way out of it. He didn't want to go through all the pain. But while He was there praying, He already started to sweat blood because of the weight of the wrath and sin already starting to crush Him.
Don't let the enemy tell you otherwise!
Verse 14 says, "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world."
There isn't ANY value in anything worth boasting in, except the cross of Jesus Christ!
How sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost,
but now am found.
Was blind,
But now I see."
Jesus was crushed for our sins; I was crushed so that Jesus is the only One I see! He is our vision!
