Reading: Seeing the Lord of Hosts (Video Slides)

Seeing the Lord of Hosts
by David Feddes

Reality, not just theory

· Theology = theos (God) + logos (word)

· Meeting the Lord is more than God-talk.

· God’s attributes are not just fancy words but stunning realities.

Thomas Aquinas (1274)

“I can do no more; such things have been revealed to me that all I have written seems as straw, and I now await the end of my life.”

Alvin Plantinga (1950)

It was dark, windy, raining, nasty. But suddenly it was as if the heavens opened; I heard, so it seemed, music of overwhelming power and grandeur and sweetness; there was light of unimaginable splendor and beauty; it seemed I could see into heaven itself; and I suddenly saw or perhaps felt with great clarity and persuasion and conviction that the Lord was really there and was all I had thought.

Isaiah’s Encounter

6:1 In the year that King Uzziah died [740 BC] I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!

Isaiah’s Encounter

4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.

5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for 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!”

Isaiah’s Encounter

6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” 8 And 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.

Seeing the Lord of Hosts

· Clarity: seeing  the King as He is

· Conviction: seeing yourself as you are

· Cleansing: grace removes guilt

· Commission: going where God sends

Clarity: seeing the King as He is

· Living: not dead like King Uzziah

· Enthroned: reigning with all authority

· Majestic: high and lifted up

· Awesome: seraphs can’t look

· Holy: totally pure, utterly unlike all else

· Mighty: Lord of hosts

· Glorious: beauty shines forth

· Present: His glory fills temple and earth

Jonathan Edwards

Once, as I rode out into the woods for my health, in 1737, having alighted from my horse in a retired place, as my manner commonly has been, to walk for divine contemplation and prayer, I had a view that for me was extraordinary, of the glory of the Son of God, as Mediator between
God and man, and his wonderful, great, full, pure and sweet grace and love, and meek and gentle condescension.
This grace that appeared so calm and sweet, appeared also great above the heavens. The person of Christ appeared ineffably excellent with an excellency great enough to swallow up all thought
and conception, which continued as near as I can judge, about an hour; which kept me the greater part of the time in a flood of tears, and weeping aloud. I felt an ardency of soul to be, what I
know not otherwise how to express, emptied and annihilated; to lie in the dust, and to be full of Christ alone; to love him with a holy and pure love; to trust in him; to live upon him; to serve and follow him; and to be perfectly sanctified and made pure, with a divine and heavenly purity.

Dwight L. Moody (1872)

One day in the City of New York—oh! what a day, I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it. It is almost too sacred an experience to name. I can only say, God revealed Himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand.

Seeing the Lord of hosts

1. Clarity: seeing the King as He is

2. Conviction: seeing yourself as you are

And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for 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!” (Isaiah 6:5)

· Unclean lips cannot rightly praise God or proclaim God to others.

Small and sinful before God

Abraham: “I who am but dust and ashes.” (Genesis 18:27)

Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. (Exodus 3:6)

Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” And he said, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped. (Joshua 5:13-14)

Job: I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:5-6)

But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” (Luke 5:8)

Saul was flattened and blinded by a light from heaven. (Acts 9:3-9)

George Whitefield

(1714-1770)

I then began to pray and to give an exhortation. In about six minutes one cried out, “He is come! He is come!” and could scarcely sustain the manifestation of Jesus to his soul. But having heard the crying of others for the like favour obliged me to stop, and I prayed over them as I saw their agonies and distress increase.

My own soul was so full that I retired and wept before the Lord, and had a deep sense of my own vileness, and the sovereignty and greatness of God’s everlasting love. Most of the people spent the remainder of the night in prayer and praising God. It was a night much to be remembered.

Korean Pentecost (1907)

Each felt as he entered the church that the room was full of God's presence... a sense of God's nearness impossible of description… He came to us in Pyungyang that night with the sound of weeping. As the prayer continued, a spirit of heaviness and sorrow for sin came down upon the audience. Over on one side, someone began to weep, and in a moment the whole audience was weeping.

My own cook tried to make a confession, broke down in the midst of it, and cried to me across the room, 'Pastor, tell me, is there any hope for me, can I be forgiven?' and then he threw himself to the floor and wept and wept, and almost screamed in agony.

A Korean elder confessed hatred for the missionary, and the two of them fell to the floor before God as the Spirit came upon the assembly in power.

Pale and trembling with emotion, in agony of mind and body, guilty souls, standing in the white light of that judgment, saw themselves as God saw them. Their sins rose up in all their vileness, till shame and grief and self-loathing took complete possession; pride was driven out, the face of men forgotten.

Looking up to heaven, to Jesus whom they had betrayed, they smote themselves and cried out with bitter wailing, "Lord, Lord, cast us not away forever!" Everything else was forgotten, nothing else mattered. The scorn of men, the penalty of the law, even death itself seemed of small consequence if only God forgave… I know now that when the Spirit of God falls upon guilty souls, there will be confession, and no power on earth can stop it. (William Blair)

Seeing the Lord of Hosts

· Clarity: seeing  the King as He is

· Conviction: seeing yourself as you are

· Cleansing: grace removes guilt

Cleansing: grace removes guilt

6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

White as snow

Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.

(Isaiah 1:18)

Our sins are put on Him

But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:5-6)

The High saves the lowly

For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite. (Isaiah 57:15)

Martin Luther (early 1500s)

Then I grasped that the righteousness of God is the righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning. This passage became to me a gate to heaven.

John Wesley (May 24, 1738)

About a quarter before nine while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for my salvation, and an assurance was given to me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

Seeing the Lord of Hosts

· Clarity: seeing  the King as He is

· Conviction: seeing yourself as you are

· Cleansing: grace removes guilt

· Commission: going where God sends

Comission: going where God sends

And 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.” (Isaiah 6:8)

· Those God saves, He sends.

· Keep speaking, regardless of response.

Commission: going where God sends

I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. (Exodus 3:10)

I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and mighty men of valor.  You shall march around the city. (Joshua 6:2-3)

Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” (Luke 5:10)

Commission: going where God sends

I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness… I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. (Acts 26:16)

Seeing the Lord of Hosts

· Clarity: seeing  the King as He is

· Conviction: seeing yourself as you are

· Cleansing: grace removes guilt

· Commission: going where God sends

Isaiah saw Jesus’ glory

When Jesus had said these things, he departed and hid himself from them. Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, so that the word spoken by the
prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled…Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. (John
12:36-41)

Hearts to see glory

God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Cor 4:6) … that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened. (Ephesians 1:17-18)