Continued thoughts about our words

Isaiah 6:1-5 1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." 4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

Isaiah saw God. He saw the sovereign of all the nations and of the entire universe seated on His throne. Moses who God spoke to as a friend speaks to a friends wasn’t able to see God and yet here is Isaiah in God’s presence. Look at Isaiah’s reaction to being in the presence of God, the holy, holy, holy one.

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."

Isaiah knew what his core problem was when he came face to face with God. It wasn’t his thoughts or his actions but look at what he says. Isaiah cries out, woe to me, I am ruined for I am a man of unclean lips. He knew that his speech, what came out of his heart is what was wrong with him and what made him so opposite of a holy, holy, holy God.

6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."

The cure for Isaiah’s unclean lips? It was a coal that was too hot for even that angel to pick up to come and sear Isaiah’s lips, burning away what was unclean in him. This was a radical fix for Isaiah and is something we need to pray that God would do spiritually in our lives. That God would take a coal from His altar and sear our lips so that we are no longer guilty of being people with unclean lips.