When Pride Rewrites Worship: King Uzziah And Isaiah 6

The fastest way to spot pride is to watch what happens when someone hears “no.” We take that test into Scripture by walking through King Uzziah’s shocking turn in 2 Chronicles 26 and Isaiah’s throne room vision in Isaiah 6. Uzziah starts with decades of strength and blessing, then lets success convince him he can rewrite the rules of worship. The result is severe: separation, isolation, and a life marked by what pride always produces when it refuses correction.

From there, we step into Isaiah’s encounter with the Lord “high and lifted up” and the breathtaking picture of God’s holiness. We talk through the train of his robe filling the temple and why the hem matters across the Bible, from David and Saul to Ruth and Boaz, pointing to covenant covering and redemption. We also wrestle with a personal question: if we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, are we actually letting God’s authority shape our choices, or are we still trying to shape God around our preferences?

The seraphim’s cry of “Holy, holy, holy” leads to Isaiah’s honest confession and the burning mercy of the live coal from the altar, a vivid pointer to sacrifice, cleansing, and the saving work of Jesus Christ. Once Isaiah is purified, he finally hears the call and answers without delay: “Here I am, send me.”

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Come On Up is the radio ministry of The Mountain Cross in Waynesville North Carolina. To learn more about us please visit: TheMountainCross.com. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, and we shall walk in his paths.

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Welcome to Come On Up, the radio ministry of the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina.

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When we become servants of the Lord, when we become slaves to the Lord, as Paul describes himself and Peter as well, servants of the Most High God, it's not my agenda, but it's his agenda. I have given him my life to do as he wills. He's the potter, I'm the clay. We don't go and make our own rules. Because when we're making our own rules, we're not walking in faith, and anything that we're not doing in faith is sin.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Master potters take a lumpy, misshapen ball of clay and turn it into a masterpiece. They don't first ask it, what do you want to be today, clay? No, they already have a vision for the clay and will turn it into whatever they want it to be. Today, Pastor Carl explains that God looks at us the same way. When we give our lives to him, he'll take us and make us into what he wants us to be. If we surrender our whole self, he can turn us into something beautiful and usable, rather than leaving us as a misshapen ball of clay. And now, here's Pastor Carl.

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Isaiah chapter 6, verse 1. And in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up. King Uzziah died. And Isaiah was brought to the throne room of God, and they saw the Lord high and lifted up. Alright, because it's so heavy, we're going to take a little step back from looking at the Lord high and lifted up, and let's talk a little bit about who this King Uzziah is and why it's important at this juncture that he mentioned that was the time that this vision happened. Let's go into the book of 2 Chronicles in chapter 26. In 2 Chronicles 26, we learn a little bit about the history of the life of Uzziah. Uzziah was 16 years old when he became king, and he reigned 52 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Jequaliah of Jerusalem, and he did what was right in the sight of the Lord. According to all that his father Amaziah had done, he sought God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of God. And as long as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper. Uzziah started out young. He was sixteen years old when he became king, and he sought after the Lord. And he was a good king, and he reigned for fifty-two years. And there was a good time of prosperity, and and this was the kind of king that we wanted. Except toward the end of his life, we skip to verse 16. But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up. His heart was lifted up to his destruction, for he transgressed against the Lord his God by entering into the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. He's been blessed by God. He's been a powerful king. He made his enemies to be quiet all around him as a time of peace and prosperity. Things were happening, and it was it was a wonderful time. And it started going to his head. And he forgot that he was just the king. Now he thought, God loves me so much, I'm such a great guy, I should be able to go into the temple and offer incense as well, like a priest. And he went in, and he was going to offer this burnt incense, which was a symbol of the prayers of God's people coming before the altar of God. And as he did that, Azariah the priest went in after him, and with him there were eighty priests of the Lord, valiant men, and they withstood King Uzziah and said to him, It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord, but for the priests, the son of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense. Get out of the sanctuary, for you have trespassed. You shall have no honor from the Lord God. Uzziah, God has blessed you, God has put you in this position, but He's not made you a priest. You're not in the line of the priesthood. Somehow, in his service to God, it went to his head. And pride started to fill his heart. And thought he could do anything that he wanted to do. He was so close to God, he could become a priest and he could offer these sacrifices. And because he was king, he could just assert his authority and go in there. But the high priest said, No, Uzziah, I don't care if you're king, this is not right. You're not following the law of the Lord. Do you not fear God, man? Verse 19. Then Uzziah became furious. Because, who are you telling me what I can't do? And he had the censer in his hand to burn incense. It's this thing that hangs down alone, and you put the coals in there and it creates incense and the smoke that comes out, and you bring that before the altar of the Lord. The high priest would do that once a year to represent the prayers of God's people. And the smoke would go up to the Lord as a pleasant sacrifice to him. But not when it's done outside of his prescription, outside of the way that he made for this to happen. He's equipped certain people to do certain tasks, and when we get out of that, we mess things up. And while he was angry with the priests, because who are they to tell me what to do, even if it's the truth, leprosy broke out on his forehead before the priests in the house of the Lord, besides the incense altar. Now he did not go into the Holy of Holies. The incense altar was just inside, uh before the veil that went into the Holy of Holies. Now, if you want to go a little deeper, in the New Testament, when you look in the book of Hebrews, you find this same altar of incense inside the Holy of Holies. Do a little study on that, why it's inside after the Old Testament and then into the New Testament. That's new homework for you. But he was outside, just getting ready to go in, thinking that because who he was, he could do anything he wanted to do. Now, what's the problem with that? When we're serving the Lord, when we become servants of the Lord, when we become slaves to the Lord, as Paul describes himself and Peter as well, servants of the Most High God, it's not my agenda, but it's his agenda. I have given him my life to do as he wills. He's the potter, I'm the clay. We don't go and make our own rules. Because when we're making our own rules, we're not walking in faith. And anything that we're not doing in faith is sin. And sin is separation from God. We think we're doing God's work, but we're walking further and further away from Him. And Uzziah, even though he had a great record, he blew it. Ezariah, the chief priest, and all the priests looked at him, and there on his forehead he was leprous. So they thrust him out of that place. They grabbed him and they pulled him out forcefully. Indeed, he also hurried to get out. At that moment, when he realized that leprosy had hit him, he recognized that he was outside of the will of God, and the fear of God returned in his life. But too little, too late. King Uzziah was a leper until the day of his death. He dwelt in an isolated house because he was a leper, for he was cut off from the house of the Lord. Then Jotham, his son, was over the king's house, judging the people of the land. And Jotham was king just for a little while, and then Ahaz became the king after that. Keep that line in mind as well. So this was the year that King Uzziah died, that Isaiah had this vision, and he's brought into the throne room of God, and he saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up. He wasn't high and lifted up like Uzziah. Uzziah lifted himself up. And what does God say about those that are proud, he will knock down. Those who are humble, he will exalt and lift up. But here is Jesus Christ on the throne, high and lifted up. He is high and lifted up, he is praised. The throne is high and lifted up and praised. And in some of my preparations, I ran into Matthew Henry's commentary on this, and it was so good I just wanted to quote it. So here it is. Matthew Henry, that throne, high and lifted up, not only above other thrones, as it transcends them, but over other thrones. It's better than them, and it rules over them as it rules and commands them. Isaiah saw the Lord Jesus. He saw Christ's glory and spoke of him, which is an incontestable proof of the divinity of our Savior. There is Jesus on the throne of God. He is God Himself. It is He who, when after His resurrection, He sat down at the right hand of God, the Father, and did but sit down where He was before. He's always been there. He left, He became a man, and now He's back on the throne. Isaiah saw the Lord sitting on a throne, a throne of glory before which we must worship, a throne of government under which we must be subject, and a throne of grace to which we may come boldly. This throne is high and lifted up above all competition and contradiction. And that's the first thing he sees. And the train of his robe filled the temple, the real temple, the heavenly temple where God dwells, where Jesus is our high priest as well as our king. Now, this idea of the train of his robe, the train is another name for the skirt or the hem of the high priest's robe. At the bottom of the hymn, there was a lot of uh interesting things about it. The word for train is to hang down, it's the bottom edge of this robe or skirt or whatever you want to call it. To cut that hem would be to strip one of his personality and authority. The hem of his robe held a lot of declaration of who the king or the priest was in this case. You remember the time that David cornered Saul in a cave and he cut the edge of his robe? He was attacking the very essence of Saul being king, his authority as king. If I cut your robe as king, you're no longer king. And later David would repent for that, right? Because who am I to go against the Lord's anointed? He recognized that God put Saul there. Even if Saul isn't doing the things that he needs to be doing, God put him there. And that's why we need to pray for the folks that are in positions of authority in our lives. God put them there for a reason, even if they're not doing what they ought to be doing. So be praying for our government. This idea of the robe goes a little deeper too. It also is a picture of God's covenant with his people. An example of this is in Ezekiel 16, 8, where the Lord says, I will spread my wing over you and cover your nakedness. That word for wing is the same phrase for robe or skirt. I will protect you with my robe, with my wing. I will cover you and I will protect you. Does that sound familiar in the book of Ruth? When Ruth comes to Boaz and asks him to cover her with his wing? It wasn't an adulterous thing where you could read it and say, ooh, this is weird. This was actually her going to him as the kinsman redeemer. And that's some more homework for you to do. What is the kinsman redeemer, and what is so important about that? Basically, Boaz, because he was related to Ruth along the line, could become her husband to protect her, to take her in, to put her under his covering, under his wing. And that's the same sort of thing that was happening there. Joseph's robe of many colors was actually a seamless robe with a special hem that was on the bottom, which implied a position of privilege in the family. And that's why his brothers were always jealous, because he was parading around like a king. At least to their perspective, he was. If I could just touch the hem of his robe, then I could touch his authority and he can move on me. And that was an act of great faith. And your faith has made you well. The faith has healed you, Jesus said to the woman. And so this gives you a little more understanding of the train of the robe filled the temple. His glory, his authority, his protection, his power was all over. And today, where does the Lord dwell? What do we call the temple today? Of course, we have the temple in heaven, but we are called the temple of the Holy Spirit, aren't we? God dwells in us. His authority dwells in us. The train of his robe flows through us. Are we letting him? Are we allowing him to have that authority? Are we allowing him to have that protection in our lives to provide us the protection that we need? So that's just the beginning of the vision, and already Isaiah's shaking a little bit. But then in verse 2, above it stood Seraphim. Seraphim, this type of angel that's only described here. There's some other angels that are called cherubim that are described in other areas of the word as well. Some commentators say they're the same thing, some say they are different. The word for seraphim has this idea of fire involved with it too. This is the fire of God's judgment. The angels of fire that come and minister for the Lord, to the Lord, and do the work of the Lord. And each of these seraphim had six wings. Two he covered his face, and two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. So these powerful, angelic creatures that stand before the Lord, not having rebelled against God like a third of the angels had. The chief cherub, the cherub that covers, you remember that guy? His name is Lucifer. He wanted to exalt himself to become God, and so he rebelled and took a third of the angels with him. These are the cherubs that stand before the Lord and cry out, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. But even these mighty beings stand there with two wings to cover their face because they're standing before the glory of God. And they have a good, healthy fear of the Lord. It's not about them, it's about the glory of God. So they humble themselves, they cover their feet because where they go is holy ground. Where they're standing is holy ground. And they don't want to presume to go their own way, but they want to humble themselves before the Lord. What's the difference between these seraphim before the face of God and Uzziah and his example of puffing himself up and going into the altar, into the Holy of Holies, or trying to go into the Holy of Holies? There's a difference, isn't there? And with two he flew. These seraphim were called to go. And when they were called to go, they went. They flew off to it. How quick are we to obey the word of the Lord? When he tells us to do something, do we do it or do we hold back and say, Yeah, I will. Um, I will. Pretty soon, yeah, I will do it. They did it amazingly quickly. And verse 3, and one cried to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. So they would sing to each other, they would sing in unity. It's going to be a glorious choir that we're going to be part of when we see the Lord face to face. Do you realize this? It's going to be beautiful, amazing, powerful. Did you notice in verse 4? And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke, the Shekinah glory of God resonating. It wasn't the Lord's voice that shook, it was the seraphim crying out. These powerful beings. Just wait till the Lord speaks. Then it'll really shake you, right? So in verse 5, Isaiah 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. There's no room for pride when we stand before the Lord. Uzziah thought he could go before the Lord and say, Hey, Lord, look at me. He missed it. But Isaiah, in my book, he's a pretty godly guy, right? He followed the Lord, he heard the Lord, he declared the word of the Lord. But even he, in this scene, is cut to the heart and humbled and says, I am a man of unclean lips. And why does he talk about his lips? Well, one of the most important things he does is speak the word of the Lord. And he said, My lips are unclean. I'm speaking the word of the Lord, but I shouldn't be doing this. I'm standing in the presence of God and He's holy and He's righteous, and these creatures are humbling themselves before the Lord, and they're so much bigger and greater than I. He's just overwhelmed. We studied a little while ago when Jesus said, you know, it's not what goes in your mouth that defiles you, but what comes out. Out of your mouth speaks what are the issues of your heart. Out of your heart, your mouth speaks. And it just shows us how fallen we are. No matter how good you've been, no matter how many great things you've done for the Lord, Isaiah realized his fallness. And he realized that he stood naked before the Lord. But there was an answer. And one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. Again, these are one of these fire ministers, the seraphim. They're getting a hot coal from the fire. And he touched my mouth with it, and he said, Behold, this has touched your lips, your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is purged. Sometimes you've got to burn away your sin, right? But to understand this a little more, you have to understand what was the coal in that altar of incense. That coal was from the sacrifices that had been made. And they eternally burned. They kept burning. We kept adding the priests would keep adding coals from the sacrifice to this to continue. And those coals, when put into whatever that container was called again, would create the incense which represents the prayers of God's people, which are accepted before the Lord because they're coming from a pure. Sacrifice. You following me so far? Jesus was the Lamb of God that took away the sin of the world. And representing his blood and his sacrifice on the cross in the holy of holies in the temple in heaven is an altar. And there are coals in that altar that are burning that represent the sacrifice that Jesus did. Which means, are you applying the sacrifice of Jesus to your life? The angel, the seraphim, took a coal from that and touched the lips of Isaiah. Jesus' sacrifice makes us clean. Jesus' sacrifice burns away the impurities in our lives. And that can hurt, can't it? But for Isaiah, he took that and he celebrated it. And as soon as that happened in verse 8, also I heard the voice of the Lord. The Lord started speaking. As soon as Isaiah was made clean and purified, the Lord says, Whom shall I send and who will go for us? Interesting, the Lord says, us, doesn't he? Who will go for us? Who will go for the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit? The same us that were involved in creation in Genesis. Behold, Israel, our God is one God. Yet He's a magnificently glorious God who's manifest in three persons. That's the doctrine of the Trinity. And here it is in the Old Testament. And Isaiah said without hesitation, here I am, send me. Almost like a fourth-grade student in the school. Ooh, ooh, I got the answer. I'll do it. I'll do it. Let me do it. Let me do it.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

You're listening to Pastor Carl teach through Isaiah on Come On Up. As you may know, the book of Isaiah was written by a prophet who was telling of the coming exile of the people of Israel. They had strayed far from God, and they were about to face consequences for their sinful behavior. However, this exile isn't the end of the story for God's chosen people. Isaiah also shares a message of hope, reminding his readers that God can use even the darkest of circumstances for the good of all humanity. The Israelites may be away from their homeland for a while, but one day they will return. Pastor Carl wants us to learn that we are spiritual exiles, living in a world unlike the one we were made for. We were meant to be in communion with God, but we were separated from his presence by the curse of sin. But just as the Israelites came back to their homeland, we will one day be restored into the presence of our Creator, thanks to the blood of Jesus. Would you like to hear more from Pastor Carl? If so, go to themountaincross.com. There you'll find links to our Bible studies and our podcast feed, where you'll be able to listen to more of Pastor Carl's lessons. But you'll also find information about our in-person services at the Mountain Cross. If you're in Waynesville, North Carolina, you're invited to join us for our Sunday services at the Smoky Mountain Cinema. Thanks for listening today. Come on up to the mountain with us again next time as we seek to learn more from the Lord through His Word. Come On Up is sponsored by the Mountain Cross, a Calvary Chapel fellowship.