John Piper | In the Throne Room: The God of Holiness and Hope | TGCW12

Father in Heaven I pray that you would come and that you would catch us up that you would grant us some measure to see what Isaiah saw in the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord seated upon a throne high and lifted up and the the train of his robe filled the temple 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 [Music] flew and one cried to the other holy holy holy is the Lord of hosts the

whole earth is full of his glory and the foundation of the threshold Shook and the house was filled with smoke Lord Jesus you died that we might see this vision and count it feel it as our unfathomable Delight would you work that in these women would you work that make your Majestic self their [Music] unfathomable Delight I ask this in Jesus name amen June 1st 1973 Chuck Coulson which just passed away in April heard the gospel for the first time from Tom Phillips all the while Watergate was exploding he was the special counsel to President

Nixon that night he said I cried out to God and found myself drawn irresistibly into his waiting arms that was the night I gave my life to Jesus Christ and began the greatest adventure of my life several years later Chuck Coulson repented of a very inadequate view of God he said it was a very dry season and a friend suggested to him that he watch a video cassette series by RC Sproul called the Holiness of God and here's what he wrote by the end of the sixth lecture I was on my knees deep in prayer

in awe of God's absolute Holiness it was a lifechanging experience as I gained a completely new understanding of the holy God I believe in and worship now that has happened to many people a completely new understanding of God though already saved with an inadequate view of God it will happen at this conference it happened to job do you remember how the book begins he was blameless and upright one who feared God turned away from Evil I mean what more could you want he was the best man in the land and then because God is merciful

according to James interpretation of job suffering broke over his life like a tidal wave and he wrestled with God for chapter after chapter until God speaks to him will you even put me in the wrong will you condemn me that you may be justified have you an arm like God can you thunder with a voice like mine deck yourself with majesty and dignity clothe yourself with glory and Splendor look on everyone who is proud and bring him low and tread down the wicked where they stand and job joined Chuck Coulson in a completely new grasp

of God and he said therefore I have uttered what I did not understand things too wonderful for me which I did not know I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear but now my eye sees thee and therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and Ashes it happened to job and it happened to Isaiah after that Vision in verses 1 to 4 and I do invite you to open your Bibles to Isaiah 6 if you haven't already after that Vision in verses 1 to 4 verse 5 and I said woe is

me for I'm lost for I a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips for my eyes have seen the king Yahweh of hosts it happened to me between the ages of 22 and 25 Pasadena California a new understanding of God saved when I was six a taste for the Majesty of God that has never ever gone away and did not exist in the same way before and my prayer is that God will do it for you as we look together at this Vision I pray that he

will give you a taste for his majesty I am sorry that so many of you have grown up in homes unbelieving [Music] homes nominal homes and you go to churches some of you where things are so lighthearted and so glib and so shallow I'm sorry about that I would like your life to count for the healing of that silliness so there is a sense of awe and wonder that is the happiest seriousness in the world in the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord seated upon a throne high and lifted up the train

of his robe filled the temple above him stood the seraphim each had six wings with two they covered their face with two they covered their feet with two they flew and one cried to other holy holy holy is the Lord of hosts the whole earth is full of his his glory and the foundations of the threshold Shook and the house was filled with smoke seven glimpses of God in these four verses number one God is alive in the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord the king is dead God is not from Everlasting

to Everlasting you are God the Living God he was alive forever when this universe exploded into existence he was alive when Socrates drank his poison he was alive when William Bradford ruled over the Plymouth Colony he was alive in 1966 when Thomas altiser said God is dead and Time Magazine absolutely absurdly put it on their front page and he will be alive in 10 trillion ages of years when all of those who have lifted their squeaky voices against him are obliterated like bbb's in the bottom of the Pacific Ocean he is alive and he will

be alive forever all the all the potentates that are on their little Thrones today in 50 years will be no more in those offices the 7 billion people that are alive on planet Earth will experience a complete turnover in 120 years and God will be alive he is alive think of it forever never having come into being never going out of being our God is alive Glimpse number one number two God is authoritative I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne there has never been a vision of God in heaven plowing a field cutting his

grass shining shoes filling out reports or loading a truck and Heaven is not coming apart at the seams for inattention he is sitting in complete composure and on a throne God is never at wit's end with his Heavenly realm he sits and he is in complete Authority the throne signifies his right to rule the world world you don't give God Authority in your life he has it totally you can either pretend he doesn't and perish or you can own it with joy he has in the universe absolute Authority sometimes our little vaunted fist Shake ings

need some strong words to be put in their place and Virginia stem Owens who interestingly Tim also quoted has some very strong words and I will dare to read them let us get this one thing straight God can do anything he damn well pleases including damn well and if it pleases him to damn then it is done ipsofacto well God's activity is what it is there isn't anything else without it there would be no being including human beings presuming to judge the creator of everything that is I like women like that I'm here because I

want women like that rocks in their churches no Tom Foolery here we know our God we know where we want our children to grow up to be and believe how they want them to stand God has Authority and we Revel in it we don't play games with this we don't question him we don't criticize him we don't call him into question or Shake our fist at him we may weep with utter perplexity if he takes our child breaks our husband but we won't rebel against our King few things are more humbling few things give us

a sense of God's Majesty like the truth that he is utterly authoritative he is the Supreme Court of the universe the legislature the chief executive officer behind him no appeal Glimpse number three God is omnipotent the Throne of his authority is not one among many it is high I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up meaning over every other throne and thus Superior in power Superior in Authority Superior in Rule and control over every other Throne it is high and lifted up it's not just an authority it is a Authority with

supremacy of rule supremacy of power and control my Council shall stand and I will accomplish all my purpose Isaiah 46:10 he does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth none can stay his hand or say to him what are you doing Daniel 4:35 this omnipotent God this absolutely authoritative and Sovereign omnipotent God is a refuge for holy women who hope in God and experience tsunamis of pain and I have loved them in my church I have loved to watch them for 32 years get this few things

give a pastor more pleasure than to watch his people be steadfast in suffering because they have a place to stand unshakable a holy Sovereign authoritative good perplexing God how many have told me over the years had we not heard this news we would have gone insane Glimpse number four God is resplendant I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and his train filled the temple simple so he has a robe and it has a train you've seen Brides you've been brides and some more in past days than presently I suppose have

incredible train so that when the photographer does the pictures they take a half an hour to arrange the train and it flows down over the steps and up onto the platform you've all seen them well picture it flowing down the aisle covering all the pews going into the quof up over the balcony and when I preached on Isaiah 6 about 20 years ago 30 years ago I took it out the windows and over the skyscrapers in Downtown Minneapolis and I said so I challenged one of you paint me a picture do me a stitch work

of the Throne of God over Minneapolis with his train filling the city and Joby Morgan did it hung on our wall for years and years a stitch work that she did a needle work where where she she had the skyline of Minneapolis and the feet of the throne you couldn't see it and the legs of of the one sitting upon the throne and the and the train of his robe covered the city that that's what we're supposed to feel he is resplendant oh at the risk of another lollipop Pop I used to read Ranger Rick

you younger people don't even know Ranger Rick in Ranger Rick you can worship even though they're crazy evolutionary because they show the resplendant nature of God's creativity for example this is the one I remember it just there are about a thousand different kinds of self-illuminating fish at the bottom of the ocean and some of them have a little dangling lamp hanging out here in front like this with a little light at the end of the lamp to attract food into the mouth and some of them have a little lighted chin right here and some of

them have beacons under their eyes that chin out little beams like this and you wonder where do they plug this in how how just how can light be produced at the bottom of the ocean without any batteries and why didn't the Lord just make one of those instead instead of a thousand because he is lavish in his Beauty lavish in his creativity and lavish in his Splendor he is resplendant Glimpse number five God is revered 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 no one knows who these beings are they never show up again in the Bible under this name but we better be careful how we conceive of them because Ruben's has probably not helped us with these fat little babies fluttering around the ears of God it wasn't like that and I know it wasn't because when one of them spoke the foundations of the universe shook that's quite a voice and didn't come out of a little fat Cupid's mouth we we grope for for pictures of what it would mean for God

to have in his presence beings who when they speak shake heaven but I remember as a boy I asked Noel last night if they still fly and we didn't know there was a team of four Jets called the Blue Angels that flew in formation I saw them in person just one time and you know they're going to arrive and you don't know where they are and they suddenly appeared here and must have broken the sound barrier right in front of us you know fell like several hundred yards away and the lead plane going what 6

700 miles hour went straight up vertical I mean not like that straight up and the others peeled off like that just as they broke that barrier and I thought maybe it's like that but the point is these magnificent creatures cannot look directly upon God they take their wings and they cover their face and the shame now these are sinless beings they've never fallen and they're ashamed of their feet before this God so they can't see him straight on and they got to cover their feet and they're going to keep moving around him God is revered

he is always revered though we may look at this world and weep at how many millions give him no reverence at all God has seen to it he will always be fittingly revered with these Blue Angels of seraphim day and night doing what one ought to do always in life Glimpse number six God is Holy what these beings are saying in this vision is one call to another holy holy holy is the Lord of hosts s language is pushing its limits with the word holy what does holy mean in one sense when you're done trying

to Define holy you have said God is God but should try the language was not used for nothing now many of you have studied this and you know that the the root meaning of this word holy is to cut or to separate so a holy thing is cut off from or separated from something else and usually devoted to something else so the Holiness of it consists in it's not part of the common it's not part of the profane the impure it's devoted unto God so you read about Holy Ground holy assemblies holy sabbaths holy nation

holy garments holy city holy promises holy men holy women holy scriptures holy hands holy kiss Holy Faith almost anything can be separated unto God devoted to God consecrated to God separated from the common the prophe but notice what happens when we try to apply this definition to God separated unto the very godness of God means he is separate from all he is made there is an infinite qualitative difference between God and everything else that is all of that is made and dependent upon his second by second upholding it in being he is who he is

what Moses asked shall I tell them is your name tell them I am who I am tell them I am sent you that's my Essential being I am and I'm not dependent on anything outside of me all of you are totally dependent on me I'm not dependent on anything I am separate which in the end means we've said his Holiness in this respect is his godness and that's not wrong that's a right thought God is absolutely unique in this regard and the other side of Holiness is Holy things are devoted to something not just cut

off from separated from they're they're devoted to what are you going to devote God to there is nothing above God to which he should be devoted it's blasphemy to think that God's holiness consists in his Conformity to something other than himself self which means if there's anything like Holiness in the world it is God it just starts there that's what it is God isn't good because he conforms to a law above him he wrote the law he's not holy because he keeps the rules he made the rules he's not holy because he keeps the law

the law is Holy because it reveals God God is absolute everything else is derivative and dependent so what then did they mean holy holy holy Thrice holy I think they meant doing my best with language his Holiness is his utterly unique one-of-a-kind Sue generous in a Class by Himself pure Essence which therefore has infinite value the more rare a diamond is the more value it has and if there's only one of this kind it's valuable just read in the news yesterday that one of George Washington's books sold for $9 million now why would that be

there is only one of those there never be another one you can't duplicate it he got his handwriting in it God is infinitely valuable determining the value and the goodness and the truth of everything else I can't think of anything that would have a greater impact in your life than for you to believe that the most important value in the universe is not you and not your family and not 7 billion human beings and not billions upon billions of galaxies they are we are as nothing a drop in the bucket compared to the value of

God and the main problem in the world is the failure to feel that God is infinitely valuable he has infinite worth all other value has value in proportion to Its Reflection of his value that changes everything absolutely everything Coulson waking up to a holy new experience of God and a taste for his majesty job waking up Isaiah waking up the 23y old John Piper waking up and experiencing a capern revolution where the value the supremacy the Majesty of God goes square to the center of everything and there there is no questioning anymore whether he has

any rights we have none and we had none before we fell humans and Angels don't have rights before their maker God is right and has all rights he defines right he is right and holy you will know that you have experienced something extraordinary when that is sweet to you sweet I was talking with Tony just before and I said you know if this conference is planned for another they can do this again and he didn't know when I asked him I said 'w if they do I've got a title for the next one so here

it is you can find out whether I have any clout at all in this the sovereignty of God and the sweetness of our savior that's my title for 2014 no pressure no pressure it's just I'm I'm saying it here because I know when we speak of Holiness it feels very far away very distant very unexperienced and I'm just saying yet you haven't gotten there yet it is sweet and I'll try to make plain why in just a moment one more Glimpse God is glorious we said he's holy and now La the last Glimpse is God

is glorious the silence that's coming the shaking of the house the all concealing smoke that is going to descend upon the the house before that happens these Blue Angel seraphim say holy holy holy is the Lord of hosts the whole earth is full of his what word did he use why why didn't they say holy holy holy the whole earth is full of your holiness because this is my best effort to understand the glory of God in God's mind and Isaiah's mind and most places in scripture I believe is the manifestation of the Holiness of

God God's holiness is his incomparable perfection his intrinsic infinite worth when that goes public when that goes on display it's called in the Bible the glory of God God is glorious means God's holiness has gone public his glory is the open revelation of The Secret of his Holiness here's Leviticus 10:3 I will show you myself I will show myself holy among those who are near me And before all the people I will be glorified interesting I will show them my Holiness and their response glorious because in the move from the intrinsic infinite eternal worth and

Perfection and Purity and Transcendent Wonder of God in the movement out what we see is the radiance of God and that's called glory in the Bible the glory of God is the radiance of his Holiness when God shows himself holy we see Glory the Holiness of God is concealed glory and the glory of God is revealed Holiness now end of my seven glimpses last question what does all of that have to do with Jesus Christ incarnate son of man co-eternal with the father in the beginning was the word and the Word was with God and

the word word was this God this God has a name Jesus what does what does this Vision have to do with the Jesus we meet in the gospels who goes to the cross and dies for Sinners and rises again that we may make this Vision the unfathomable Delight of of our souls and there is a place in the New Testament which blows my mind away with the way it applies what we have seen and it's John chap 12 where John writing the most exalted story of Jesus quotes Isaiah 6 once and he quotes Isaiah 53

in the same context and I'm going to close by trying to explain to you what I think John is doing so that this Vision will be not only Majestic but sweet in verse 10 of Isaiah 6 Isaiah realizes he must take this vision and preach it with very Bleak effect the people will be hardened make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy and blind their eyes so Isaiah's ready now he's he's dedicated himself acknowledging his sin receiving the coal of purification he's ready to go preach this vision and God says it's not

going to go well this vision is going to make people very hard it's going to have an effect on Israel like that a hardening will come upon Israel but at the end of the chapter as the tree is cut down a stump of faithfulness remains you see that at the end of verse 13 a stump remaining when the oak is failed and the holy seed last phrase the holy seed is its stomp what is that there's a Remnant and the remnant is is kind of flower it's the stump has been cut but something is going

to happen and when you get to chapter 53 which you know so well what do you see I think you see the seed the suffering servant despised and rejected by man A Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief so the description of the seed in chapter 53 of Isaiah this the picture of Christ is misery and suffering and nobody would have he would would look at him me doesn't there any form or beauty that people would Behold Him and so that chapter begins also with a bleak who is believed our report so you got bleakness

in chapter 6 nobody's going to hear this exalted Vision you got bleakness in chapter 53 people aren't going to hear this suffering servant who lays down his life and takes the sins of Israel upon himself like a slaughtered sheep they're not going to listen and in the Gospel of John Jesus public Ministry ends at the end of chapter 12 and the rest is all about his talking to his disciples and dying and as that chapter 12 draws the public Ministry of Jesus to a close John has to explain why haven't they believed why has there

been such a hardness in Israel why is Jesus being rejected for who he is by the very leaders that he came to bring the kingdom to and he uses Isaiah to answer his question and he doesn't just use the verse 10 of chapter 6 which we would expect him to he uses verse one of chapter 53 no form or Majesty that we should look at him no beauty that we should desire him who has believed what he has heard from us and they reject people then rejected and here rejected so what's John trying to show

us he's trying to show us that Jesus is the Fulfillment of this Majestic Vision in chapter six and he's the Fulfillment of the suffering servant in chapter 53 and he has brought them together in his incarnate lowliness making claims that I and the father are one and if you've seen me you've seen the father and yet presenting him self as a lowly suffering servant who gets down on his knees and washes his disciples feet and both of those are rejected they don't want majesty and they don't want miserable lowly suffering they don't want Isaiah 6

and they don't want Isaiah 53 why not why not John answers this chapter 12: 43 the people loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God if I have any prayer for you is that it would not be said of you the women loved the glory of other women you can tell by the way they dress they love the glory of man more than the glory of God back in chapter 5 verse 43 Jesus said how can you believe in me who receive Glory from man and do not receive

the glory that comes from the only God faith in this Jesus is impossible for those who crave the approval of other people more than they crave knowing and enjoying the glory of God you can't do it if you are so desperately [Music] needy that you live second-handed off the glory of other people women or men you will look at this vision and it will repulse you and you will look at the miserable lowly serving Jesus and it will repulse you because both of them take your glory away and decide whether you will love that Glory

or yours that's that's the answer John gives to why in Isaiah's day and his day and I would say our day people don't love Isaiah 6 or Isaiah 53 they don't want an authoritative God over them and they don't want a suffering savior that might imply they would have to take up their cross follow him and get on their knees and wash somebody's feet they don't want either and Jesus was both which leaves one last observation was the reason Jesus was rejected ultimately the sin of man or was it the plan of God the son

of man came not to be served but to give his life as a ransom for many that's why he came that's why the Trinity agreed with one another the time is full son go do this great work of dying for our people which means you will be rejected that's the way it's going to go we wrote the book that way there are no detours between God's plan and God's accomplishment there are no wasted centuries every byway has a meaning no suffering is with without meaning and no Rebellion is without meaning will Israel be thrown away

because they rejected their Messiah because this hardening Came Upon Israel will they be thrown away this long Covenant people and Paul answers no Romans 11:25 a partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in and then in this way all all Israel will be saved the nation will one day turn to her Messiah so Romans 11:31 says so Israel too has been disobedient rejecting the god of Isaiah 6 rejecting the god of Isaiah 53 rejecting the Jesus who embodied both so humbly so magnificently so sweetly for us so Israel too

has been disobedient in order that Mercy might be shown to you Gentiles they also now through the mercy shown to you will be shown mercy God isn't done with Israel or the Nations things are right on schedule which led Paul to end like this and so I'm going to end like this you know how he ended he came to this chapter 11 9 10 11 of Romans looking at the strange and inexplicable ways of God in history and he says oh the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God how unsearchable

are his judgments and how inscrutable are his ways who has ever known the mind of the Lord or who has ever been his counselor who who who has ever given to him a gift that he should be repaid for from him and through him and to him are all things to him be glory yes Glory forever and ever father I pray that before this conference is over a Chuck Coulson moment a job moment and Isaiah six moment a John Piper 1971 moment would be given to these women so that your Holiness would be their treasure

your majesty mingled with your misery and Jesus in this sweet ju position of majesty and mercy would become their Refuge when the tidal wave breaks over their lives which it will make them strong with the strength of this Vision I pray in Jesus name amen [Applause]