Sinclair Ferguson

I want to think about it again today.

In chapter 1, Isaiah talks about the impoverished worship that was taking place in the Jerusalem temple in his own day.

But by chapter 6, he has seen his own impoverishment because he saw and heard the worship of the Holy Seraphim as they praised God as the Great Holy One.

It must have struck him that these seraphim covered their faces with two of their wings.

I wonder what that really means.

After all, they were permanently holy.

They were perfectly holy.

I think it's probably an indication that perfectly holy creatures, these seraphim, needed to veil their faces before uncreated holiness, before this thrice holy God.

We've been talking recently about these problems, endemic problems, really, in the Christian life of legalism and antinomianism.

So it's not surprising that when Isaiah saw and heard this, he cried out that he was a man of unclean lips and felt he was disintegrating.

And one of the things we've been seeing so interestingly is that legalism is the basic problem.

And I'm pretty sure that when he left the temple, he must have felt that he had been in the presence of God in a completely new way, and he could never be the same man again.

It was what was injected into the relationship between the Lord and Eve in the Garden of Eden by the serpent, who very subtly turns her into a legalist, distorts the commandments of God, and gives her the sense that God is not a gracious God giving kind commandments for their benefit, but God is a kind of jealous person who doesn't want any joy, any happiness, wants to restrict their lives.

Now, that's what worship is for.

That's why God calls us to worship regularly, not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as the author of Hebrews says.

Because in the rhythm of our worship week by week, Lord's Day by Lord's Day, we find ourselves cleansed and renewed.

and then the reaction that sets in of antinomianism.

And in our study we were seeing last time how there is throughout the history of the Christian church a sense in the masters of the spiritual life

And if you belong to a church that has not only a morning service but an afternoon or perhaps an evening service, let me encourage you to attend both.

that antinomians are never fully and finally delivered from legalism.