“Theres a MAN on the THRONE in HEAVEN!”
These are the words that Bernard Briscoe, one of the speakers at His Hill, uses to paraphrase the start of Isaiah chapter 6-the part of Isaiah where he has a vision of the Lord on His throne in Heaven (the “here I am, send me!”) encounter). The part of the story that isnt covered overly well is how the story starts-”In the year that King Uzziah died”. This isnt a random event picked to show the year when Isaiah had his vision, its a reference to the conditon of the country at the time!
A brief history of Israel up to this point would make Somalia look like a pillar of stability-a nation is chosen by God and carried from slavery in Egypt across a desert to the Promised Land-Judea. On the way, the people turn against God, and spend 40 years in the wilderness. They finally arrive in the promised land…and screw up God’s instructions, leading to centuries of trouble with idolatry. Foreign armies attack and almost overrun the country every time that they fall away from God, and they are saved only by God’s divine intervention and the raising up of Judges (temporary military and political leaders) to save the nation, and return them to the God who called them out of Egypt. Continuing a traditon of grumbling, the people of Israel demand that God give them a king, as this is what all the cool nations of the time did, and God gave them Saul-a natural leader who emerges victorious in battle against Israel’s enemy…after which he disobeys God, offers a sacrifice he was not called to offer, and falls out from God’s will. Next up comes David, God’s annointed! A man after God’s own heart! Who has to spend years running for his life running from Saul, then becomes King and promptly knocks up the wife of one of his greatest military strongmen. David proceeds to kill the husband, just in case adultery isnt a big enough deal without murder added onto the bill. Despite this, David receives a promise from God-he will be the father of a dynasty that will last forever, and the world will be saved through his descendants.
A few generations later, we reach King Uzziah. During the time I skipped, Israel has faced the threat of invasion many times, has split into 2 states and fought a bitter civil war, and has seen too many kings turn their back on God-kings of a Dynasty chosen by God Himself. Worse yet, one of these kings is to be the Mesiah-the Savior! With each dead king came another failed chance at the fulfilment of the promise, and at the time of Isaiah’s vision, another King had died. God had promised Abraham that He would raise a mighty nation that would bless the world from his offspring…and the nation was one good war away from complete collapse. God had promised David that one of his offspring would be the Savior…and his offspring have, so far, been close to complete failures!
Theres a point in life when it becomes hard to believe in God’s revelation. He shows us where He wants us, we assume that we follow His plan, and we hit a wall when God’s plan turns to look nothing like what we expected. The absolute confidence that we are where God has us starts to fade when our comparison between what we expected and what we see happening seems similar to what Isaiah must have seen, comparing a glorious Kingdom worthy of God with the broken nation he lived in. When the sucess we expected turned into failure. How is that God could allow His plan to fail?
This is where Isaiah’s revelation fits in-God showed Isaiah the good news! There is a Man on the Throne in Heaven! God wasn’t frantically running around asking His Angels what to do about the state of Israel, or making frantic last minute plans for the next king, He was on the throne-in control. God’s plans are above ours, but they WILL come to fruition! Like Isaiah, we need to draw our hope from the Throne, not from the scene immediately around us. The king after Uzziah wasnt the Savior-in fact, most of the Kings over the next few hundred years were next to worthless. In the end, Israel ceased to exist-however, the line of David carried on until 0bc, when the final King in the line of David was born-Christ.
