PART I – A PERSONAL CHARGE
“From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” (Matthew 4:17) That was the theme of Christ’s first sermons. It was the exact same message preached by John the Baptist. And I’ve known for some weeks now that was the word God gave to me – not in a general sense – but very specifically – for a good number of weeks now. I was to call people to gather and pray for the repentance of the nation, the protection of our leadership, the revealing of truth and the sins of America …..but it all has to start with the individual. It all has to start with me.
So while I’ve had the chance to publish it in the newsletter and speak it on the radio, this last week I was given the privilege of declaring it from the pulpit to my home church. And it was a conversation with my wife Cindie that gave me the connecting bridge between the repentance of the individual and that of the corporate nation. She told me of an encounter she had with the Lord earlier that day. God showed her, her sin. He gave her a glimpse of the Divine Reality. And I knew of what she spoke, because there was a time when God showed me my sin. It was a hard place to be – but it was a blessing that I would not forego. And what ended up being so neat about the message that I was commissioned to give….was that it was confirmed by members of the congregation before I spoke. The woman who prayed for our worship team struck the exact same theme. So did the gentleman called upon to open the service. It is always a hallelujah moment when God confirms His message.
So let me ask you this: Have you ever gone to the place where you got a glimpse just who God really is? Did you ever get maybe just a peek at His Glory? A whiff of His presence? Maybe through the corner of one eye, a glimpse of the shadow of His reality? Or even just a sense…of who God is….a look at His ways. If you did you know that such an experience penetrates to the very center of your soul….to the essence of your spirit-man. And you perceive his immense, all-encompassing Holiness – and set-apart-ed-ness. And with that comes the realization that you are without any redeeming quality – or any characteristic that qualifies you to even stand in His presence….to even exist before a Holy God.
The Prophet Isaiah had that experience. He was a young man. It served in some ways as his commission. God had given him words before – but this was his full ordination into the ministry. It is described in Isaiah chapter 6. Now in some ways it is something we can all experience. Maybe not in the same way; no, we won’t all have a vision of God’s glory and His robe filling the Temple. But the awe, the sense of holiness, the recognition of our spiritual poverty, our lostness, the holiness of God is something we all need to experience in some sense in order to get the proper understanding of just who we are – and our relationship to the order of the universe. It even conveys the essential nature of that call to repentance which is at the center of our spiritual need.
“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!’” (Isaiah 6:1-3)
Isaiah was seeing just who God is. He was getting a glimpse. And he, Isaiah, is not some holy guy, he’s just someone who God has called….just one of us…..but willing to heed the call – to be used by God. Isaiah is seeing this great, underlying truth…..God is NOT like us….He’s God and there is this INFINITE GAP between the best of us – and God. So I put myself there. Now there’s this Perfect Being, existing in a Perfect State…..He is Holy and Set Apart….And then there’s me….with a dark and lurid past. There I am: Robbie Palaszewski……liar….Robbie Palaszewski – thief…..Robbie Palaszewski- drunkard…..luster….gossip…..And it’s not just me. You can fill your name in before any sin that applies. Galatians 5:19-21 gives you a nice list of them to check out. “Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
So Isaiah gets a look at this Perfect Being….Perfect Character …A good long look – because he can describe it so well. But there is one thing that God is missing – and it’s the one thing that defines everyone one of us – every human being that ever lived. That thing is SIN! There is not even a hint of anything evil, or impure, or even just not-quite-perfect. God is set apart from all that. At our best we cannot even stand in His presence. The scripture tells us this very high order of created beings, the Seraphim are calling Him “Holy” – declaring His holiness before all of creation – in the court of the Creator. So we must ask ourselves what do they see? Who is this God they are praising and worshiping? Colossians 1:15-17 gives us a part of that picture. “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.”
So understand Isaiah 6:3 again: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!” And as the Seraphim cry out scripture tells us: “And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. So I 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.’” (Isaiah 6:4-5) Isaiah is “undone.” In the Greek it means to ‘fail’ or ‘perish’ or ‘cease.’ “Unclean” can be translated as “foul, defiled, impure, polluted, unclean.” And “Lips” has the sense of a border – creating a ‘without’ and a ‘within.’ So there then is the relation between individual and church; between individual and nation. Isaiah is describing the nature of things without and within; a person of “unclean lips” a “people of unclean lips” – polluted, impure, defiled within. But in the midst of this realization of his own spiritual bankruptcy and inadequacy, Isaiah is blessed. “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3) The kingdom of heaven!
This all paralleled what my wife Cindie wrote that morning about her encounter with God. “Today in prayer as I came before the Lord to repent of my sins, I felt overwhelmed at the heavy darkness of those sins. I felt so burdened and so inadequate and so unworthy to even come and ask Him for forgiveness. Then I was given a revelation, an actual realization of how Jesus must have felt on the cross; when all the sins of all the people through all of history were poured out on Him. Can we ever really understand in our finite minds the enormity of what God has done for us? He gave me a glimpse and I am totally undone.”
There was a time that I felt that too. I recall the sense of darkness, and filth – it was gray and massive and ugly and OPPRESIVE….And Christ bore that for me & Cindie & you…..The sin of the whole world. “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2Corinthians 5:21) But look at the verse before. “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.” And then: “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” There He is: Using us! Making us “ambassadors” for His Kingdom! Me, with the great mass of gray-black and ugly, deformed sin. Robbie Palaszewski …drunkard, liar and cheat! That’s my resume. That’s your resume too. But God’s heart is all about forgiveness. His heart is all about getting us to turn – to seek the good – to seek Him. And the offer of forgiveness and restoration is extended “seventy times seven” – and more than that still. If we want to see our country turn and be restored: That’s where we start. We start with the individual. We start with you! We start with me!
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