Sermon Notes:
Can you name some biblical dreams and visions?
Other notable Xian dreams and visions?
Do you ever wake from a vivid dream, and it felt very real? Perhaps you even write it down. And in the morning it has faded and you don’t see why it made sense. Or perhaps we still remember it quite clearly, but as we try to describe it to someone it makes less and less sense.
Maybe, not because they don’t make sense, but because we don’t have the language to describe. Or because in dreams more than one thing can be true at a time--like being totally afraid and totally hopeful and something gets lost in the communication
I remember the first time I read today’s vision from the prophet Isaiah
“Wow, that’s incredibly weird.”
This week
“Wow, that’s incredibly weird.”
God has some sort of floating throne, and a giant robe, and there are angelic seraphim beings with all these wings, and one of them flies down and puts a hot coal on Isaiah’s mouth.
But maybe, just like regular dreams, biblical visions are just hard to describe.
Isaiah saw something of God’s nature and character - he caught a glimpse “through the curtain”, He saw something of the Lord as Moses described God in Exodus 15:11 - glorious in holiness, fearful in praises (or awesome in His glory - NIV).
That’s going to be hard to describe.
----
When I want to understand a difficult passage
Hand out papers that are partially sketched in
After 2 minutes,
Now on the back WRITE one thing you wonder about from this passage
----
Here are some helpful things to know:
First, just a quick overview of what’s happening in the book of Isaiah--
In the Book of Isaiah, and the words of the prophet Isaiah, there is a constant balance for Judgement and Hope. As is the pattern with biblical Prophets, Isaiah is calling God’s people --specifically Jerusalem-- and its leaders to repentance for rebellion against God, idolatry and injustice.
First half, second half, poem
In this passage, God tells Isaiah that many of the people will be too far gone, and these true words will just further harden their hearts. Judgement will befall them. But, Hope comes in, because though the city will fall to the nations, God will use this like a purifying fire that burns away sin and impurity. So Jerusalem will be like a tree that had to be cut to a stump, and the fires burned all around it, BUT eventually new growth will emerge.
SECOND, who is King Uzziah
2 Chronicles 26
16But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall. He was unfaithful to the Lord his God, and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. 17Azariah the priest with eighty other courageous priests of the Lord followed him in. 18They confronted King Uzziah and said, “It is not right for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord. That is for the priests, the descendants of Aaron, who have been consecrated to burn incense. Leave the sanctuary, for you have been unfaithful; and you will not be honored by the Lord God.”
19Uzziah, who had a censer in his hand ready to burn incense, became angry. While he was raging at the priests in their presence before the incense altar in the Lord’s temple, leprosy c broke out on his forehead. 20When Azariah the chief priest and all the other priests looked at him, they saw that he had leprosy on his forehead, so they hurried him out. Indeed, he himself was eager to leave, because the Lord had afflicted him.
21King Uzziah had leprosy until the day he died. He lived in a separate house d —leprous, and banned from the temple of the Lord.
THIRD, what’s with the stump:
Jesse is the grandson of Ruth and Boaz and the father of King David. Genealogies of Jesus trace him to the line of David.
The Tree of Jesse is a depiction in art of the ancestors of Christ, shown in a tree which rises from Jesse of Bethlehem, the father of King David and is the original use of the family tree as a schematic representation of a genealogy.
IS 11
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
2
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
3
His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
This is, of course, viewed as a prophesy about Jesus.
NOW
READ THE SCRIPTURE AGAIN
Fill in you paper more fully
Change, amend, flesh out anything you need to
Jot down or draw what stands out to you
Bring in star word
3-4 minute
“Throughout history God has raised up prophets to challenge an erring and recalcitrant people. They are relentless naggers. They are outspoken loudmouths.
These meddlesome troublemakers confront our complacency. They irritate us. They arouse our defenses. They make us anxious and angry.
For the most part, we wish they would just shut up and go away. Sometimes we shut them up ourselves — forcibly. Sometimes we make them go away — for good.”
Some twenty-eight centuries after the prophet Isaiah was at work in Jerusalem there appeared in Montgomery, Alabama, another restless prophet who would not keep silent.
Tomorrow is the annual holiday when the nation remembers his birth and honors his remarkable contribution to our history.
Dr. King’s preached the sermon Remaining Awake through a great Revolution in 1965
He could preach much the same sermon this morning.
Themes include
the need for global unity;
the necessity to eradicate the vestiges of racism;
the imperative to close the widening, morally reprehensible chasm between the rich and the poor;
and — in the midst of another war — the urgent need to find an alternative to violence as a way of solving political disputes.
In international relations, we must come to see this. We must find some alternative to war and bloodshed. In a day when man-made vehicles are dashing through outer space, and guided ballistic missiles are carving highways of death in the stratosphere, no nation can win a world war. It is no longer a choice between violence and non-violence; it is either non-violence or non-existence. The alternative may well be a civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation, our earthly habitat transformed into a tragic inferno that even Dante could not imagine. So this is our challenge: to see that war is obsolete, cast into limbo.
I do not wish to minimize the complexity of the problems to be faced in achieving disarmament and peace. But we shall not have the courage, the insight, to deal with such matters unless we are prepared to undergo a mental and spiritual change. It is not enough to say we must not wage war. We must love peace and sacrifice for it. We must fix our visions not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but upon the positive affirmation of peace. We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, far superior to the discords of war. Somehow we must transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race which no one can win to a positive contest to harness man's creative genius for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all of the nations of the world. In short, we must shift the arms race into a peace race.
We are all aware of the consequences
Isaiah, King could neither rest nor remain silent.
When Isaiah first hears the Voice, he first shies back: “I am a man of impeded tongue, obsessive speech!” He’s rightly afraid of the consequences of being unworthy.
Then he feels God’s messengers touch his mouth with a fiery coal, and instead of feeling still more frightened, instead he volunteers: “Here I am! Send me!”
How might God be communicating with you and how do you respond?
Can you name some biblical dreams and visions?
Other notable Xian dreams and visions?
Do you ever wake from a vivid dream, and it felt very real? Perhaps you even write it down. And in the morning it has faded and you don’t see why it made sense. Or perhaps we still remember it quite clearly, but as we try to describe it to someone it makes less and less sense.
Maybe, not because they don’t make sense, but because we don’t have the language to describe. Or because in dreams more than one thing can be true at a time--like being totally afraid and totally hopeful and something gets lost in the communication
- Reveal a deeper truth
- Jungian
- We are more vulnerable
- Allow us to have a different type of experience
I remember the first time I read today’s vision from the prophet Isaiah
“Wow, that’s incredibly weird.”
This week
“Wow, that’s incredibly weird.”
God has some sort of floating throne, and a giant robe, and there are angelic seraphim beings with all these wings, and one of them flies down and puts a hot coal on Isaiah’s mouth.
But maybe, just like regular dreams, biblical visions are just hard to describe.
Isaiah saw something of God’s nature and character - he caught a glimpse “through the curtain”, He saw something of the Lord as Moses described God in Exodus 15:11 - glorious in holiness, fearful in praises (or awesome in His glory - NIV).
That’s going to be hard to describe.
----
When I want to understand a difficult passage
- First, I copy it down word for word to pay attention, notice
- I read multiple translations, languages
- I draw it out
---
Hand out papers that are partially sketched in
- Draw or write to help you understand what’s going on
- Feel free to add things.
- What stands out to you?
- Very briefly--more later time later
- You have 2 minutes
After 2 minutes,
Now on the back WRITE one thing you wonder about from this passage
----
Here are some helpful things to know:
First, just a quick overview of what’s happening in the book of Isaiah--
In the Book of Isaiah, and the words of the prophet Isaiah, there is a constant balance for Judgement and Hope. As is the pattern with biblical Prophets, Isaiah is calling God’s people --specifically Jerusalem-- and its leaders to repentance for rebellion against God, idolatry and injustice.
First half, second half, poem
In this passage, God tells Isaiah that many of the people will be too far gone, and these true words will just further harden their hearts. Judgement will befall them. But, Hope comes in, because though the city will fall to the nations, God will use this like a purifying fire that burns away sin and impurity. So Jerusalem will be like a tree that had to be cut to a stump, and the fires burned all around it, BUT eventually new growth will emerge.
SECOND, who is King Uzziah
2 Chronicles 26
16But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall. He was unfaithful to the Lord his God, and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. 17Azariah the priest with eighty other courageous priests of the Lord followed him in. 18They confronted King Uzziah and said, “It is not right for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord. That is for the priests, the descendants of Aaron, who have been consecrated to burn incense. Leave the sanctuary, for you have been unfaithful; and you will not be honored by the Lord God.”
19Uzziah, who had a censer in his hand ready to burn incense, became angry. While he was raging at the priests in their presence before the incense altar in the Lord’s temple, leprosy c broke out on his forehead. 20When Azariah the chief priest and all the other priests looked at him, they saw that he had leprosy on his forehead, so they hurried him out. Indeed, he himself was eager to leave, because the Lord had afflicted him.
21King Uzziah had leprosy until the day he died. He lived in a separate house d —leprous, and banned from the temple of the Lord.
THIRD, what’s with the stump:
Jesse is the grandson of Ruth and Boaz and the father of King David. Genealogies of Jesus trace him to the line of David.
The Tree of Jesse is a depiction in art of the ancestors of Christ, shown in a tree which rises from Jesse of Bethlehem, the father of King David and is the original use of the family tree as a schematic representation of a genealogy.
IS 11
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
2
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
3
His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
This is, of course, viewed as a prophesy about Jesus.
NOW
READ THE SCRIPTURE AGAIN
Fill in you paper more fully
Change, amend, flesh out anything you need to
Jot down or draw what stands out to you
Bring in star word
3-4 minute
“Throughout history God has raised up prophets to challenge an erring and recalcitrant people. They are relentless naggers. They are outspoken loudmouths.
These meddlesome troublemakers confront our complacency. They irritate us. They arouse our defenses. They make us anxious and angry.
For the most part, we wish they would just shut up and go away. Sometimes we shut them up ourselves — forcibly. Sometimes we make them go away — for good.”
Some twenty-eight centuries after the prophet Isaiah was at work in Jerusalem there appeared in Montgomery, Alabama, another restless prophet who would not keep silent.
Tomorrow is the annual holiday when the nation remembers his birth and honors his remarkable contribution to our history.
Dr. King’s preached the sermon Remaining Awake through a great Revolution in 1965
He could preach much the same sermon this morning.
Themes include
the need for global unity;
the necessity to eradicate the vestiges of racism;
the imperative to close the widening, morally reprehensible chasm between the rich and the poor;
and — in the midst of another war — the urgent need to find an alternative to violence as a way of solving political disputes.
In international relations, we must come to see this. We must find some alternative to war and bloodshed. In a day when man-made vehicles are dashing through outer space, and guided ballistic missiles are carving highways of death in the stratosphere, no nation can win a world war. It is no longer a choice between violence and non-violence; it is either non-violence or non-existence. The alternative may well be a civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation, our earthly habitat transformed into a tragic inferno that even Dante could not imagine. So this is our challenge: to see that war is obsolete, cast into limbo.
I do not wish to minimize the complexity of the problems to be faced in achieving disarmament and peace. But we shall not have the courage, the insight, to deal with such matters unless we are prepared to undergo a mental and spiritual change. It is not enough to say we must not wage war. We must love peace and sacrifice for it. We must fix our visions not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but upon the positive affirmation of peace. We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, far superior to the discords of war. Somehow we must transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race which no one can win to a positive contest to harness man's creative genius for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all of the nations of the world. In short, we must shift the arms race into a peace race.
We are all aware of the consequences
Isaiah, King could neither rest nor remain silent.
When Isaiah first hears the Voice, he first shies back: “I am a man of impeded tongue, obsessive speech!” He’s rightly afraid of the consequences of being unworthy.
Then he feels God’s messengers touch his mouth with a fiery coal, and instead of feeling still more frightened, instead he volunteers: “Here I am! Send me!”
How might God be communicating with you and how do you respond?
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