Seraphims

30 July 2017

Dear Phyllis,

As a young man I heard that the best prayers to utter were the prayers of the Bible. For worship, I thought there is no way you could improve upon the prayers of the seraphims that stand in the presence of God ceaselessly crying “Holy, holy, holy” (Isa. 6:3; Rev. 4:8). Try it. I did. It doesn't work. You do that for five minutes you will go nuts. For years this was a mystery to me how the seraphims can do that. Isaiah and John had very similar experiences. They both saw the Throne of God, and what they reported seeing was the seraphims crying “Holy, holy, holy”. It is interesting that these two men were separated by 600 years but the scene hadn't changed in 600 years. Apparently the seraphims never stop. Indeed John tells us that “they rest not day and night” (Rev. 4:8) .

One year we went over to Kashiwazaki for a Bible camp. The school is right on the coast of the Sea of Japan and we were swimming in the sea everyday. While we were over there a typhoon came up the Sea of Japan. Fortunately it missed us but the next day the effect of that typhoon came ashore. We went down to the beach to look at the waves. Man howdy, I never saw anything in my life like that. Those waves must have been 30 feet high. They looked like Mt. Fuji coming at you. There is a well used word in Japanese, SUGOI, that means awesome, fantastic, terrific, great, amazing, etc. When I first saw those waves I said “Sugoi!” Then another wave came in that looked bigger than the first and I said, “Sugoi!”. Then another and I said “Sugoi”. For 30 minutes I stood there compulsively saying, “Sugoi”. I couldn't get another word out of my mouth. I tried talking in English but any word I came up with just didn't fit.

For the first time in my life I understood the experience of the seraphims. When I saw the Grand Canyon I had a similar experience but it was radically different. When we went to the Grand Canyon, we parked in the parking lot and walked over to the rim of the canyon. What I saw was indescribable. I said, “Sugoi”. But after ten minutes I quit. Nothing changed. The waves in Kashiwazaki were dynamic. They kept coming. But the Grand Canyon didn't change. It was static. What the seraphims were looking at was the performance of God that was alive and kept changing.

By that I understood the motivation of the seraphims, what wound their clock. But their message is the main point. What they are crying is, “Holy, holy, holy”. This is the thing that impresses them so much. It is the holiness of God. Holy is not a word that is well used in our vocabulary. Maybe the reason we use it so seldom is because there is so little of it among us. What does it mean? I used to think it means clean, free from imperfection. I used to think holy meant you didn't smoke, drink, or look at pornography. I have a friend who had a hound dog, and he said his dog didn't do any of that, but the dog wasn't holy. If holiness means free from sin we must define sin. Obviously God's measuring rod is His law - the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments are a two edged sword. It has both a negative and a positive cutting edge. The Ten Commandments certainly are negative, prohibitive – don't do it. But Jesus told us that the Ten Commandments also have a positive edge on them. When someone asked Him which was the greatest commandment He replied “Love” - love God, and love your neighbor (Mt. 22:35-40). That sums it all up. The first four commandments are vertical towards God and the next six are horizontal towards fellow men. If you love God and love men you certainly won't do anything negative towards them. On the contrary all your actions will be positive. If you love someone you won't kill them; you will help them. If you love someone you won't steal; you will give. If you truly love someone you won't defile them by immorality; you will help them to be clean. Paul discusses this in Romans 13:8-10 and sums it all up by saying “love is the fulfillment of the law”.

The thing that impresses the seraphims so much is the character of God – His love. John tell us that God is love (1 Jn. 4:16). He is the very essence of love. He is the definition of love. When Moses asked God to show him His glory, God's response to that was to proclaim His Name (Ex. 34:5-7). And what is His Name? Merciful, gracious, long suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquities, transgressions, and sins...” This is His Name. This is who He is. This is His character. This is what the seraphims saw that blew them away. In all the actions of God they saw His character, His love; and they compulsively cried, “Holy, holy, holy”.

One big difference between the seraphims and us is that they are full of eyes (Rev. 4:8). They have eyes in the back of their head. They have eyes in their ears. They have eyes in the top of their head. They have eyes in the bottom of their feet. They see 360 degrees. They see the big picture. We are like a horse with blinders. We have a very narrow view of things. We don't see the big picture and consequently we have a very different perspective of God.

We had some very special friends in Greenville, the Kings. They were among the finest Christians in town. One day they received the tragic news that their son had been killed in a traffic accident. When sister King heard that news she immediately went to God and was going to give Him a piece of her mind and tell Him what she thought about the terrible thing He had done in taking their son. But before sister king opened her mouth, the Lord spoke first and said, “What I do now, you don't know, but later you will know” (Jn. 13:7). When sister King heard that she burst into tears and said, “Lord Jesus, thank You”. What she didn't know was that as a result of the death of his father their grandson, Walt, would come to live with them. Ten years later Walt would be an outstanding missionary to Nepal. That never would have happened if Walt had not been raised with them. My goodness, the Kings never lost a thing. That was 40 years ago. I am sure both brother and sister King have long since been in heaven with their son to enjoy each other for eternity. And Walt has proved himself to be an outstanding man of God.

We have a very limited perspective of all that God is doing. And we have a very limited capacity to appreciate the marvels of our wonderful Lord. Perhaps the day will come when we see more clearly and can join the seraphims in expressing our overwhelming wonder of the character of God. Just the fact that He sent His Son to save us should ignite our hearts with fire. What blew the minds of seraphims was just watching Him, but, in our case, we are the recipients of that unspeakable love and grace.

Even if it with dumb and stammering lips;

Thank You Jesus,

                            bill