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In the name of Jesus. Amen. Dear Saints, we have two examples in the readings this morning of a terrified conscience, and we want to think about that—what that means also for us. The first is Saint Peter, who was a disciple of Jesus already, but Jesus had released him, and James and John, back to their fishing for a time until this text today, when he’s going to recall them into permanent full-time discipleship.
And he’s there on the boat, and he’s teaching, and then he tells Peter to cast the nets out into the deep. Even though they had labored all night and caught nothing, Peter says, “At your word, I will do it.” They bring up such a huge catch of fish that they need both boats, and they are starting to sink. Peter thinks to himself, “If he can see through the water and recognize all the fish that are down there, then he can also see into my own heart,” and he cries out with fear, “Depart from me, Lord. I am a sinful man.”
Something very similar happens when Isaiah is called. Isaiah, remember, was a priest in the temple, which meant that he was serving in the temple day and night, and he was in the holy place. Remembering also, the temple had two rooms—the holy place, which had the showbread and the candelabra and the incense altar. It was probably the incense altar that Isaiah was tending, putting on the coals and the incense so that the smoke would rise there and go through the curtain into the Holy of Holies, where the ark of the covenant was, where the glory of God dwelt.
The priest would never go there, but there was the throne of God. And here, can you imagine it? Isaiah, the priest, is serving and stoking the incense and probably praying himself. Then the curtain that’s there, the veil that separates the holy place from the most holy place, disappears. Isaiah sees the heavenly reality that’s hidden by the earthly shadow. He sees the throne of God—not the Ark of the Covenant, which represented the throne of God, but the true real throne of God. He sees the four living creatures—not the two cherubim on the ark and the two that were on the tapestry that represented them, but the real four living creatures that are flying around.
And he hears the heavenly song, “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabbaoth.” And Isaiah does not join in; he does not start singing himself. What does he do? He falls on his face. “Woe!” he says, “Woe is me.” Just like Peter, “Depart from me.” Now, what caused Peter and Isaiah such profound fear? Isaiah confesses, “I’m a man of unclean lips, and I live in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” Those are two of the four things that your conscience can know, by the way. Your conscience can know your own sin against other people. Your conscience can know other people’s sins against you. We’re experts at knowing those. Your conscience can know when other people sin against other people, and your conscience has a sense that something is wrong in the world; that things are just not how they’re supposed to be.
Isaiah confesses two of those four things: “I’m a man of unclean lips.” That’s his own guilt. “And I live in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” That’s the guilt of all those around him. But here’s what I want us to think about: Isaiah was a man of unclean lips when he woke up that morning. He was a man of unclean lips when he went to work in the temple and when he started offering the incense. Isaiah was a man of unclean lips and living in the midst of a people of unclean lips long before he confessed it and said it.
Peter was a sinner also all night when he was fishing, all morning when he was mending the nets. All his whole life, he was a sinner. But what happened so that these men fell to their faces and confessed their sins? I think this is the difference between a troubled conscience and a terrified conscience.
Can I try this on you guys, see what you think? Most people have a troubled conscience. That is, all of us know that we’ve done something wrong. A troubled conscience knows that. A troubled conscience will say things like, “Nobody’s perfect. I mean, I’ve made mistakes, but… so is the next guy.” A troubled conscience knows that God has a standard, or that there is a standard, and that you haven’t lived up to that standard. So a troubled conscience knows that there’s something wrong with me and something wrong with the world.
But a terrified conscience is different. It’s more than that. A terrified conscience doesn’t just recognize that I’ve done something wrong. A terrified conscience recognizes that God is mad because I’ve done something wrong. It’s a big difference. If you want to go back to the Garden of Eden, a troubled conscience is Adam and Eve sewing together their fig leaves. A terrified conscience is Adam and Eve running to find some bushes to hide from God. And what’s the difference?
In Adam and Eve’s case, they heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden. Right? In Peter’s case, he recognized that Jesus was more than just a man and even more than just a teacher, more than just a rabbi, more than a prophet—that he was God in the flesh. With Isaiah, it was that when he realized that the holy God was right there, he was in the presence of God. In every one of those cases, what was activated in the conscience was not only the knowledge of something done wrong, because if that’s all you have—if all you have is a troubled conscience—you think, “Well, I got a bad conscience because I did wrong, but if I do enough, I can make it right.”
A terrified conscience knows that my problem is not even my sin. My problem is that God is mad at my sin, and there’s nothing that I can do to fix that. All I can do is run for it! Like Adam and Eve in the garden. Like Peter in the boat, “Depart from me!” Like Isaiah in the temple, “Woe!”
Now this knowledge, the knowledge that you are a sinner, is common to all people. But this knowledge that our sin has offended God, and because of what we’ve done, we deserve God’s, well, as we confess, eternal, temporal, and eternal punishment—wrath and hell itself—this is worked only by the Holy Spirit, who faces us up next to the holiness of God. The result is terror, dread—contrition, sometimes we call it. The recognition that we deserve God’s wrath and that we can’t do anything to fix it.
But look at how the Lord responds to the terrified conscience. Look at how the Lord responds to your terrified conscience. He does not do what Peter said: “Depart from me. I’m a sinful man.” Jesus doesn’t say, “Oh, thanks for telling me. I don’t want to hang around sinners,” and walk on the water off the boat to get away from him. No, he looks at Peter and says to him these most marvelous words: “Don’t be afraid. The Son of Man came not to condemn sinners but to save them.”
In fact, I’m going to give that work to you, Peter, and put you into the office of preacher so that you’re going to be a fisher of men. The Lord Jesus, when he came to find Adam and Eve in the garden, remember, with their terrified conscience running and hiding in the bushes, he didn’t just leave them be or say, “Done with them,” or “Destroy it and I’ll start over.” He came and found them.
And remember this most marvelous thing that he promises to… well, he says it to the devil and gives it as a promise to Adam and Eve: “I’m going to put enmity between you, devil, and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He’ll crush your head. You’ll bruise his heel.” Then he took an animal and wrapped it around their naked bodies. He does not let them hide in their terror. He addresses that terror with blood and mercy.
And the same thing with Isaiah, who’s hovering, towering, hiding his face for fear that the holiness of God would utterly destroy him. The Lord sends an angel with some tongs, grabs a coal, maybe from the incense or from the altar, and takes it and touches Isaiah on the lips. You kids have the job of finding the window in church of this particular story, when the angel touches the lips of Isaiah and says, “Your iniquity is taken away,” so that now Isaiah… it’s forgiven of all of his sins and accepted in the presence of God. His lips are made holy to preach God’s word and to join in the hymn of the angels.
In other words, the Lord does not let this terrified conscience of Isaiah remain in terror, but comes with a sacrifice to forgive sins. And this is the same thing for us. Now, sometimes, I think that we get stuck in a troubled conscience and not yet a terrified conscience. A troubled conscience that says, “Nah, I know I’ve messed up, but I can make up for it, I can fix it, I can do.”
If you have a troubled conscience but not a terrified conscience—in other words, if you’re still trying to fix your conscience problems by your own work and by your own efforts, I don’t have any good news for you. I mean, except to tell you to stop. It’s not going to work. But if the Holy Spirit has worked in your hearts this terror, knowing that you cannot fix your own guilt and shame, that you cannot cover it up, that you cannot take it away, that you cannot atone for your own sin, that you cannot appease God’s wrath— that you cannot find a way to get into heaven by your own works or efforts or trying or striving or quitting or starting or stopping or whatever it is—when you come to that realization that you are a sinner that deserves God’s wrath, then the Lord comes to you and says, “Fear not.”
He comes to you with the blood and the covering. He comes to you with the coal from the altar. He comes to you with the atoning work of his Son, Jesus Christ. He comes to you with mercy and kindness and grace, and he forgives all of your sins. He says to your conscience, “Do not be afraid. Be at peace. Be of good cheer. For the holiness of God is not dangerous to you. You belong to God’s family. You are his child, you are his friend.”
It is no accident then that when we come into the Lord’s house like Isaiah, and we offer the incense of our prayers, we join in the same song that Isaiah heard the angels singing: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabbaoth,” and that the Lord takes and touches your lips also with the most holy of holy things—the very body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. With this touch to your lips, he says, “Your sins are taken away. Your iniquity is purified. Your conscience is clean. Your God is gracious.”
So may God give us a comforted conscience, moving us from the terror of the law to the comfort of the gospel, which he has for you in His precious Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. And may His sacrifice be now and always your peace. In the name of Jesus. Amen. And the peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.