When King Uzziah Died, I Saw the Lord (Part 1)

In the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah said: “I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne. And the hem of His robe filled the temple… I said, “Here am I. Send me!” (Isaiah 6:1-8)

Big Idea: Sometimes, God (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) takes away good things to give us better things in this life and in the world to come. The Lord doesn’t simply give us something. He gives us Someone. Jesus Christ is God’s greatest gift and our only lasting hope.

Losing an Earthly King, Seeing the King of Kings

Uzziah, also known as Azariah, was a strong and wise king in Old Testament Judah who reigned for 52 years. He died around 740 BC. In the early years of his kingship, under the influence of his godly advisor Zechariah, Uzziah was faithful to God and did right in the Lord’s eyes.¹ However, Uzziah’s success made him prideful and led to his downfall. That’s a danger to all of us, especially to people in leadership. Uzziah was afflicted with leprosy for abusing his high position.² Even with his faults, Uzziah was a hero to many people, including Isaiah, God’s prophet. The Lord removed Uzziah and then revealed Himself to Isaiah in new and wonderful ways, purged his sins, and commissioned him for new ministry.³

Isaiah’s prophecy points to Jesus so often, it has been called the Fifth Gospel. Isaiah speaks about Christ’s incarnation, His death and resurrection, and His Second Coming. That’s how the earliest Christians understood Isaiah. According to John 12:41, Isaiah saw the pre-incarnate Christ. John, the Apostle, quotes or alludes to Isaiah often. In John 7:38-39, Jesus says and John comments, “‘Whoever believes in Me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’ By this Christ meant the Spirit, whom Jesus gives to His believers.”⁴ Isaiah repeatedly promises that Christ will invite and satisfy thirsty people; He will pour out His Spirit like washing and refreshing water, and His people will become channels of blessing to others.

Blessed After a Bad Thing

Often God takes away things and then enriches us. When loved ones and things are removed, we can get depressed, discouraged, and disappointed with God. We are sad, but the Lord uses it for good. Sometimes He has to put us flat on our backs before we look up to Him.

Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the LORD. (Lamentations 3:40)

As we turn back to God, He often gives us new birth, spiritual refreshing and reviving, or another remarkable blessing. Scripture says that all God does for His children is loving, even when it doesn’t feel that way. We are blessed in both His giving and His taking away because both are for the sake of our holiness and joy. Often God’s most valuable, satisfying, and beneficial gifts come to us through painful experiences.⁵

Psychiatrist and grief expert Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (1926–2004) observed, “The most beautiful people are often those who have known defeat, suffering, struggle, loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These people have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern for others. Beautiful people do not just happen.”⁶

James 1:17 says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” God is the source of every good thing we can ever have. When we truly believe that, we develop humble dependence on the Lord. That is the best defense against pride, fear, and everything negative. We can count on Jesus to continue providing for us because He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He was loving and faithful in creating us, caring for us, and providing all that we already have. So we can be sure that Christ will continue to treat us kindly. Even so, believers in Bible times still had doubts, and so can we.

New Birth and New Life are Needed

To live right before God, we need to be born again by the Holy Spirit and to keep on being filled by the Spirit.⁷ He enables us to:

Hallow (honor) our Heavenly Father’s name
Advance the Lord’s kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy
Know, obey, and submit to His Scriptures which are written for our benefit.⁸

Scottish evangelist and teacher Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) said that until Christ works in us, we see only through the spectacles of our prejudices and selfish expectations. We need God’s surgical operation of external events and the Holy Spirit’s internal purification so that we give priority to loving and serving Jesus. Unless the Spirit helps us, we are self-centered.⁹

Changed by the Lord

Because of Christ’s grace and mercy, we can now offer our lives as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God as our true and proper worship. Then we can refuse to follow the pattern of this broken world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds by the Spirit. Then we can know and live in God’s ways—His good, pleasing, and perfect ways.¹⁰

Sometimes the Lord removes people, possessions, and positions to help us say with the Asaph the Psalmist “Whom have I in Heaven but You? And Earth has nothing I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever… My times, the course of my life, and my future are in Your hands.”¹¹

Isaiah would agree, but do we? We don’t usually trust the Lord too well when things are easy for us. Both Asaph and Isaiah only came to see God clearly through the lens of dark times. When God allows our loved ones, things, and health to be taken away, we are severely shaken.

So we pray: Holy Spirit, help us to learn to say with Job, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Let the Lord be praised, blessed, and magnified.”¹²

We will come back to Job’s response in the next post.

Anchored on Christ

Patricia Raybon is an award-winning author of books, essays, and novels, many of which talk about race, faith, and grace. She wrote about the gospel song, “My Soul Is Anchored.” It was her late husband’s favorite, and it expresses hope and trust in God during turbulent times. The song warns of billows rolling and breakers dashing, symbolizing life’s storms and stresses. But Jesus’ believers are not overwhelmed, the song says, because the Lord protects us. Hebrews 6:19 says, “We have this hope in Christ as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.” An anchor steadies a boat by sinking its “arms” into the seabed, keeping the ship from drifting and getting smashed in bad weather.¹³

Beloved, when things go wrong as we see it, let’s not trust in unreliable things—our own abilities, resources, and connections. Isaiah says that’s like leaning on a weak cane to walk with; it will break! Or leaning on a sharp stick; it will puncture your hand and cause you pain! Jesus says that trusting in anything other than Him is like foolishly building our house with no solid foundation!¹⁴

Patricia Raybon said that it’s far better to anchor to the One we know we can depend on. Even when the waves of life crash around us, we’ll be safe.

Trust in the Lord at all times, you people. Pour out your hearts to Him, for God is our refuge. (Psalm 62:8)

Prayer

Heavenly Father, when we are uncertain about what to do, show us Your ways. When we don’t know which way to turn, teach us, guide us, and rescue us. Lord, help us and others hang on to Christ who hangs on to us! We need You now more than ever, and we can’t pretend to be self-sufficient. Keep us safely anchored to You. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

To be continued.

Notes (various Bible translations): Notes (various Bible translations): ¹ 2 Kings 15:3; 2 Chron 26:4–5. ² 2 Chron 26:16. ³ Isa 6:1-13. ⁴ Jesus may be alluding to passages like Isaiah 12:3, 32:15-20, 35:6-7, 41:17-20, 43:19-21, 44:3–5, 55:1-3, 58:11. This is a big theme in Isaiah. ⁵ I was helped by Jon Bloom, “What God Gives When He Takes Away,” desiringgod.org. ⁶ Adapted from Death: The Final Stage of Growth (1974). ⁷ Eph 6:18. ⁸ See Matt 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4. ⁹ Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest (1924), reading for July 13. ¹⁰ Rom 12:1-2. ¹¹ Ps 73:25-26, 31:15. ¹² Job 1:21. ¹³ Our Daily Bread, July 24, 2025. ¹⁴ Isaiah 36:6; 2 Kings 18:21; Matt 7:24-27.

Losing an Earthly King, Seeing the King of Kings

Blessed After a Bad Thing

New Birth and New Life are Needed

Changed by the Lord

Anchored on Christ

Prayer

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