Inspiration in Isaiah: Send Me!

Arright, people, listen up! I need a volunteer! I have a very important, and potentially dangerous mission, and I need someone who is fully committed to the cause. I can guarantee you that this assignment will have far reaching consequences for many people, but it will not be easy. That’s why I need someone who will not quit, no matter how tough it gets. You’re gonna have backup, but at times you won’t see it; you may even think that you have been abandoned. Now, I can’t tell you the exact nature of this assignment until after you have volunteered, but I can tell you it comes from the very highest levels. Who is willing to step up?

How many of us would volunteer for an assignment like that? We’d probably want to know a lot more about it before we raised our hand. We’d want to know what the job is, how long will it take, where is it, etc. The most important thing we’d want to know is who is making the assignment. This morning, we are going to look at Isaiah’s description of his call to be a prophet, and we will see that while he did not know what the assignment was, he had a good look at who was calling him—a look that initially terrified him.

Isaiah 6:1, “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted…”

The throne tells us that God is the authority. The fact that He is sitting means that His work is done, and He is very much in charge; He is ruling from the throne. John Piper says, “No vision of heaven has ever caught a glimpse of God plowing a field, or cutting his grass or shining shoes or filling out reports or loading a truck.” God works for no one; He is the supreme authority in the universe. We do not give God authority over our lives. He has it whether we like it or not.

God’s power is absolute. His throne of authority is not one among many; it is high and exalted. God's throne is higher than every other throne to show that His power is above all others. No opposing authority can thwart the plans of God. World leaders frequently find their goals blocked by some other power, or a combination of world events, but what God purposes, he accomplishes. As He says in Isaiah 46:10, “…My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.”

Is 6:2, “Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.”

No one knows what these strange six-winged creatures with feet and eyes and intelligence are. This is the only place in the Bible their name appears. But given the majesty of the scene, and the fact that in v.4 when they speak the foundations of the temple shake, we probably should not picture chubby winged babies with little bows and arrows fluttering around the Lord’s head.

The word seraph means “burning one”, and fire is often associated with God’s holiness. For example, Moses saw a bush that was burning, but not consumed, and when he went over to see what was going on, God told him to take off his sandals, because he was standing on holy ground in the presence of God (Exodus 3:2-5). So it seems appropriate for these “burning ones” to be the ones proclaiming that God is, “holy, holy, holy.” It’s obvious that they revere God in great humility. I’m not sure why they covered their feet, but I’m guessing it had something to do with the reasons why they covered their eyes—they were not worthy to pry into the secret things of God and His glory was too intense to look at directly.

Is 6:3, “And they were calling to one another: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty.’”

Repetition is the way the Hebrew writers expressed a superlative. For example, in 2 Kings 25:15, the expression “gold gold” means pure gold. This is the only time in the Hebrew Bible a quality is “raised to the power of three” “as if to say that the divine holiness is so far beyond anything the human mind can grasp that a ‘super-superlative’ has to be invented to express it.”[3]

The root word for holy means to cut, or separate, so something that is holy is set apart from other things that are profane, or common; it is different. In God’s case, He is completely different from anything else we know or can imagine. God in His mercy describes Himself in terms that are familiar to us, in words that we use to describe one another, like compassionate, patient, strong, righteous, etc. But the fact is, God is not like a man, or anything else we know. Isaiah 40:25, “’To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?’ says the Holy One.” It’s His holiness that makes Him so different. There is nothing in the whole universe we can compare God to. His holiness is his utterly unique divine essence.

Is 6:1, “and the train of his robe filled the temple… [3] the whole earth is full of his glory."

A bride’s long gown with a train adds to the glory of her presence. The picture of the train of God’s robe filling the temple is one of glorious majesty, beauty, awesomeness. But it isn’t just the heavenly temple that is filled with His glory: the whole earth is full of His glory. Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” I rarely quote poems, but here are a couple of them that make this point about God’s glory in creation in a way I like:

The glory of God is the manifestation of his holiness. God's holiness is the incomparable perfection of his divine nature; his glory is the display of that holiness. "God is glorious" means God's holiness has gone public. [6] His glory is the announcement to the whole world of just how holy He is. God displays His glory in creation, in Scripture, in His governance of the world, in His provision for His children, in His love for the just and the unjust alike, in His great salvation, literally in everything He does.

Finally, there is this concluding statement about what Isaiah saw: Is 6:4, “At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.” These are common physical manifestations at the presence of God. When God came down on Mt. Sinai, there was an earthquake, and the mountain was covered with smoke (Ex 19:18).[7]

So Isaiah saw this powerful, unimaginable, beyond-anything-we-can-conceive vision of the holy God, and what was his response? We might think that he would sing praises to God, or suddenly run around exclaiming to others how great God is, or shout with joy that he had been blessed with such a sight. But no! He says, “Woe to me!”

A. My eyes have seen the King Is 6:5; Psalm 96:9; Luke 5:1-8; cf. Judges 13:2-22

Is 6:5, “’Woe to me!’ I cried. ‘I am ruined![8] For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.’”

We sing a lot of songs about the holiness of God, and how much we love that about Him. And in one sense that is entirely appropriate. Psalm 96:9 says, “Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness...” There is something powerfully attractive and beautiful about One who is so pure, so righteous, so glorious as our God.

And yet—I sometimes think we don’t fully understand His holiness. Often when we sing about God being holy, there is something nagging in the back of my mind. The psalmist caught it when he went on to say, “Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness; tremble before him, all the earth.” (Ps 96:9)

Why tremble? You remember the time Peter encountered Jesus in the fishing boat? Peter and some others had been out fishing all night, but had caught nothing. They had come in then, tired, and discouraged. They were tending to their nets when Jesus got into Peter’s boat and asked him to put out a little from shore, where He spoke to the people. Then He said to Peter, Luke 5:4, "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch." [5] Simon answered, "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets." You can just imagine Peter’s thoughts. “Who’s the fisherman here? Not you. I’ve been doing this all my life. And I spent all last night out here on this same lake, and didn’t catch a thing. And now you tell me to just “let down the nets for a catch”—as though it were that easy! OK, I’ll do it, but don’t expect anything.”

[6] When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. [7] So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink. Just let the picture of that sink in to your mind. There were no fish at all there all through the night; now there are so many that the nets are beginning to break and two boats are about to sink from their weight.

[8] When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!" Peter had a sudden revelation. Two plus two equaled four; the penny dropped; it all made sense, and suddenly the boat was way too small. He wanted to get out of there, away from Jesus, because he realized that if Jesus could do that, He was not just any man. He had the power to move schools of fish around so they appeared right where and when He wanted them, and only God could do that. But if Jesus is…God!, then Peter doesn’t want to be that close to Him, because he is a sinful man.

There is an incident in the Old Testament that is much like this. Judges 13:2-22. During the time of the judges, the Israelites were being oppressed by the Philistines because of their sin. There was a man named Manoah, whose wife was unable to have children, and an angel appeared to her and told her she was going to have a son who would deliver Israel from their oppressors. When she told her husband about this, he asked God to send the angel again to teach them how to raise this son. So this “person” showed up again, and gave them some instructions; then Manoah offered to sacrifice a goat for him. [19] “And the Lord did an amazing thing while Manoah and his wife watched: [20] As the flame blazed up from the altar toward heaven, the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame. Seeing this, Manoah and his wife fell with their faces to the ground. [21] When the angel of the Lord did not show himself again to Manoah and his wife, Manoah realized that it was the angel of the Lord.

That’s what Isaiah felt when he had his vision of the living, all powerful, all holy, all glorious God. If the President of the United States were to walk in here this morning, we would all stand in honor of him and his office. If Jesus Christ were to show up in His glory and holiness, we would all be on our faces with Manoah, and Peter, and Isaiah.

These people felt that way because when they saw the vision of God’s holiness, the contrast with themselves suddenly made them aware of their sin. Isaiah became aware of his “unclean lips.” We tend to think that our speech patterns are trivial, that it doesn’t really matter what we say, but the Scripture says it does matter because the mouth reveals the heart. Jesus castigated the people of His day in Matthew 12:34-37, “You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. [35] The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. [36] But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. [37] For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”

The Bible is full of warnings against verbal sins: taking God’s name in vain, which means using His name without referring to Him – just using it as a punctuation mark. gossip, slander, lying, corrupt speech which would include dirty jokes, cursing, divisiveness, passing judgment, obscenity, … others: sarcasm, chops/digs, put-downs, verbal abuse we call it now, and God takes it all seriously. What does your speech reveal about your heart? Be sure to include in that inventory the things that you want to say but don’t. What about the words that come to your mind but you refrain from speaking them aloud because of social pressure, or the awareness that they are not holy? What do those words reveal about you? How do you feel about the fact that you will be judged on the basis of your words?

Isaiah’s sin was just part of his culture. He realized that he lived among a people of unclean lips, and he was no better than they were. It’s the same today. Cultural sins infiltrate the church and Christians at about the same rate as the non-Christian population. George Barna is a Christian pollster who reports that, “The lives of millions of [Christians who are active in sharing their faith] are characterized by involvement in ‘at-risk’ behaviors such as substance addiction, consumption of pornography, adultery, illegally downloading music from the Internet and reliance upon guidance from psychics…”[9] “Born again Christians are just as likely to get divorced as are non-born again adults.”[10]

What sins of the culture have seeped into your life? Where are you too much like the world around you? We can’t hide behind this, and say, Well, the culture made me do it; I was conditioned by the people around me, so I’m not responsible for my actions. Isaiah doesn’t feel that way; he feels the guilt of the people as well as his own. The fact that he lives among a sinful people makes him feel all the more guilty.

Is 6:6-7, “Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. [7] With it he touched my mouth and said, ‘See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.’”

We would have to admit that this is an odd description of the process of atonement, but the point of it seems to be that only God can atone for our sin and take away our guilt. Isaiah is stuck in his guilt—ruined, undone, without hope. But God can cleanse him of that and make him holy and fit for service. Only when we are right with God can we hear His voice and serve Him properly. Later in Isaiah, in chapter 53, we will learn more about how this atonement would be accomplished through the Messiah, who would be punished for our sins.

But having been purified, with the sin “burned out of him”, Isaiah is now ready to hear the voice of God calling him to service.

Is 6:8, “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’”

We might compare this response with the response of other great men of the Bible when they heard God’s call. Abraham, for example, when God called him to go sacrifice his son, his only son Isaac, whom he loved, said, "Here I am,” and the next morning got up and headed for Mount Moriah (Gen 22:1-3).

Samuel was just a boy, living with the old priest Eli, when God called him one night. He thought it was Eli calling him, and went into the old man’s room to see what he wanted. But no, Eli had not called him. It happened again, and Samuel again got up to see why Eli was calling him. The third time it happened, Eli finally realized that it must be the Lord calling Samuel, so he said, Look, the next time you hear the voice, don’t come in here to me, just say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” So Samuel went and lay down in his place, and when God called him again, he said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” [11] And the Lord said to Samuel: “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle” (1 Samuel 3:10-11).

But then there was Moses, and his response was a little different from Abraham and Samuel. God called to Moses from the burning bush in the desert, and told him to go back to Egypt to deliver the people of Israel, “But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11) Not, “Here am I,” but, “Who am I?” He didn’t think he could do it, and as the conversation went on, with God pressing him and Moses getting more and more uncomfortable, Moses had four objections (Ex 3:11, 13; 4:1, 10). Finally he said, “O Lord, please send someone else to do it” (Exodus 4:13).

So who will we be like? Abraham?----“Here I am.” Samuel?---“Speak, Lord, your servant is listening,” eager to hear and obey whatever you may have to say to me. Isaiah?--- “Here am I; send me.” Or Moses?---“Send somebody else.”

Isaiah volunteers even before he knows what the assignment is. He wants to serve God because of who God is. Because He is so great and glorious, it will be an honor to serve one like that, no matter what the job. Regardless of your politics, it would be a great honor if the president asked you to do something for him, and you would probably do it even if you didn’t like the man or his policies. God is so great, we count it an enormous privilege to be able to serve Him.

But the other reason Isaiah volunteers so quickly is because of what God has just done for him. He has taken his sin away. How can we not want to serve our wonderful Savior, who has atoned for our sins at the cost of His own life? Paul says it well in 2 Cor. 5:15, “he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” That’s it. We want to live for Him, because He died for us.

Even though Isaiah doesn’t know what the assignment is, he knows something of who God is, and therefore, the assignment can’t be trivial. Anything done for someone like that is important.

Isaiah had to be the bearer of bad news, and God told him in advance that the people were not going to respond to it. And he was going to have to keep preaching this message until the cities and the land were completely destroyed, and the people were carried off as slaves by the Assyrians. Wow. That’s not an assignment I want. But then, we don’t get to choose what we will do for God.

1. Exalt the Son – abide in Christ, and out of that love relationship with Him, everything that is required to honor and glorify God will come.

3. Evangelize the World – testify about Christ Love the people around us so much that we will do everything in our power to introduce them to their Savior and Lord.

These are everyone’s assignments. But each of us also has some more specific assignments from God.

Our individual assignments are as many and as varied as we are. You are called by God to your occupation, to your role as father or mother, husband or wife, child, brother or sister, grandparent. You are called to be salt and light in your specific sphere of influence, etc.

But beyond that, God is also calling you to a ministry based on who He has made you. You are supernaturally equipped to do some things especially well, and you need to find out what those are and do them. How do you do that? Listen. Ask God to speak to you. Set aside significant chunks of time to listen to His voice. And when you hear Him speak, obey.

I want us to take some time this morning to respond to God’s call here in Isaiah.

This is a time for each of us to renew our commitment to God, as we hear His voice calling, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

You may have done this before, but now is a time to do it again. Here am I, Lord. Send me.

Whatever you ask, I’ll say yes. Like Isaiah, even before I know what it is you may ask of me, I’ll say yes.

I am yours, please send me. Use me. Whether it is something great, or something small, if it will please and honor you, that’s all I ask.

Maybe God is calling you to love your neighbor as yourself—and to really make that practical and real, and a priority in your schedule.

Maybe you hear Him calling you to something you’re already doing, and you just need to rededicate yourself to that task.

We’re going to wait as you respond to God. I invite you to respond by coming up to the front. Don’t come just because others are.

[1] The one Isaiah saw was Jesus, according to John 12:41, “Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus' glory and spoke about him.”

[2] Many of the characteristics of God in this sermon were informed by a sermon by John Piper, “Holy, Holy, Holy Is the Lord of Hosts”, January 1, 1984, http://www.desiringgod.org/library/sermons/84/010184.html

[3] J. Alec Motyer, Isaiah (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), p.71.

[4] Gerard Manly Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur”

[5] Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Aurora Leigh” VII.821-22. http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/barrett/aurora/aurora-7.html

[6] Piper, ibid.

[7] cf. Psalm 104:32, “he who looks at the earth, and it trembles, who touches the mountains, and they smoke.” Rev. 15:8, “And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power…”

[8] E.J. Young (The Book of Isaiah, vol.1 (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1965), p.247f.) says there are three possible roots of this word, which increases the confusion about it’s precise meaning. Contenders mean such things as silence, to cease or cause to cease, to be cut off, ruined, destroyed, undone.

[9] “49 Million Born Again Adults Shared Their Faith in Jesus in the Past Year” July 28, 2003

http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdate&BarnaUpdateID=147

[10] “Born Again Adults Less Likely to Co-Habit, Just as Likely to Divorce” August 6, 2001 http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdate&BarnaUpdateID=95