Isaiah’s Powerful Timeless Message
Many traditional churches are facing problems with lowering numbers attending their services. It could be that they are stuck in the way they present their message or it could be that their message and passion has changed. When John Wesley was 83 years old, in 1783, he wrote an article titled ‘Thoughts on Methodism’. It is so prophetic for us today. It could be called ‘Thoughts for all denominations”.
“I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist. But I am afraid they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this will be the case unless they hold fast both to the doctrine, spirit and discipline with which they first set out.”
It is so easy for Christians to get into ruts and do the same thing week by week and not address the spiritual needs of those in our society who are outside of Christ. How we need a new generation of Christian leaders who will redirect our churches. The key question is in what direction should we go.
In 740 BC God’s people were not very effective at living for God. The Lord’s response was to call Isaiah into his service. His commissioning is a healthy reminder of the commission all Christians have been called into.
1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple.
2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.
3 And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”
4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! 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.”
6 Then one of the seraphim 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.”
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!”
9 He said, “Go and tell this people: “‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.
10 Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”
There are five sections to this call of Isaiah and they are very relevant to us today.
1. We must understand God’s Holiness v. 1-4
In 740BC the great and godly king of Judah, Uzziah, otherwise called Azariah, died. He had reigned for 52 years although he developed leprosy when he insisted on burning incense in the temple. But the glory of his kingship was insignificant compared to the vision that Isaiah now had. He saw the King of Kings, the Lord himself, reigning with awesome power in his heavenly temple. He was seated on a highly elevated throne - to depict the fact that he was far above everything else in importance. The same Hebrew words for ‘high and exalted’ are used later in Isaiah to refer to God’s Messiah who would enter the world as the suffering servant,
“See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.” Isaiah 52:13
But amazingly this same Spirit of God will not only be in the Lord Jesus; he will also live in the hearts of all his people. Isaiah goes on to write,
“For this is what the high and exalted One says — he who lives forever, whose name is holy:
‘I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.’” Isaiah 57:15
In Isaiah’s vision two Seraphs were flying above the Lord God. ‘Seraph’ is a Hebrew word that means ‘Burning ones’. It it as if they are inflamed with their Lord’s holiness. They had three pairs of wings. With two they covered their eyes - they could not look directly at the glory of the Lord. Two covered their feet, a sign of reverent devotion, and two were used to fly, signifying that they were waiting to serve. They were calling out to each other,
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory.” Isaiah 9:3
The triple repeat of the word ‘Holy’ is a Hebrew technique for depicting the superlative. No-one is like the Lord in his holiness. They could not keep quiet about the Lord’s awesome grandeur and character. As they spoke the doors and floor of the temple shook and the temple filled with smoke. This smoke resembles the Shekinah cloud that shielded people from looking on this glory of God.
This picture is repeated elsewhere in the Bible. In the book of Revelation John has a similar vision of the glory of God. He also sees heavenly beings with six wings who never stop saying through the day and through the night,
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is, and is to come.” Revelation 4:8
However, as John continues, he associates this glory of God with the Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God, who will be worshipped forever,
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honour and glory and power, for ever and ever.” Revelation 5:13
In his gospel John quotes from this chapter in Isaiah and confirms that it refers to Jesus,
“Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him.” John 12:41
If God is going to commission any of us in his service the first and greatest need is to see the magnificent, holy glory of the God who is calling us to follow him.
2. We must understand our sinfulness v.5
Isaiah is crushed by this vision of the Lord. In contrast, when he looks at himself, he sees that he is nothing. His sinfulness is now all too apparent.
“’Woe to me!’ I cried ‘I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.’” Isaiah 6:5
There is nothing that we humans can impress God with. Our qualifications, jobs and skills mean little to him. What we say betrays what we really are. So often our lips demonstrate how egocentric we are. If our lips are unclean, how can any of us speak for the living God? We are all the same, we live among people with unclean lips. Our churches are full of people such as me! We are nothing compared with God.
Isaiah was rightly terrified. He understood that his sin had separated him from God and that there was nothing he could do about this. Isaiah realised that all people were in this dire situation and later wrote,
“But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that you will not hear.” Isaiah 59:2
Many people pray but it is as if God has taken his receiver off the hook. This verse reminds us that the problem is not with God!
3. We must understand our forgiven status v.6-7
It was only when Isaiah recognised the problem that God acted. There can be no forgiveness without a recognition of how far short we have fallen from God. But God has another side to his character beside his awesome holiness. He described this side of his character to Moses on Mount Sinai,
“And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.” Exodus 34:6-7
An angel then brought a live coal from the altar and applied this to Isaiah’s mouth and said,
“See, this has touched you lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin is atoned for.” Isaiah 6:7
This is the gospel. The altar was where animal sacrifices were made to symbolically die for the sin of the people. It was an enactment of what the Lord Jesus himself would come to achieve when he sacrificed himself on that cross. Jesus left his place with his Father and became a man, just as the prophets like Isaiah had foreseen. He became a human so that he could swap places with us.
Lt Col Arnaud Beltrame, 44, was a French policemen who was in charge of a standoff with an islamic terrorist who had been involved in a shooting spree in southern France. He volunteered to take the place of a woman that the terrorist had taken as a hostage. He was then both shot and stabbed, dying in the woman’s place. He did not have to do this. Col Beltrane’s brother said,
"He gave his life for strangers. He must have known that he didn't really have a chance. If that doesn't make him a hero, I don't know what would,"
It is significant that Arnaud Beltrane was a deeply committed Christian. The lady he gave himself up for must surely be immensely grateful to her saviour. Such bravery is extraordinary but what Jesus did was far greater. He not only died for us but took on himself the responsibility for all our sin. Jesus did this for each of us because he loves us passionately
The picture of the seraphim applying a coal from the altar to Isaiah is a picture that his sin had been paid for. It was not paid for by an animal but by the subsequent death of God’s Son. His sin was atoned for by someone else. He was accredited with being clean in God’s eyes. It is as if the computer record of all we have thought, said and done in our lives has been deleted by someone pressing the delete button. We all have guilty secrets that can haunt us, yet the great news is that we need not carry this guilt any more.
4. We must understand our mission
God did not chose us in order that his people should just sit around together singing or attending church. He has chosen us as his people to be his representatives in his world. How we need a fresh sense of his mission. God asked a question and Isaiah’s immediate response was to volunteer in his Saviour’s service.
“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!” Isaiah 6:8
Isaiah understood that God’s mission in his world will be undertaken by God’s people, with the help of his Spirit. How will this be done?
“He said, ‘Go tell this people: ”
God’s people have a primary task today, to tell others the good news about the Lord Jesus and the forgiveness of our sin that he has won. This is the primary purpose of Christian churches. There are other roles God wants us to undertake but none are so urgent as proclamation of the gospel.
Martin Luther, the great German reformer, changed the christian world. How did he do this?
“I simply taught, preached and wrote God’s word.”
Jesus emphasised this need for all of us today to go out into the world with the gospel when he gave the Great Commission to his church.
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20
In the old Authorised version of the Bible the last sentence reads, ‘and lo, I am with you always.’ There was a West Indian preacher who stressed, ‘No go; no lo’, meaning that we won’t experience the power of God’s Spirit with us if we are not seeking to fulfil our Lord’s commission.
We need to ensure that those around us understand the message of the gospel to be firstly, that we live in the world of an awesome, holy God and secondly that there is a judgment to come. But thirdly that God himself has provided the one answer that we all need, by entering this world as Jesus to pay the price for our sin. He demands that we recognise this fact and then live out our lives in response to this.
If I do not feel like passing on this message to others and are not praying for opportunities to do so, it probably means that I have not been struck by the great holiness of God and my need for forgiveness.
5. We must understand that this will be hard
Isaiah was told to tell the people this message about their creator but he is also told that most will not listen! That is hard. They will hear but not really understand because their hearts are hardened. What God wants to see is a people who respond to his message and turn back to him. Then and only then will they be spiritually healed. Isaiah is told to give the people the opportunity of turning back to God but he knows it will take many years and it will require them to go into captivity in Babylon for two generations before they wake up to what really matters in life.
However there is hope. Isaiah is told,
“But as the terebinth and oak leave stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed will be the stump in the ground.” Isaiah 6:13
When a tree is chopped down a stump is left and Isaiah is told that one of these stumps will sprout and result in a very special new tree. This new tree will be ‘holy’, which means having the nature of God. That tree will be a remarkable person, God’s Messiah himself.
A little later Isaiah shows us that this is exactly what is meant,
“A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him – the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the LORD – and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.” Isaiah 11:1-3
God’s holy Messiah will be a direct descendant of Jesse, the father of the great King David. The two genealogies of Jesus confirm that he was indeed a direct descendant of Jesse and David. Although Isaiah will be ineffective in drawing people back to God, when Jesus comes there will be much fruit as many turn to follow him and so enter God’s kingdom.
Isn’t it exciting to see how the sixty-six books in the Bible all have the same message?
1. God is Holy
2. We are sinful
3. Forgiveness is available through having a personal relationship with Jesus
4. We have all been given a mission
5. We are not guaranteed an easy life but as we live for Christ today there will be fruit.
BVP
