Will you turn with me please
to the sixth chapter of the book of the prophet Isaiah, Isaiah
chapter 6. This is the second in a very
brief series of two studies in this very familiar portion of
the Word of God. And briefly, by way of review
and introduction, I would remind you that we are directed to this
passage in a very special sense because of the special circumstances
in which we find ourselves as a body of God's people. One of
the things that is very, very evident in the teaching ministry
of our Lord is its occasional nature, that is, instruction
was called forth by the specific occasions of need. When our Lord
overheard the disciples arguing about who's going to be big shot
in the kingdom, he gave them a lecture and a lesson on humility. And that's but one of many illustrations
of this principle. And so I have sought, as a teaching
elder in this assembly, to be sensitive to what God was doing
in the occasion of separating Pastor Blaise from us for the
work there in East London, and have endeavored to bring to bear
upon your consciences and upon my own those aspects of God's
truth which speak with peculiar relevance to our present circumstances. And I think the previous hour,
for those of us who were there, was a good example of this, truths
that in isolation you wouldn't have been turned on to. But in
the light of our present circumstances, we found our minds predisposed
to reach out and to wrestle with the aspects of truth that we've
grappled with in the past hour. Likewise, I trust that our study
of this portion will have peculiar relevance and that we may reach
out to the God who speaks in this passage and be willing to
receive with unusual eagerness what he says because of the peculiar
circumstances in which we find ourselves. Needless to say, there
are certain things in Isaiah's call to the prophetic office
that can never be repeated. things peculiar to Isaiah as
an individual, things peculiar to Isaiah as a prophet, and God
no longer comes by way of direct revelation to call and commission
his servants, but his call and commission is nonetheless real,
and that call and commission comes to us with principles that
find tremendous parallels in this portion of the Word of God. And I suggested last Lord's Day
that what God did essentially and primarily to Isaiah in this
vision recorded in the sixth chapter of his prophecy was to
reveal to Isaiah truths that break down into three major categories. First of all, God revealed some
foundational truths about himself. Certain things about God the
sender or God the commissioner. Then secondly, God revealed some
fundamental and foundational truths to Isaiah about himself
as a man or about the one sent. And then thirdly, God revealed
some very, very strange, yet again fundamental and vital things
about the people of God or the people to whom the prophet is
sent. So you have a revelation of the
sender, God, a revelation of the one sent, the prophet, and
a revelation of the people of God, those to whom the prophet
is sent. And I suggested that what is
revealed about God last week in our study, I suggested what
is revealed in the passage is something about God as the God
of absolute sovereignty and unrivaled supremacy. When Isaiah saw the
Lord, he saw him seated upon a throne, his royal garments
filling the temple, and it was a throne that was in a place
of exaltation. It was high and it was lifted
up. And in this revelation, in this
vision, God is telling his servant that the God who sends him is
the God of absolute sovereignty and unrivaled supremacy. And
then in this matter of the chant of these seraphim and the smoke
that filled the temple in the trembling of the threshold, God
is revealing that he is a God of transcendent majesty and of
burning purity. And then he hears the chant of
these seraphim. a chant that declares that God's
glory fills the earth. He's the God of manifested glory. And then this same God who shatters
the prophet with this revelation of His glory comes to him, recorded
in verses 6 and following, in the way of forgiving grace and
of pardoning mercy. And then He's the God who, though
high and lifted up, the God from whom all comes. He condescends
to incorporate the prophet into his own sovereign purpose and
introduces the prophet into the very councils of the triune God. Whom shall I send and who will
go for us? And this almighty God is revealed
as the God of condescending purpose. so much for a review of what
we covered last week and now we focus our attention this morning
upon the two final categories of revelation given in this portion
of scripture what God revealed about his servant and what God
revealed about the people to whom he was sent I simply remind
you that God did not begin by showing Isaiah something about
the people or something about himself as a prophet. He began
with the revelation of his own glory. For nothing is more fundamental
to any child of God, and certainly it is intensified in its fundamental
significance to a servant of God. Nothing, I say, is more
fundamental or vital than his vision of who God is. This regulates
everything else, and it's true of every person here this morning.
If you have false notions of God, you have false notions of
yourself. And if you have false notions
of God and of yourself, you'll have false notions of salvation,
of your purpose in life. Everything must begin with a
right understanding of God. But the immediate and reflex
reaction to any right understanding of God is a right understanding
of ourselves. The psalmist said, in thy light
we shall see light. And it was in the light of this
brilliant and blazing revelation of God that the prophet received
a shattering and undoing revelation of himself. And for the true
servant of God, next to his knowledge of God, nothing is more vital
than an accurate knowledge of himself. And we read the beginnings
of this revelation of himself in verse 5, Then said I, Woe
is me, for I am undone. because I am a man of unclean
lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips,
for mine eyes have seen the King Jehovah of hosts." When God revealed
himself to Isaiah, Isaiah came not to an initial understanding
of these things, for there's no indication that this is the
record of his conversion, but it is the record of his peculiar
commission And at his commissioning, Isaiah received a heightened
sense of these things, an intensified revelation of certain things
about himself. And I would like to suggest that
the foundational truths about himself which Isaiah received
are three. First of all, he had a new and
intensified revelation concerning his creaturehood as a man. Secondly, his sinnerhood as a
fallen man, and thirdly, his servanthood as a forgiven sinner. First of all, then, he received
in this vision an intensified revelation of his creaturehood
as a man. Look carefully at verse 5. Then
said I, Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean
lips. E. J. Young, that godly and great
scholar who understood the nuances and the subtle tones and overtones
of the Hebrew language, suggests that this phrase could properly
be rendered, Woe is me, I am undone, a man unclean of lips,
am I? So that the emphasis is first
of all upon Isaiah's intensified awareness of his creaturehood
as a man. For remember what he has been
gazing upon. Having gazed upon the high and
the lofty one, the uncreated, the eternal I AM Jehovah. Having heard the declaration,
the whole earth is full of His glory, everything that is created
reveals the Creator Himself uncreated, dependent upon nothing but all
dependent upon Him, deriving its life and its significance
in reference to Him. Furthermore, having beheld seraphim,
creatures of God, but not earthly creatures, creatures who, as
far as we can glean from the biblical data, do not need to
rest as we rest, do not need to eat as we do. They are not
dependent upon the earth for its yield. They are not weary
with the return of the sun and the moon in the cycles that we
find ourselves waking and sleeping. having then gazed upon the eternal
God, the uncreated, holy God of Israel, having gazed upon
seraphim, creatures, yes, but not earthly creatures, man was
made a little lower than the angels, seeing himself in comparison
with God and with the seraphim, there comes home to the heart
of this godly man Isaiah this intensified awareness of his
creaturehood as a man and he cries out a man woe is me I'm
undone I feel something of what I am as a man in the presence
of God and in the presence of the seraphim now why in the world
did God give to his prophet an intensified realization of his
creaturehood as a man, for the simple reason that no man serves
God effectively who does not carry with him the consciousness
of what he is as a creature. You remember the Apostle Paul
stated it this way in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 8, But we
have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the exceeding greatness
of the power may be of God and not of ourselves. And you see,
our safety is in the constant and conscious awareness of our
creaturehood as men. For as men, that which characterizes
us, even before sin entered, is our dependantness upon God. Adam in the Garden of Eden, when
he came from the hand of God, was no sinner, but he was a dependent
creature. Dependent upon the mercy of God
in causing the ground to yield its fruit. Dependent upon the
love and favor of God to reveal to him his will and to tell him
what he should and should not do. It is part and parcel of
creaturehood to no dependantness. That has nothing to do with sinnerhood. And it's when we embrace our
humanity, our creaturehood as men, that we then understand
what the Scripture means when it says, Cursed be he that trusteth
in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth
from the Lord. We understand what the scripture
means when it says, cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils
and courses through the nostrils in terms of the sovereign purpose
of God. For Acts 17 says, he gives to
all life and breath and all things. The only safe posture for any
child of God, and this is intensified for a servant of God in the work
of the ministry, is constantly to know and to feel, I am a creature
utterly dependent upon God the Creator. You see, humility is
not convincing myself I'm not quite as great as sometimes I
think I am. Humility is not telling lies
to myself. Humility is simply facing the
facts. God says your breath comes from me. You're dependent upon
me for all that you are and you have. Pride says I get something
from myself or from some other creature. Humility or one essential
element of humility. We're not talking about contrition
now. But true humility, our Lord never knew contrition for his
sin. He had no sin for which to feel contrition. But he was
meek and lowly of heart. It was the recognition of what
he was as a man. And in our Lord Jesus Christ,
dependantness is stamped upon every phase of his life. I can
of myself do nothing. That's why he prayed. That's
why he often spent lengthy periods of prayer. His prayer was the
constant pronouncement of His awareness that He was man. And never forget this, as man,
our Lord took the posture of dependantness before His God
and Father. Therefore, I call upon you, my
beloved brother, constantly to remember that you're a man, and
that as a man you stand in the place of constant dependantness
upon your God. And also another very practical
implication of this, when we understand we are men, we'll
not be embarrassed about that which is peculiar to us as men,
that is not true of Seraphim and is not true of God. We read
in the 40th chapter, and I keep referring to that chapter in
the exposition because it's an extended commentary upon this
passage. Isaiah says, have you not heard? Have you not known? The everlasting
God, creator of the ends of the earth, he fainteth not, neither
is weary. Then he goes on to contrast man,
the creature. He says, even that which is the
epitome of energy. He says, even the youths. shall
faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. Why? Because they're creatures. Because
they're creatures. And the servant of God who does
not face realistically his creaturehood as a man will be prey to the
work of the devil in driving him beyond what God requires
of him. The scripture has said if the
devil cannot freeze us out with indifference, he'll burn us up
with fanaticism. And the essence of fanaticism
is to forget what I am. Oh, may God help you, Mrs. Blaze,
to be a Nathan to your beloved husband, when all of the pressures
and responsibilities are upon him that could consume 48 hours
of a 28-hour day, to be his Nathan, to remind him he is but a man.
And the Son of Man said, let us come apart. As one servant
of God has said, if we do not come apart, we'll come apart
because we are men. We are men! And God revealed
this to his servant. And he further went on to say,
and as a man, your strength is to be found not in kidding yourself
that you're some superhuman creature who does not grow weary and discouraged
and faint, but that latter part of Isaiah 40 says, the youth
shall faint and be weary and the young men shall utterly fall,
but They that wait upon Jehovah shall renew their strength when
they take the posture of dependantness. God comes as the giving God and
causes them to mount up with things that are not human now. They shall mount up, young men,
with wings as eagles. You ever see men with wings?
You see a man who waits upon God and you're looking upon a
man with wings. who when he owns his dependantness
as man is then in the posture where God is pleased to endow
him with measures of strength and quickening power that go
beyond his natural resources. They shall mount up with wings
as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. Well, there is a second aspect
of what God revealed to Isaiah about himself, not only his creaturehood
as a man, this intensified awareness, but secondly, his sinnerhood
as a fallen man. Look again at verse 5. Then said
I, woe is me, for I am undone. It's the language of an impending
calamity. Something has happened. He said,
I've seen something that has utterly disjointed me. I'm undone. Because I am a man, but, rendering
it as E. J. Young does, a man unclean
of lips am I. And here was this intensified
revelation of his sinnerhood as a fallen man. Now get the
setting. He has beheld the thrice holy
God. seated upon a throne, his royal
garments filling the temple, no peer, no one standing with
him alongside of him, exalted above all. And he's heard the
antiphonal chant of the seraphim, holy, holy, holy, the smoke of
the living presence of God. And in scripture, smoke is often
a symbol of the divine presence. You remember the pillar of fire
and the cloud and their references in the Old Testament to this.
And having seen this revelation of God, and then having beheld
these sinless creatures, the seraphim, who in the presence
of this God veil face and feet but have no problem speaking
for that essential characteristic of God, His holiness. They have
no problem. Isaiah finds he cannot open his
mouth. No thought here of preaching
for God. He finds himself utterly unfit even to praise such a God. He's beheld seraphim praising
him, holy, holy, holy is Jehovah's host. The whole earth is full
of his glory and Isaiah's words get stuck in his throat and he
says, I can't even praise so holy a God. Why? And at that
point it was only natural that his sense of sinfulness should
terminate upon the organs of speech. I'm a man of unclean
lips. Is he simply aware of the sins
of the tongue? Of course not. But it was in
that setting that the sinfulness would find its focused concern. I'm in the presence of this God.
It is only right that His creatures, who are in utter dependence upon
Him, should praise Him. Look at these creatures, seraphim.
They continually praise Him, but I cannot. Why? There was
this intensified revelation of His sinnerhood as a fallen man. And Isaiah knew the human heart
well enough, and his book is a revelation of this, to know
that the activity of the lips is but an echo of the state of
the heart, for from within, out of the heart of man proceed all
forms of sin. And Jesus said, out of the abundance
of the heart, the mouth speaketh. And here then was a fresh revelation
to the man of God, a revelation that shattered him of what it
meant to be a sinner. Now this revelation that shattered
him, that caused him to cry out, I'm undone. A calamity is fallen
or is about to fall upon me. I'm about to die. Why was this
necessary? Remember, this is God dealing
with his servant to prepare him for his ministry. Now why was
this necessary? May I suggest two reasons? Number
one, If the prophet was to be taken into more intimate communion
with God, he had to be taken into a deeper discovery of his
own sinfulness. Let me give it to you again. If the prophet was to be taken
into more intimate communion with God, he had to be taken
into a deeper discovery of his own sinfulness. Why? I go back
to Isaiah 5750, another verse that is a commentary upon this
passage. Thus saith the High and the Lofty One, a direct reference
to this passage, that inhabiteth eternity, the uncreated One,
whose name is Holy, the transcendent, majestic, ineffably Holy God,
I dwell in the high and holy place. with him also that is
of a humble and contrite spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble
and to revive the heart of the contrite. What is God saying?
He's saying, I dwell in experimental communion with the one who is
humble. What is humility? That's accepting
my creaturehood. And he says, with the one who
is contrite. And what is contrition? That's
the response of owning my sinnerhood. And God says, I hold fellowship
only with those who take their place as creatures in dependantness
upon me, and those who take their place as sinners in contrition
before me. And each new demand of responsibility,
if it is to be discharged in the power of the Spirit, is a
new demand upon the growth of the inner life of the servant
of God. And some of the things I say only Pastor Blaze will
understand. The rest of you will just have
to believe we're not mouthing meaningless words. None but the servant of God knows
what this means. That with each new dimension
of privilege and responsibility comes a demand for the deepening
of the inner life of the man of God. Without that, Every widening
circle of influence as far as quantity is a neutralizing and
a thinning out of the quality of a man's ministry. That's why
the men who have been most used of God have been most powerfully
wrought upon in their own hearts so that we read some of their
biographies and we say, Lord, that man's living in a realm
I know nothing of. That's why I can only handle
a few pages a day. If I'm reading Rutherford or
David Brainerd, I'd say, Lord, those men walked in paths I know
nothing. And I'm not surprised to see
that their circle of usefulness also brought them into areas
that I know nothing. And that's why God dealt this
way with His servant. Do you think God delighted to look down
and see this holy man? Remember, this was no bum. This
was no alcoholic dragged off the streets. This was no lecher
drawn from the paths of whorehouses and red light districts. This
was a holy man of God. And God so shattered him that
he said, God, I'm undone. I can't even speak to praise
you, let alone preach for you. Why? Do you think God is some
kind of a sadist? No, no. May I say it reverently? It pains God to afflict His servants
with this sight of themselves, but it's necessary. It's necessary. He must see his sinnerhood as
a fallen man if he's to be taken into more intimate communion
with God. And as we pray for Pastor Blaise
and we say, Lord, may he continually know communion with you, we're
asking God to deal with him in such a way that there will be
intensified and periodic insights to his own heart that will shatter
him, that will humble him, that will undo him. But then there
is a second reason as to why God gave this intensified revelation
of Isaiah's sinnerhood as a fallen man. It was in order that the
prophet might be a true spokesman for God. What are the great themes
of this evangelical prophet Isaiah? They're the themes of the glory
of God, the sinfulness of man, the grace of God, the favor of
God in the sending of the servant of Jehovah. Many have called
Isaiah the evangelist of the Old Testament. Anyone who has
the idea that Old Testament religion had no warmth of the gospel,
they're just speaking ignorantly. You read the prophet Isaiah,
and this book just bristles with gospel warmth and overtone. Oh, everyone that thirsteth,
all thou tost and afflicted. And Isaiah comes and pours in
the oil of comfort. And then in Isaiah 58, he probes
the conscience like on Nathan. He does it in chapter 1 where
he says, in the name of God, I am sick and tired of your feast
days and your fast days and your new moons and your assemblies.
Where did he learn to preach to the human conscience like
that? Did he go to some school of elocution? In the year that
King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, and seeing him I was brought
to this awareness of what I was as a sinner, and I was brought
to own and to feel my sinnerhood. And out of the crucible of his
own experimental acquaintance with the great issues of sin
and grace, he spoke as the prophet of sin and of grace. In the light
of our discussion in the previous hour, whatever place the seminary
or any formal academic structure may have, in teaching a man,
young or old, Greek and Hebrew and church history and systematic
theology. And there may be a place for
many men for some of these disciplines to be absorbed and acquired in
an academic setting. But whatever place they may have,
hear me, young preacher, aspiring to the work of the ministry,
your ministry will be death incarnate if it does not grow out of continuous
inner experimental acquaintance with the issues of sin and of
grace. And they only come in such a
way as to shatter you, to undo you, to humble you, to crush
you. And there'll be times when you'll
say, I'm undone. How in God's name can I ever
preach when I feel unclean even to praise Him in secret, in His
presence? You want to be a preacher? You
see what you're asking God for? Now, if you want to be a professional
little parrot, and the outlines your teacher gives you, those
you can get from Matthew Henry, Adam Clark, John Gill, John Calvin, then
you go right ahead, my friend, but you'll never be an instrument
in God's hands. You will be used to pour in the
oil of comfort to the distressed, to peel back the veneer and the
sham of the deceived religionists, And oh, how desperately do we
need a brand of ministry in our day that throbs with that experimental
warmth and reality that can only come not by reading experimental
theologians and parroting their words, but by having heart-shattering
dealings with God. And though I almost feel remiss
to charge you, my brother, because in many ways I feel you should
be charging me I do so not on the basis of my personal qualifications,
but on the basis of my ministerial responsibilities. And God will
help you with the passing of the time and with the increase
of responsibility. Never, never, never to cut corners
on those disciplines that God will use constantly to remind
you of your sinnerhood as a fallen man. But then the third thing
God revealed about his servant was this. his servanthood as
a forgiven sinner. And the way this is done to me
is absolutely beautiful. Beautiful in the truest sense,
not the pleasant sense, when anything beautiful is just used
so carelessly. But I'm choosing the word purposefully. Look now at verse 6. Then flew
one of the seraphim unto me, the divine initiative that we
underscored at the close of last week's message, having a live
coal in his hand which he had taken with the tongues from off
the altar. And he touched my mouth with
it and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity
is taken away, and thy sin forgiven or expiated. Here is the work
of God, revealing himself as the God of forgiving grace and
pardoning mercy. He takes the initiative. The
prophet is left shattered. God comes to pick up the pieces. And he does so in the way of
forgiveness, And when Isaiah has both had the symbol and the
word indicating divine forgiveness in conjunction with the altar,
it had to do with God's manner and appointed way of expiation,
forgiveness through sacrifice, that which is the basis of any
man's forgiveness. There must be forgiveness through
the blood of Christ, through the sacrifice that He offered.
It's as though God ignores His servant and turns aside to consult
with Himself. And this again is one of those
passages where it may be what is called the plural of majesty,
or it may be, and I believe it is, an Old Testament hint of
the doctrine of the Trinity. Notice the way in which the record
is given. And I heard the voice of the
Lord saying, Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? Now he doesn't say, the voice
of God spoke to me, saying. There is an intense personal
element in the preceding verse. He touched my mouth and said,
this has touched thy lips, thine iniquity is taken away, thy sin
forgiven. Here's the intensely personal
application. But now it's as though God turns
aside from the servant. And God speaks and says, Whom
shall I send? Who will go for us? As though
there is an inquiry in the councils of the triune Godhead. There is no pathetic description
of the need of the nation. There is no holding up of the
licorice stick, of special standing in heaven. If Isaiah will go,
there is no appeal to carnal motivation. There is simply a
hearing of the voice of God making an inquiry. Whom shall I send? Who will go for us? Now look
at the response. Then I said, Here am I. Send me. What do we learn from
this? No sooner is Isaiah forgiven
by sovereign mercy than he hears the voice of God making an inquiry. Again, I remind you, not a demand,
but an inquiry. And the reflex response of his
heart, now suffused with the wonder of grace and pardon, is
simply this, O great God, exalted upon a throne, infinitely holy,
God before whom I feel my creatureliness, God before whom I have felt the
pain of my sinnerhood, but God of forgiving mercy, if you stoop
from that throne to touch the lips of this poor sinner, what
can the heart of the poor sinner, thus forgiven, do but run out
and say, here am I, send me? May I state it this way, here
is the coercion of grace. Grace has a coercive power. It doesn't coerce by external
force. Grace coerces by giving such
a sight of the glory of God as the God of forgiving mercy that
the heart of every soul that thus appropriates that forgiveness
runs out in unquestioned obedience to its God. Do you think of the
call of another man? He saw no vision in the temple,
but he had a revelation on the road to Damascus. And when he
cried out, Who art thou, Jehovah? There's the blaze of Shekinah
glory. And steeped in Old Testament
truth as he was, Saul of Tarsus knew that a light that was so
bright that it could outshine the brightness of the Palestinian
sun at noonday. He knew that this was a supernatural
light. And so he cries out in his blindness,
Who art thou, Jehovah? The voice had said, Why do you
persecute me? Who are you, Jehovah? Identify
yourself! And Jehovah says, I am Jesus,
whom thou persecutest. And what was his response? What
wilt thou have me to do, Lord, having beheld the glory of Jehovah
in the face of Jesus Christ? There's the coercion of grace.
He didn't need to have an appeal of the great need of the Gentile
world. He didn't need to be threatened
with the fact that he'd lose some rewards. All he needed was
the coercive power of grace revealed to say, Lord, what will thou
have me to do? You see, Isaiah was going to
have the peculiar privilege of speaking much and in great detail
about the servant of Jehovah who would come as the Savior
of God's people And he who would speak of the servant of Jehovah
with power, with unction, and with a note of experimental reality,
must himself be the loving bondservant of the servant of Jehovah. And isn't it interesting that
that's the title Paul delights to give to himself? Paul, a dulos,
a bondslave of God's bondservant. a bond slave of Jesus Christ. He gloried in the coercive power
of grace. And we have precisely the same
revelation here in this passage. And it is only when the servants
of God sense that coercion of grace that they are prepared
to walk in that kind of explicit obedience to Jesus Christ, which
is so essential, for the servant of God. You see, there are times
when, in faithfulness to God, the work of the ministry is the
most delightful work upon the face of the earth. What can be
a greater privilege than to say to men and women, boys and girls,
as I say to you this morning, regardless of what your past
has been, your present involvement in sin may be, turning from sin
and casting yourself upon Jesus Christ, Almighty God will forgive
and pardon all your sins and accept you into His family. That's a blessed task, to preach
the gospel to every creature. But as we shall see as we move
on shortly into the charge given to Isaiah, there are times when
the work of the ministry is an awfully negative, heavy work,
and for Isaiah it was that. Isaiah was told at the very beginning
of his commission, you're going to preach in such a way and with
such influences brought to bear upon your preaching that you're
going to make hell all the hotter for your hearers. You're going
to be an instrument of hardening their hearts. Now what is it
that enables the servant of God to administer the difficult,
the ominous elements of his ministry with equal fidelity as the glorious
elements? It's the realization that God
is forgiven. And having been forgiven by so
great and so mighty a God, I am his bondservant to do his bidding. And Isaiah was brought to feel
and to own his servanthood. As a forgiven sinner, and that's
always God's way of making servants, Paul could say, the love of Christ
does what? It constrains me. Literally,
it holds me in its grip. And he says, in essence, as long
as I keep my eye fixed upon the immensity, the glory, the grandeur
of Christ's love to me, I'm coerced to do His will. It holds me in
its grip. But you let your eye lose sight
of the glory of Christ's love to you. And then your lust will
begin to hold you in their grip. Then the fear of man will begin
to hold you in its grip. And then expediency and religious
pragmatism will begin to hold you in its grip. But let the
eye feed upon the measure and the amazing measure of God's
love to us in Christ. And then we sense with the servant
of God in this vision, here am I, Lord. Send me. In the totality
of what I am as creature, as sinful, and yet wonder of wonders,
as forgiven, here I am, Lord, in the totality of my redeemed
humanity. Lord, take me. Send me. Do with me what seems good in
your sight. You see, when the Church lacks
men who enter into the spirit of Isaiah's response, It is not
a call for clever schemes to raise up candidates for the mission
field. It is not a call to launch high-pressure
techniques to channel men into the ministry. It is a call to
humble ourselves and cry to God for a new discovery of our sin
and a new discovery of the immensity of grace. And where sin and grace
pervade a congregation, There will be those saying, here am
I. Send me. I go back to Thornwell. You forgive me if Thornwell keeps
coming out because he's been coming in all week over a couple
of days. And when people said, why Mr.
Thornwell? If we don't have special agencies
to raise up laborers, we won't have them. And Thornwell's answer
was, look, what one means did Jesus give to raise up laborers.
Pray, the Lord of the harvesters, send forth laborers. And he says,
if labors are not forthcoming from our churches, it's an indictment
of God that Ichabod is written on our churches. And rather than
launch a scheme to raise up labors out of such decadent churches,
let us humble ourselves until God comes to our churches with
power. Then there shall be those whom
the Lord constrains by His grace. And oh, may God help you, my
dear brother. In the coming days, when all
the powers of hell will conspire to undermine the establishment
of a biblical church, and when pressures will be brought to
bear even from good men to walk in a path of expediency and convenience,
may the Lord bring you back again and again to this revelation
of Himself, that you may feel the constraining power of His
grace, and seal, as it were, again and again, your vows of
utter servitude to the One who has called you and is sending
you forth." Well, then there were some wonderful truths that
God revealed about the people to whom He has sent, and again,
time has crept up on my back, and I can only suggest the headings
to you. Let's look at the passage very
quickly. Verse 9, and He said, And tell this people, now look
at the message, hear ye indeed but understand not, see ye indeed
but perceive not. Make the heart of this people
fat, make their ears heavy, shut their eyes, lest they see with
their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their
heart and turn again and be healed. Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until cities
be waste without inhabitant, and houses without man, and the
land become utterly waste, and the Lord have removed men far
away, and the forsaken places be many in the midst of the land,
and if there be yet a tenth in it, it also shall in turn be
eaten up as a terebinth, and as an oak, whose stalk remaineth
when they are felled. So the holy seed is the stalk
thereof. You see, God was concerned that
the prophet have no romantic ideas about the mission upon
which he is set. And having revealed himself to
the prophet, having revealed to the prophet something of his
own heart and need as creature, sinner, and forgiven sinner,
he now says, Isaiah, I want to give you a realistic view of
the people to whom you're going. And God reveals essentially three
things about the people, and I can only give you the headings
and the thought or two under each. First of all, their utter
sinfulness, and he got this up in verse 5. When Isaiah saw the
Lord, he said, I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in
the midst of a people of unclean lips. Lord, when I acknowledge
my sinnerhood, I am but one of a nation of sinners, and I have
this affinity with the very ones to whom I am being sent. I with
them am a sinner. He had a realistic view of their
utter sinfulness. Secondly, he had a realistic
view of their impending judgment, verses 11 and 12. God told him
when he asked the question, how long must I preach this message
that will make their ears heavy and their hearts fat? He said,
you keep preaching it until the very cities that now stand as
monuments of my faithfulness to Israel are leveled and waste
without inhabitants. So he looked upon the people
as standing under a cloud and canopy of divine judgment. He
did not regard them according to what met his eye when he preached.
He saw the stately temple. He saw the tangible evidences
of the days of glory under Solomon and under the other good kings.
But God says, Isaiah, you're looking upon a people who are
not presently under the canopy of my smile. They're under judgment. And it's only a matter of time.
Preach until. It's only a matter of time. And
so Isaiah was to look upon them in their utter sinfulness, in
their impending judgment, but blessed be God, he was to look
upon them in their true worth, in their true worth. For though
they are under the judgment of God and slated for His discipline,
they are still creatures made in His image and God will come
again with the prophet to give them further warning. Treating
them not as dogs and sheep or cattle slated for slaughter,
but as creatures made in His image. Creatures privileged to
be within the orbit of that nation that had peculiar privileges,
the nation of Israel. And their true worth was seen
primarily in the fact that in the midst of all those slated
for judgment, God says, I have a holy seed. Look at that last
verse. So the holy seed is the stock
thereof. And God uses an illustration
that was very understandable to every Hebrew person. There
were certain types of trees which, even when you cut them down,
the life remained in them sufficiently to support limbs. A year ago
I cut down our willow tree, and to my amazement, two years ago,
a year afterwards, I saw fresh green shoots growing out of hunks
of the willow tree that were sitting there in my backyard. Somehow they found something
to support its life system. And he's using the illustration
of trees which, though felled, remain, at least for some time,
manifest that they are still alive, still living, whose stock
remaineth when they are felled, so is the holy seed. So what
God is saying is this, Isaiah, as you go to preach, though judgment
is slated for the nation as a whole, there is a tenth, there is a
remnant, and even though that remnant be oppressed and battered
in the midst of the other judgments, the holy seed is that seed which
I will call to myself and preserve by means of your ministry. And
that's the glory of the work of the ministry. It's a heartbreaking
thing to have to tell men how bad they are. There may be some
of you here today who've never been once told honestly how bad
you are. You think a preacher takes any
delight in telling you that your heart is a sink of iniquity?
The Bible says it's desperately wicked. You think it's pleasant
to tell you that the best things you do are a stench in God's
nostrils? But that's what the scripture
says. You think it's pleasant to tell men that they're helpless
to save themselves when they're so full of pride and self-sufficiency? But God says that. No man can
come to me except the Father draw him. You can no more save
yourself than a corpse can quicken itself in its own tomb. But in faithfulness to men we
must declare their utter sinfulness. We must believe it in our hearts.
It is no pleasant thing to pronounce impending judgment. And to believe
that a canopy of divine judgment hangs over the head of every
unregenerate man that the Bible says he that believeth not is
condemned already. The wrath of God abideth on him
that believeth not. That's not my word, it's the
very word of Jesus in John 3, 36. But thank God it is a glorious
thing to know the true worth of sinners. Oh, dear sinner friend,
listen, in all of your sinfulness and spiritual death, you are
of such worth that God has preserved your life to this hour. He has
commissioned us to come and declare to you that God has sent His
Son for sinners such as you, and that if you will repent and
believe, you will be saved. And thank God for the confidence
that through that proclamation, God will call out His Holy And
though that seed is in the midst of a people who themselves nationally
will go down under judgment, as did Israel, God will take
that holy seed and call it to himself and preserve it and one
day bring it home to stand with him in the presence of the Lord
Jesus when he says, Father, here am I and the children whom thou
hast given me. And I tell you, that's the glory
of the ministry. And as our brother leaves us,
that's his confidence and that is ours. We have no mistaken
notions that something is going to happen to men in their utter
sinfulness that will all of a sudden dispose them to embrace by the
multitudes a gospel that humbles them and cuts them to the quick.
No, no. But we have this confidence that
God has his holy seat. Whether they be few, whether
they be many in that particular place, we do not send our brother
forth on a fool's errand. The head of the church sends
him forth in fulfillment of his own promise. Other sheep I have
which are not of this fold, them also I must bring. There shall
be one fold and one shepherd. In those times when it seems
as though there is nothing but judgment and nothing but the
feedback of men's sinfulness, may God sustain your heart, my
brother, with the confidence that the holy seed is like that
tree, though felled, it cannot die. And may the Lord, as He
comforted His servant Paul at Corinth, remind you again and
again, I have much people in this city. I trust you're convinced
with me now that there is much in this vision of Isaiah, attendant
upon his call, that speaks to us as God's people and underscores
what we and the Lord's servant need constantly to hold before
us as we face this new opportunity, this new challenge, this new
responsibility. May God give us an ever-increasing
understanding of what he is in himself what we are as His servants,
and who it is to whom we are sent with the message of His
truth. Let us pray.