Exposition by Max A Forsythe
When I was in basic training for the Regular Army in 1966, we had a Chemical, Biological and Radiation expert talk to us. He started his lecture by asking us if we knew how to survive a nuclear blast from as little as a mile away from ground zero? Well, I wasn't too impressed that day because I had read my history and had heard about a certain wall in one of the cities blasted by our atomic weapons. It seems that in the months after the blast visitors to the down town area would stop and ponder a blackened stone wall with lighter shadow people etched into its surface by the fireball. Whoever was standing, walking or playing in front of the wall absorbed enough of the heat radiation as they literally melted that the wall behind them was not totally toasted. Frozen in time, and in photographs of that wall, were the last living seconds of a handful of people who perished in the fireball of atomic warfare.
Now, this instructor wanted us to believe that if we dug a three-foot trench and hunkered down into the bottom with our ponchos over us, we could survive such a terrible experience. In the words of today's
- NOT! Two years later I had occasion to remember that lecture when I met an aged technician fifth class who in the early fifties had walked away from just such a test in the desert of Nevada. At that time he appeared to be fairly normal and only in the last year or two has the press reported that all of the troops who participated in those tests might benefit from some specialized medical tests at this late date. Yes, I met a man who was in the immediate presence of an atomic fireball and survived to tell about it. Hard to believe - perhaps, but really when you think about it, it is no harder than to believe the reports of a handful of saints who have stood in the very presence of God and been granted the grace to live and tell us about their experience. To one such passage in Isaiah six we come today. Now, we know and believe that our God is an awesome God and that in the glorious purity of His holiness, mere men should melt away because of the fact of sin in their lives.
Yet, this awesome God would have us know Himself as our personal God who loves and cares for each of those He calls into His eternal Kingdom. For the glories of this chapter, Isaiah has been preparing his audience since chapter one. We should not worry too much about the sequence of events as arranged by Isaiah. My military friend waited many years for his experience to be declassified so that he could share the details of his atomic experience. So too, in the timing of his message, Isaiah shared the revelations given to him according to the providential plans and wishes of our Sovereign Lord. Isaiah carefully dates his vision, it would seem that while he was in the earthly temple, he was caught up in a vision of the heavenly temple. Immediately Isaiah senses the sinfulness of his own nature. As he is in his natural condition he fears that he will be consumed immediately. But, look at God's provision for Isaiah's sin; one of the seraphs touched his mouth with a live coal taken from the altar. Edward J Young would have us understand that these verses would teach us that purity of lips could come from God alone. He would also have us know that this passage does not describe the conversion experience of Isaiah, but rather as Calvin suggests:
"It was because the Lord intended to enlarge and extend his favor towards him, and to raise him to higher dignity, that he might have greater influence over the people". Isaiah was being commissioned for service in this scene. Let us not make too much of the symbols in this scene, because the words easily explain what is going on: "your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."
In a similar way, when we come to the Lord's supper in a few minutes, we must always and ever understand that it is not the bread and the wine which define the supper, but the words of Christ which ought to ring in our ears and in our heart.
"This is my body ... this is my blood",
"Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes." Calvin notes that we should
"learn that the chief part of the sacraments consists in the word, and that without it they are absolute corruptions ... in which the sacraments are turned into stage plays."
Unlike the pagan deities whose actions were acted out in lavish productions for the benefit of their worshipers, we are called to praise the one, the only Living God. Isaiah realized that his unclean lips prevented him from prevented him from joining in the adoration of the seraphs, and only upon the acknowledgment of his cleansing does he dare speak. And this brings us to the second section in our passage today: the calling of Isaiah.
"Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" This is no plural of majesty here as some modernists would have it and neither is God talking to the seraphs. No, we should not be ashamed to admit that even as John assures us that Isaiah here saw Christ, so God the Father may speak to both Son and Spirit.
"Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" Just as anticipated, Isaiah volunteers,
"Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah's task is to be a frustrating one. There will be no great revival in Israel. True kings will indeed reign during Isaiah's ministry, but the people in general will not deserve the peace and prosperity that is theirs. In the last century one lonely missionary went off to Arabia and spent fifty years trying to convert the Muslims there. To his knowledge the sum total of his ministry was zero! Ministries like that are not sought after nor even funded in our day and age. The religious police are still very noticeable and powerful in that area of the world.
Very much like the Pharisees in the verses following our New Testament passage in John twelve: "because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved praise from men more than praise from God."
Isaiah's vision of the Christ in this scene is not for many people in His time, nor even everyone in Jesus' own time either. Even today, everyone will not hear nor understand. Yes we are, like Isaiah obligated to tell the world about the Lord's anointed, about the suffering servant, and about the King to come. But we ought not to be surprised when people ignore our message. Isaiah, unlike some today did not ask what was the cause of unbelief and neither should we. Like Isaiah, let us be thankful that our unclean lips have been cleansed in the presence of Christ who stands between us and the consuming fire of God's awesome holiness. He has taken the heat that ought to be ours for our many small and large sins. And in His shadow are we protected!
In verse eleven Isaiah asks one question: "For how long, O Lord?"
How long will the people fail to listen? In the immediate context of Isaiah's ministry the Lord announces that there will be little fruit until all of Judah is laid low. The cities and the farms and the people would all disappear. Even the remnant would again be laid waste. But, there is a word of hope for Isaiah to point out to Judah. A stump will be left in the soil of Zion. In our back yard, we have a pussy willow tree. Twice in fifteen years I have trimmed the dead wood out of that clump of sprouts. Once all the way down to the roots. I even burned the tops of the roots. Each time, the sprouts have slipped up in the spring and amazingly the tree is renewed. Once more I need to trim that tree.
Even as God has had to trim the New Testament Church several times just as He had to root out the wicked from the Old Testament congregation. How bad was it really in Israel? If later books in the Old Testament are any indication, there was Daniel and his three friends, Esther, Mordicai and precious few others early in the captivity. All of those who took the fair land of Israel for granted and expected the Theocracy of Judah to be protected against all comers were disappointed and they died rejected by the God of Israel and Judah. But a stump remained even as a remnant people remain today. Perhaps, like the Jews of Jesus time, there are many Christians in hiding, waiting for the Lord to shake the earth again. Perhaps, like the Judeans of Isaiah's time, there are very many non-Christians at large who have no idea that the Lord is coming to shake the earth one last time.
Who will tell these people of their peril? Who will go to your neighbor, your friend, your relative, your children? Well may the Lord God ask? Who do you suppose should go? But what if no one listens? So what, we are called to preach the gospel in season and out. Years ago I didn't understand what that in season and out really meant. Today, as the Lord has increased my knowledge and allowed me the privilege of knowing more, I have a better understanding. May the Lord bless our labors of making Him known. Amen.
Resources Used:
Thomas, Derek..
Welwyn Commentery Series: God Delivers.
Young, Edward J.
The Book of Isaiah.
The Holy Bible.
New International Version (1984 Edition)
NOTE: I am not able to automatically
recommend any future editions.
Christ Covenant Reformed (Presbyterian Church in America) -
Box 13926 - Columbus, OH 43213
(c) 2001
31 October 93
Permission granted to redistribute unedited versions with this notice.