Turn in your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 6. Isaiah chapter 6. I alluded to this portion this morning in our consideration of the holiness of God. And I thought it would be good for us to look at the call of Isaiah the prophet, chapter 6, verses 1 to 13.
We learn a lot about the Lord God in this particular passage. I believe that will complement what we studied this morning. But as well, I think if we understand the call of Isaiah the prophet, we learn a lot about the entirety of this particular book. It is a long book.
It is a very detailed book. But in the very passage in Isaiah chapter six, there are several key themes that are impressed upon the prophet that come up over and over again in the book itself. So I just want to read beginning in Isaiah chapter 6 at verse 1. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple.
Above it stood seraphim, each one had six wings. With two He covered His face, with two He covered His feet, and with two He flew. And one cried to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory.
And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of Him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.
Isaiah's Confession of Unclean Lips
So I said, 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 my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal, which he had taken with the tons from the altar. And he touched my mouth with it and said, Behold, this has touched your lips.
Your iniquity is taken away and your sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send and who will go for us? Then I said, Here am I, send me. And he said, Go and tell this people.
Keep on hearing, but do not understand. Keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy. And shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed.
Then I said, Lord, how long? And He answered, Until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant. The houses are without a man. The land is utterly desolate.
The Lord has removed men far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. But yet a tenth will be in it, and will return and be for consuming, as a terebinth tree or as an oak, whose stump remains when it is cut down. So the holy seed shall be its stump. Amen.
Let us pray. Father, we thank you for the call of Isaiah. We thank you for the instruction that it gives us concerning you. And we pray, Father, that you would help us to grow in our understanding of your character and of your person.
We ask, Lord God, that you would just fill each one of us now with your Spirit. And we pray through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Introduction
Well, the prophet Isaiah was an 8th century prophet, and the entirety of his book was written from about 740 B.C. to about 685 B.C. In fact, in the year that King Uzziah died was 740 B.C. As an 8th century prophet, Along with his contemporary Micah the prophet, who is very similar in a lot of his subject matter, just a whole lot shorter, they prophesied primarily to the southern tribes of Judah. Hosea was a contemporary who targeted the northern kingdom.
He too was an 8th century prophet. Now along with Micah, Isaiah's focus was to tell the people that there was a coming judgment, that there would be exile. Now as he moves on in his prophetic message, there is not only exile, but there is a promise of restoration. But as well, Micah, or Isaiah, was unique in that he lived at the time that the northern tribes were taken into captivity by Assyria.
He had seen firsthand, he had witnessed firsthand the wrath and fury of a covenant-keeping God. The northern tribes continued in their apostasy. They continued in their defection. God promised that He would send Assyria, and lo and behold, He did so.
And in 722, the northern kingdom fell to Assyria, who was the world empire. So, Isaiah witnessed that. And then he comes to Judah and he is urging repentance upon these people and promising another foe, promising Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian Empire. They would be the means that God would use to bring judgment upon the southern tribes.
And we see certain aspects of that in what we read here this evening. But I want to consider the call of Isaiah the prophet under three considerations. The first is the vision of the prophet, what he saw according to verses 1-7. Secondly, the mission of the prophet, verses 8-13, where God highlights very specifically Isaiah's mission.
And in this particular context, Isaiah's mission was a very negative one. I've often thought it must have been psychologically difficult for this prophet to be essentially told, you are going to be a means of judicially hardening the people. They're not going to listen to you. In fact, through your preaching, their hearts are going to be dull.
Their ears are going to become heavier. They're going to shut their eyes. They're going to be confirmed in their godlessness and they will, in fact, be judged by Babylon. So, Isaiah was not given a church growth method.
Isaiah was not called to success. In fact, Isaiah was called to just the very opposite. So, God's grace is manifestly upon this prophet as he embarks on a task that was very difficult to be sure. So, the vision, the mission, and then thirdly, the message of the prophet. several elements that emerge from this particular call that come up again and again in the rest of the prophecy.
The Vision of the Prophet
But notice first, with reference to the vision, we see the throne room. We are immediately taken up. We are immediately given. how it was when Isaiah was called to missionary service. In the year that King Uzziah died, as I already said, 740 B.C., I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple.
Uzziah was a good king in Judah and did much to increase her bounty. No doubt when he died, the people were very much perplexed, very much dismayed. The idea here that he sees God enthroned above makes the juxtaposition or the contrast very clear. That though a good and godly king may die, the Lord on high will never be cast off his throne.
The Lord on high never ceases, the Lord on high never ever stops in His great reign. Though earthly kings reign and die, the Lord God reigns now and forever. During the exile, the pre-exile, post-exile, the people of Israel and Judah would do very well to remember this. That the horse may indeed be prepared for battle, but deliverance comes from the Lord.
And then He describes this glory that He saw. I saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up God is exalted. He is a royal king. He is the sovereign of the universe.
He is majestic. He is almighty. He is one to be gazed at, to be worshipped and glorified. The throne indicates two things.
That He is king and that He is a judge that most certainly exercises a rule and that it is most certainly according to His righteous standard. The train of His robe filled the temple. We've had a couple weddings here recently, and we see the train on the wedding gown. And we see it flowing, and that's to promote or to show the centrality of that particular figure.
Nothing against the men that were involved, but it's all about the ladies on wedding day. It's all about the ladies and showing their thunder and demonstrating their beauty. And that train of the robe sort of calls attention to that. Sometimes there's attendants holding it up.
Sometimes you have to move things away so that they can make their path wearing that thing. Well, the prophet says the train filled the temple. This was palm. This was glory.
This was majesty. This was excellence. This was no king Uzziah. This was no good king in Judah.
This was no bad king in Judah. This was the king of kings and the Lord of lords Himself. It is a glorious and a wondrous scene. His robe filled the temple.
And then he sees these seraphim. Notice, it says each one had six wings. And with these six wings, the prophet is very clear. It says with two he covered his face.
The Seraphim and the Thrice-Holy God
God is so glorious and His power and majesty is so blazing that these holy angels have to cover their face. They don't just gaze upon Him in unhindered or unfettered intercourse, but rather they have to cover their face because of His purity, because of His majesty, because of His excellence. Remember when Moses had dealings with God, he came down, he had to put a veil over his face. With two wings, these angels, they covered their feet and with two wings they fly.
And they cry out, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. These burning ones, which Seraphim indicates, do not cease declaring, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. All royalty is served by attendants. There's always accompaniment when a dignitary arrives.
He has assistance for this. He has attendance for that. Well, God the Lord is no different. In this particular case, He has these holy seraphim who do nothing else than cry out, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts.
That is a defining characteristic of Isaiah's Lord. In this book alone, the prophet refers to God as the Holy One twenty-five times. The Holy One of Israel. That phrase or that identifier only comes up two other times in the rest of the prophetic literature.
Certainly this impression or this vision that Isaiah saw of his exalted Lord made that impression upon him. When you are confronted with the holiness of God, you don't soon forget it. When you are confronted with His Majesty, when you see Him in His blazing glory, it's not something that you just say, well, that was kind of cool, and then you move on. No, those people who have been brought face to face with the holiness of God are affected.
They are changed. They are different than when they had come into contact with it before. E.J. Young says, Isaiah is to be called to a ministry in which the sovereign power of God will be displayed and in which judgment is to be prominent.
In preparation for such a ministry, there must be a vision of God's holiness. And that is precisely what the prophet reports here. Notice his response to this. What would you have done if you had seen the Lord high and exalted?
If you had seen the train of His robe filling the temple? If you had seen these seraphim attending Him, crying out, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts. The prophet does something unique. Well, not unique to him, but unique to us.
We don't always think this way. In fact, there are some who have taught even in our own generation. One man has said that he was shaving his face and Jesus came and appeared to him. Pastor John MacArthur said, what happened?
What did you do? The implication being, you should have fell down as a dead man before His feet. That's the biblical response. When Ezekiel is confronted with the holiness and glory of God, he falls as a dead man.
When John sees the ascended, risen, glorified Lord on the island of Patmos, what does John the Apostle do? He says, I fell at His feet as a dead man. You don't confront this holy God in your own sin and just say, hey, how you doing, buddy? That's not what the prophet does here.
Look at what he says. Verse 4 says, The posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, let alone the voice of God. But the angelic response caused the place to shake. And the house was filled with smoke.
So I said, Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips. The lips are unclean because the heart is unclean. The prophet bemoans. The prophet confesses.
The prophet laments that that very organ which God called him to use in terms of the prophetic ministry is utterly disgusting. It is vile. It is wicked. He says, I am undone.
I am ruined. I am destroyed. This is precisely the response that men have to the holy God Almighty. We aren't praying with somebody that is on our level.
We are coming before the God of heaven and earth. He not only confesses His sin, but He confesses the sin of His people as well. He says, I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. And then notice reason why.
What brought him to this conviction? What is it that made this impression upon him? He says, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. You see that, brethren?
When you come to see God as He is, you can't help but seeing yourself as you are. You can't help but seeing how far you have fallen short of the glory of God. That's why we must preach the holiness of God. That's why we must preach the holy law of God.
We must preach His character so that men will come face to face with the holy God. And they will say, woe is me for I am undone. Because it's only then that healing takes place. When we deceive ourselves and when we say in the presence of a holy God, you know, I'm okay.
I'm not as bad as that one. I'm not as evil as this one. I'm doing alright with what I've got. No.
This was Isaiah the prophet. When he sees the holiness of God, he says, I am undone. My eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Now notice,
Atonement and the Coal from the Altar
God deals with his sin. The atonement for sin, verses 6 and 7, Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal, which he had taken with the tongues from the altar. And he touched my mouth with it and said, Behold, this has touched your lips. Your iniquity is taken away and your sin purged." Or your sin atoned for.
God sees the blemish in His servant. God sees that which offends in His servant. So God sends the angel to deal specifically with the prophet's mouth so that he would be a means by which God could use to go and preach to the people. Calvin and E.J.
Young comment how necessary the Word is in conjunction with the sacraments. Not only does the angel come and touch his lips, but the Lord explains this. The Lord tells him what he is doing. Calvin said, let us therefore learn that the chief part of the sacraments consists in the Word, and that without it there are absolute corruptions, such as we see every day in potpourri, in which the sacraments are turned into stage play.
God not only dispatches the angel, but He explains the significance behind this. He explains, not only to Isaiah, but ultimately as well to the readers, what is going on. I have atoned for your sins. I have taken care of your iniquity.
I have covered it. Now, you are a vessel in My hand.
The Mission of the Prophet
And that brings us secondly to the mission of the prophet. Verses 8-13. Notice the counsel of the triune God. Verse 8.
Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send and who will go for us? I take that as a reference to the triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That triune God that we see in Genesis chapter 1, let us make man in our image. That triune God who in Genesis 11 comes down, or let us go see what men are doing on earth with reference to Babel.
This is the triune God taking counsel in terms of who will go on behalf of God for the ministry. And look at what Isaiah does here. Then I said, here am I, send me. I just think this is beautiful.
I think this is very much unlike what we might do. We like to really prove that we've got our sin dealt with. I can't serve God just yet. I've got to agonize for six months.
Oh Lord, I know you've atoned for my sin, but I'm not ready to serve you just yet. I have to do something else. I have to purge it more. I have to feel bad.
I have to punish myself. It's not just Romanism and their self-flagellation. It's Protestantism as well. We don't always understand the grace of God.
We don't always understand atonement for sin. We don't always understand the fact that God purges. God imputes righteousness. God calls us to act on His behalf.
He doesn't call us to go and sit for three months and feel bad. And when we have grieved over our sin, we then come and raise our hand and say, Here am I. No, when the triune God says, Whom shall we send? Who will go for us? the prophet's hand goes up.
I believe that this indicates that this man understood the forgiveness of sin. This man understood all too well atonement for sin. That he didn't have to add to it, he didn't have to make up any deficiency, he didn't have to feel bad, he didn't have to do penance, he didn't have to go pray certain prayers, but rather God had dealt with his sin and so he raised his hand and said, here am I, send me. And then God gives him this specific direction.
Judicial Hardening of the Nation
Note the reference in verses 9 and 10. This people. Judgment's begun. God is not calling Israel at this point, or Judah at this point, my people.
He is distancing himself. We see this in the prophets very often. When it comes for chastening, when it comes for judgment, God calls them this people. They're no longer my people.
They're being cut off. The time for corporate chastisement was upon them, and God calls them this people. Notice verse 9. And He said, Go and tell this people, keep on hearing, but do not understand.
Keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed. This morning I said that the godly man delights in the sovereignty of God. This is sovereignty.
This is sovereignty. God is sending Isaiah the prophet as a means to judicially pardon these people. They would have so much information, they would have so much light, but in their rejection of it, in their stiff-arming of the prophet and of God Himself, they would bring judgment upon themselves. Alexander said, the thing predicted is judicial blindness as the natural result and righteous retribution of the national depravity.
This end would be promoted by the very preaching of the truth. See, in this instance, God isn't keeping preachers from them as a means of judgment. Like He promises later in Amos 8, days are coming when there will be a famine for hearing the Word. It's just the opposite here.
It is through preaching, it is through missionaries, it is through prophets, it is through their testimony that God is judicially hardening them. So I've always thought it's very, very, very scary when we live in a Bible bell and people do not profess faith. People can become Bible hardened. People can get to the point where they've heard it all.
They don't need to hear any more. That's a horrific place to be. God in this instance is using the Word, using His testimony to bring judgment upon them. Alexander says, this end would be promoted by the very preaching of the truth, and therefore a command to preach was in effect a command to blind and harden them.
And some might be tempted to say, well, that doesn't seem very fair. God is dealing with sinners. It's justice. God is dealing with sinners.
It is justice. Retribution. God is a just judge. If you want to say, that doesn't seem very fair, you need to take a silent position and stand before the sovereignty of our God.
E.J. Young said, it was not a darkness and a famine of hearing the Word of God that would destroy this nation. It was light. Too much light.
It was this very light which would blind the people. God speaks of having judgment upon them.
How Long, and the Coming Desolation
Notice the prophet in verse 11. Then I said, Lord, how long? And he answered, until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitants. The houses are without a man.
The land is utterly desolate. We trace through the prophets and we find that come to fruition. When Babylon comes, when Nebuchadnezzar comes, that is precisely what happens. They destroy Jerusalem.
They take the people captive. They lead them, however many hundreds of miles away, into Babylon. They are brought up in a pagan land, in a heathen land. They no longer know the language of Judah.
They're speaking Babylonian. God is telling them. He is setting forth the program. The prophet says, Lord, how long?
And God says, until the judgment is finished. He's not going to back down. He's not going to relent. He is going to carry out his particular will.
E.J. Young commenting on Isaiah's question. He says, one cannot but admire and even love Isaiah for his willingness and readiness to serve God, even though he was told that his labors would be fruitless. From this we learn the necessity for continuing in the work of the Gospel, even when outward success does not appear to attend our work.
It's a great comment. Great for me. Hopefully it is for you, too. I realize it's warm.
That's one of the things about the warmness. It makes our eyes get heavy. Worst place I ever preached, not because of the people or anything like that, but because of the time. I used to preach at the state penitentiary in California, at one particular yard, at one o'clock on a Sunday afternoon.
They had just had lunch, and it was always in the 90s. It just had an effect upon the eyes. So rouse yourselves up. Listen.
We get three hours of you on Sunday. Listen to what the prophet Isaiah is saying here, what E.J. Young is commenting here. The prophet understands God's Word through him is a means of judgment and hardening.
He asks how long. He would never ever see them repentant. He would never ever see them turning from God's judgment. He would only see further decline, further apostasy, and further spiral downward.
So Jung says, from this we learn the necessity for continuing in the work of the Gospel even when outward success does not appear to attend our work. It may be that apparent lack of outward success is in part due to our own efficiency. Our task, however, is to be faithful. May God grant that His church may have ministers who, above all else, are faithful, even as was Isaiah.
I always find this very intriguing. He's not being called to a ministry of success. He is not being commissioned in the church growth movement. He is not being provided a formula by which if he goes and he establishes ten godly families and they continue to do certain things, X, Y, and Z, then the Lord will provide for them a hundred people at the end of the first year.
And by the end of the fifth year, they'll have several hundred people. And if they just keep following the formula, then everything's going to go just hunky-dory. That's not what Isaiah got. Isaiah got, you're going to be a means in my hand to bring judgment upon these people.
And Isaiah was faithful. Isaiah was faithful.
The Message of the Prophet
That brings us to consider thirdly and finally the message of the prophet. Several themes emerge in this call that will come up again and again in this book.
Theme One: God Exalted as King
The first is the exaltation of the Lord as King. That's going to come up frequently in the prophet Isaiah. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up. At the very beginning of His ministry, this is O.
Palmer Robertson, the contrast is set between God's rule and man's. Even the best of Israel's kings are sinners. Men with feet of clay. But despite the rise and fall of human kings, the Lord continues uninterruptedly on His throne.
The exaltation of the Lord as King. Several places in this book. Chapter 24 and verse 23. I'm going to rehearse a few of these so you get the feel that what's going on in this call of the prophet, several key themes emerge that will come up again and again in this book.
Isaiah 24, 23. Then the moon will be disgraced and the sun ashamed, for the Lord of hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem and before His elders gloriously." Chapter 33 and verse 22. Chapter 33 and verse 22, for the Lord is our judge. The Lord is our lawgiver.
The Lord is our King. He will save us. You see, throughout the prophet Isaiah, that emphasis upon God as the exalted King comes up again and again. Isaiah 43, 14 and 15.
Isaiah 43, 14 and 15. Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, for your sake I will send to Babylon and bring them all down as fugitives, the Chaldeans who rejoice in their ships. I am the Lord, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King. Isaiah 52, verse 13, a servant song of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Behold, my servant shall deal prudently. He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. That's the Lord Jesus. And in fact, I think Isaiah 6, what he sees is the Lord Jesus in His pre-incarnate glory.
The reason I believe that is because John tells us that in John 12, verses 40 and 41. These things Isaiah said because he saw His glory. So, the exaltation of the Lord as King.
Theme Two: The Holiness of God
A second key theme in the call of Isaiah the prophet. We've already alluded to it. the attribute of holiness as the defining characteristic of Isaiah's Lord. This holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts will emerge again several times in the book. As I mentioned earlier, 25 times he is referred to as the Holy One of Israel.
He also refers to God as Holy One four times. In the rest of the prophets, the title is found only two other times, both in Jeremiah chapters 50 and 51. In Isaiah, just reading a statement here with some texts, says this holy God will show Himself to be holy by His righteous deeds. 516. He is the Holy One, the Holy One of Jacob, who must be regarded as holy.
Chapter 10, chapter 29, chapter 8. His name and spirit of Sabbath day in His arm are holy. The place of His dwelling is holy. The sanctuary, the house where He dwells, is holy.
The road leading to Zion is characterized as a highway of holiness. All the cities of His land may be called holy, and His people are holy as well. Holiness is a defining characteristic of Isaiah's Lord.
Theme Three: The Universal Domain of God
A third key theme that emerges in the call of the prophet is in verse 3. And that is the universal character of the Lord's domain. The whole earth is full of His glory. I love the way Ralph Davis puts it concerning God or Jehovah or Yahweh.
He says that Yahweh was not some ghetto deity. He wasn't just the deity of a small group of people occupying a small piece of land in an otherwise massive earth. Jehovah is not a ghetto deity. Jehovah is God the Lord supreme over the entirety of the cosmos.
God the Lord who made, God the Lord who sustains, and God the Lord who redeems His people from their sins. The universal character of the Lord's domain. The whole earth is full of His glory. The theater for the display of God's glory is the entirety of His universe.
Isaiah 25, 7 and 8. It says, And He will destroy on this mountain the surface of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces. The rebuke of His people He will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.
Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 28. Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 28. It says, Have you not known, have you not heard, the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary? His understanding is unsearchable.
And chapter 45, verses 12 and 13. Chapter 45, verses 12 and 13. I have made the earth and created man on it. I, my hands have stretched out the heavens, and all their hosts I have commanded.
I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways. He shall build my city and let my exiles go free, not for price nor reward, says the Lord of hosts." God owns the earth. God governs it. God chooses whom He will save.
In this particular instance, Israel was the covenant people. They sinned. They defected. They apostatized.
God would chasten them and send them away. He would regather them. He would restore them. In the time of Haggai and Zechariah and Malachi, they would come and preach to these restored people.
The stage would be set for the coming of the King, the Lord Jesus, who in His incarnation would come to die and rise again. The Lord is sovereign over the earth.
Theme Four: The Sinfulness of God's People
A fourth aspect or a fourth key theme is the sinfulness of God's own people. When He bemoans the sin of Israel in verse 5, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, this comes up over and over and over again in the prophet Isaiah. The idea is, you have sinned, you have departed. In fact, in Isaiah 58, he says, it's not that the Lord's hand is...
Let me just read it. Isaiah 58, verse 1. Cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet, tell my people their transgression and the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways as a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God.
They ask of me the ordinances of justice. They take delight in approaching God." And in this particular instance, he is speaking ironically. Because he outlines two religious expressions that the people are not doing in a manner that is faithful. Their Sabbath and their fasting is a complete betrayal of God's holy ordinances.
And then notice in 59 verse 1, Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, nor is it heavy that it cannot hear. The problem, your iniquities have separated you from your God and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He will not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, your fingers with iniquity, your lips have spoken lies, your tongue has muttered perversity. So the sin of Isaiah's contemporaries is a constant theme in this particular book.
Isaiah chapter 1 sets the stage. The people of God have plunged themselves into sin. In fact, in verse 21 it says, How the faithful city has become a harlot. It was full of justice, righteousness lodged in it, but now murderers.
Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water. Your princes are rebellious and companions of thieves. Everyone loves bribes and follows after rewards. They do not defend the fatherless, nor does the cause of the widow come before that.
In Isaiah chapter 5, He gives this parable of the vineyard and how He's going to judge the people. And one of the reasons is because they've committed various sins. And in verse 24, He underscores the main problem. Isaiah 5, 24, Therefore, as the fire devours the stubble, and the flame consumes the chaff, so their root will be as rottenness, and their blossom will ascend like dust.
Why? because they have rejected the Law of the Lord of Hosts and despised the Word of the Holy One of Israel.
Theme Five: Exile and Restoration
And then a fifth and a final theme that emerges is the coming exile and restoration. He's already alluded to that in chapter 6. We already read it. We don't need to rehearse that.
But the coming exile, that they would be sent off in judgment, but there would be restoration. In fact, you get to Isaiah 40, the focus then shifts. It is upon the servant of the Lord who would come and save His people from their sins. So I think if you keep those five key themes in your mind, it gives you a help to understand the entirety of the prophet Isaiah.
Application
Well, brethren, we learn from this the glory of Jesus Christ. You may ask how, it doesn't say Jesus Christ. Later revelation defines for us that Isaiah's Lord is Jesus, John 12. Christ is glorious.
In the year that King Uzziah died, he saw Christ high and exalted. He saw the train of his robe filling the temple. He saw these angels confessing and professing, holy, holy, holy. No accident in his life and ministry on earth.
Even his enemies confessed his thrice holiness. Remember Pilate says three times, I find no fault in this man. I find no fault in this man. I find no fault in this man.
Thrice holy Christ sitting upon his throne. The Lord of Isaiah and the Lord of his church. We also notice the unchanging character of God. He has not changed.
He still deals in this manner. His holiness is still burning. His sovereignty is still in effect. He's not changed.
He's not undergone some sort of a car wash. He said, the car washed yesterday. Never do that, because then it'll rain the very next day. Right along there with the red lights.
But it's not as if God went through some car wash. The Old Testament angry wrathful God is now the New Testament loving, kind God. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. And He still holds us responsible.
He still deals with us. He will chasten us. Thirdly, what emerges here that we see continuously is the sinfulness of man. The sinfulness of man is the problem in our generation.
It's not a lack of knowledge, it's not a lack of education, it's not a lack of money, it's not bad socio-economic policy. All those things may be factor to contribute to a jacked up society, but the fundamental problem of mankind is sin. Woe to those who call good evil and evil good. That's from Isaiah 5.
That was the day and age in which the prophet lived and moved and had his being. That was the day and age in which he was prophesying judgment to come. Brethren, that's descriptive of the day and age that we live in. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.
As well, we ought to learn in this particular passage, in this particular call of Isaiah, service to the Lord. Whom shall I send and who will go for us? Then I said, here am I, send me. You may not be sent to prophesy utter defeat and destruction to the nation of Israel.
You may not be sent as a pioneer mission to some people that have been unreached or have heretofore been unreached. But there is something that the Lord is calling you to do. And if you have been saved, it is saved to serve. You're not saved just to sit and bask in it.
You're not saved just to grow moss, but you are saved to serve Him. To use your gifts, your talents, your resources, your abilities, and serve Him. It may not be in the manner of a C.H. Spurgeon, but you must serve Him.
There ought to be a willingness in everybody to raise up their hands and say, Here am I, Lord. Send me. Lots of times people have all kinds of ideas how we can do stuff, but they wait for everybody else to do it. Take the charge or take responsibility.
God is laying something upon your heart. Serve Him. And then finally, we need to trust God. God is sovereign in His government.
If ever there was a man who could have walked away in utter despair, it would be Isaiah. Remember Jonah? What upset Jonah? God was merciful and saved Nineveh.
That made Jonah mad. I wonder what Isaiah would think about that. What are you, crazy? You're seeing people respond to your preaching and you're upset?
You're seeing people favorably receiving the Word and you're getting mad? There's a whole lot more faith as the prophet Isaiah to preach, to teach, and to declare in a time of non-revival. To preach, teach, and declare in a time of declension. To preach, teach, and declare in a time of judgment and chastisement.
I think we learn a lot from Isaiah the prophet in terms of faithfulness to our callings. All the apostles said in Corinthians, moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful. When Paul gives the charge to Timothy, preach the Word, be ready in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort with all longsuffering and teaching, he gives him two reasons. The first reason, or the second reason, we'll just say right away.
The second reason is Paul was leaving. He was going to die. For the time of my departure is at hand. So he's charging Timothy to be faithful in proclaiming the Word.
The first reason is for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. What's the response to a time when people will not endure sound doctrine? Preach the Word. Not change up.
Not move the pulpit. Bring in the stage. Get the puppets and the ponies and give them what they want. You don't accommodate sinners as if they know best.
You don't pander to felt or perceived needs. You give the people what God has ordained for their well-being. You preach the Word. Be ready in season and out of season.
Convince, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering. For the time will come when they will not endure it. They will accumulate for themselves, because there's always these guys, teachers that will tickle their ears. Teachers that will prophesy peace, peace, when there is no peace.
Paul's charge to Timothy, in the midst of apostasy and defection from the Gospel, is to preach the Gospel. Would to God that He'll raise up a whole host of men, like Isaiah, like Timothy, that'll preach the Word, leaving results to God, leaving blessing or cursing to God, but carrying out the task of expounding and applying God's holy truth. Well, let us pray.
Closing Prayer
Father, we thank you for this call of the prophet Isaiah. We thank you for the instruction that we received from this section of Holy Writ. And I pray that you would just impress these things upon our minds and hearts, help us to be a prayerful people as we live in a day not unlike the time when Isaiah prophesied. And we would ask, Lord God, that you would just strengthen and fortify men who are tasked with preaching the Word.
We pray that they, like Isaiah, would be relentless in the pursuit of expounding accurately the truth of Holy Scripture. We pray that You would protect this local church. I pray for my brother Cam and for myself that You would cause us to fear You, cause us to be afraid, Lord God, of ever mishandling Your truth. And we pray that You'd raise up men from within this congregation to be faithful and able expositors of Your Holy Word.
And we ask in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.