A life-changing experience
June 13, 2008 (Friday)
I talked about the prophet Amos yesterday and mentioned that he was a contemporary of Isaiah. Today I’ll say a little about Isaiah himself. The Book of Isaiah is filled with passages of Scripture that stand out from all the rest of the Bible as uniquely beautiful and meaningful. One such passage is Isaiah 6. It is an account of a life-changing vision of the prophet.
In the vision, he was in the Temple and saw God, who was surrounded by angelic beings, and was being showered with praise by them. They called out, “”Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” Isaiah was overwhelmed by a new understanding of the greatness and majesty of almighty God.
As he wondered at the vision, he seemed to see himself as very different from God in every way. It prompted feelings of despair as he became aware of the moral chasm between himself and God, and heard himself crying out, “”Woe to me! 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.”
Then one of the multi-winged beings flew to him with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched his mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
You and I have not had Isaiah’s literal experience, but in repenting of our sins and accepting God’s forgiveness, we have participated with him in being given a brand new chance to begin again with God. But wait, his vision was not yet ended. He heard a voice, calling him to go to the people and tell them about God, his justice and his love. He responded to that call with a great commitment of himself: “”Here am I. Send me!” Is that what you have said to God? Are you willing to be what he wants and to do what he says?
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Isaiah 6:1-13 NIV
1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 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 seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
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.”
11 Then I said, “For how long, O Lord?”
And he answered:
“Until the cities lie ruined
and without inhabitant,
until the houses are left deserted
and the fields ruined and ravaged,
12 until the LORD has sent everyone far away
and the land is utterly forsaken.
13 And though a tenth remains in the land,
it will again be laid waste.
But as the terebinth and oak
leave stumps when they are cut down,
so the holy seed will be the stump in the land.”