Isaiah 6: 11-12. “Then said I, Lord, how long? And He answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, And the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.”
I imagine Isaiah seeing the heaviness of the message he must preach, and calling out to God, “Lord! How long do I have to preach all these things?” Isaiah knew the scriptures, and he knew that God would not cast off His people forever. He was just like all the rest of us; he wanted to know the end point.
God’s answer was clear. There would be utter waste and desolation. Most of the people would be removed to far away places. The houses would stand empty. The fields would become overgrown, and the vineyards would die.
But the next verse gives hope. There is always hope.
Isaiah 6:9-10. “And He said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes: lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.”
God no longer referred to Judah and Jerusalem as “My people,” but instead as “this people.” This change of reference appears frequently throughout the book, as God sees the hardness of their hearts and knows they are no longer truly His people.
This command to Isaiah was for the immediate future, but it also points to the time when Jesus Christ Himself, when He walked the earth, pronounced this very doom upon the apostate nation (Matt. 13:14,15.)
In verse 10, we see the punitive acts that God would carry out. The hearts of the people would be fat, or dulled;their ears would be deaf, their eyes would be blind. Isaiah’s message would be God’s instrument in doing it. They had gone so far past the limit of God’s patience that He is ready to bring judgment down on them for their hard hearts and godless behaviors. They had gone beyond the possibility of conversion and healing. It is possible to so harden one’s heart in evil as to render his condition without remedy, and in doing so he will endure God’s judgment on him.
America stands on the precipice. If we do not turn our hearts back to God, His judgment is sure to follow.
Isaiah 6:8. “Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us? Then said I, Here am I: send me.”
This is perhaps one of the most well-known verses in all of scripture. It is the final result of the preparation of the heart of mankind to answer the call to service; to share the gospel with those who need to hear, and with those who have never heard.
What a profound moment this must have been for Isaiah, to actually hear the voice of God asking that question. “Who will go for Us?” And his immediate, unhesitating response was “Me, Lord! Send me! I’ll go! I’ll preach and prophesy and speak to the people in Your Name!”
There was nothing prideful in his response. Remember, he’d been brought to his knees, face to the ground, by the vision he’d had. He knew only that God was calling him for a job that God would give him the power, the strength, the words, to do.
This verse has often been used in missions conferences. When I was in in college, I first heard a song based on this verse.
I don’t have anywhere particular to go this morning for this post, so let’s just see what comes up.
Castro is dead. It’s amazing to me how some people want to see this evil man as some sort of hero. He wasn’t. He murdered, stole, and repressed an entire nation, and he managed to keep it going for all these years. Amazing. Sadly, there will probably be very little change in Cuba. Should be interesting to see what happens next.
You know, I just wrote a whole page and then deleted it because it was so negative. No more politics. No more Black Friday nonsense.
So what am I thankful for today? I’m not going to give you the usual list. We’re all thankful for our families, our friends. Many of us are thankful for our jobs. I’m thankful for my church and the people there. And I’m even thankful for this long season of inactivity. The rest has decreased the pain level in my back so that I rarely need my pain medication. I wish that meant it was healed, but it’s not. It’s just not hurting right now. That’s a LOT to be thankful for!
I’m thankful for a husband who takes such good care of me. This is so much more than a week of two of filling in for me. It’s turning into months, certainly not what I expected. He’s been a rock, taking care of every need. It’s frustrating to be so useless, but he keeps reminding me that I’ve done the same for him when it was necessary. I wouldn’t trade him for anything or anyone. He’s one of God’s biggest blessings on my life.
I’m thankful for the things God is teaching me through this present trial. It’s not wasted time.
I’m feeling a little nostalgic this morning. I guess that always happens at this time of year.
November has surely been an interesting month here in the States. A long and bitter election campaign finally ended on Nov. 8, but the fall-out, I’m afraid, is going to continue for a very long time. This whole ordeal has been hashed over and talked about ad nauseum, and I have nothing new to add that hasn’t already been said. I do have some concern that the ugliness will affect the inauguration, and I’ll be glad when that’s over, too.
America is like a heaving ocean in a terrible storm. Our police officers are in danger in a whole new way in this hate-engendered racial strife. I pray often for their safety. Racial strife; class hatred, poor against rich; the rhetoric of socialism that has divided so many in our nation; fear of almost everything–all these factors are contributing to a breakdown in the fabric of our nation. I don’t know if it can be healed. As long as our colleges and universities are teaching our young people to hate America, there just doesn’t seem to be any good outcome.
I saw an article yesterday in which a black educator said, “We send our young people to universities, and they come back to us as babies.” He’s right. Who ever heard of such silliness as young adults needing a “cry room,” a safe place, a comfort dog, canceled tests, and so on just because they get their feelings hurt? Because their candidate didn’t win? Because they’re being taught that their way is the only acceptable way, and everything else is to be feared and protested, and that it’s okay for them to destroy property and other people’s safety because they’re unhappy?
My dad was a WWII veteran. I’m glad he’s not here today to see, only three generations later, how today’s young people have desecrated the freedom he pledged to fight and die for. I’m glad he’s not here to see an American university remove the American flag because it “represents terrorism.” The flag itself is not sacred. What it stands for, however, is sacred. America is not a perfect nation, because it is comprised of human beings. It is, though, a place that has been a refuge since its inception for so many who were fleeing persecution in other places around the world. It was the place to come where anything could happen, the poorest immigrant could rise to wealth and influence. It has also been the place people come to when they need medical help that is unavailable to them in their socialist systems.
Immigration has always been part of the American picture, and I’m not opposed to people coming here to improve their safety, their status, their health. I am, however, opposed to people coming here with the openly stated purpose of taking over and changing us to their repressive, violent, and freedom-sucking way of life. They are not coming here to become Americans. They are coming here to make us bow to them. They are not hiding their purpose. They are defiantly waving it right under our noses, and still we think we have to let them in.
Well. This is not really the direction I was planning to take this morning, but there it is.
I love America. I am proud to salute the American flag. I respect the policemen who have been colored with the black crayon of hatred. I pray for them and their families. I love the freedom I have to worship God without fear, and I see the very real possibility of that freedom being destroyed.
It makes me sick, frankly, to see Thanksgiving and Christmas turned into nothing more than shopping opportunities. How much my country has changed, and how sad it makes me. As God becomes less important and selfishness rules, we need to pray. Christians, people of God, people who say the love the Word–we need to pray as we’ve never prayed before. He is still God, no matter who says He isn’t.
Isaiah 6:6-7. “Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is take away, and thy sin purged.”
Isaiah’s contrite heart brought an immediate response from God. In his vision, a seraphim picked up a hot coal from the altar of incense, using tongs. He then brought the coal to Isaiah and, in the vision, laid the coal on Isaiah’s lips. The fire was a symbol of the purging of sin, and a cleansing that would make him able to preach the messages that God would give him.
I’m going to quote Mr. Vine again. The man just has a wonderful way of making things clear:
The whole vision and the Divine dealings were the appointed preparation for the solemn testimony he was to deliver. This was not the beginning of his witness, the occasion was a special one. If we are to engage in any particular service for the Lord, we can render it effectively only as we freshly appropriate to ourselves the efficacy of the atoning sacrifice of Christ for the cleansing of our hearts from sin. For each occasion we must come to the Throne y way of the Cross. We must come the the Mercy-Seat (Christ Himself) “that we may obtain mercy.”
Isaiah 6:5. “Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone: because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell i the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”
I suppose that there are people who, after seeing Isaiah’s vision, would have written a book about their fantastic experience and made a lot of fame and money for themselves.
Isaiah was not that kind of person. He fell to the floor, face to the ground, in humility before the perfect holiness of God Almighty. He recognized his own sin, and that of his people. He knew he was unworthy. I wonder how many of us know very well how unworthy we are. Every now and then I get a client who tells me she just doesn’t feel worthy of God’s love. I tell her, “That’s because you’re not. No one is. If we could be worthy, then Jesus didn’t have to die. That’s what makes God’s gift of salvation so amazing–we are not worthy, yet He loves us. That’s amazing grace, amazing love, amazing mercy.”
W.E.Vine says, “The nearer we are to the Lord the greater the sense of our utter unworthiness. Further, in this our own rightful attitude before Him we learn to identify ourselves with the condition of those fellow-members of the Body of Christ who have proved unfaithful and have lapsed into evil ways, and to confess their sins, as ours. Only so can we really be prepared to give an effectual testimony. It is one thing to condemn the saints; it is quite another to take upon ourselves the confession of their sins as ours. It is that which causes the Holy Spirit to use us for real blessing amidst them.”
There’s a lot to think about in that paragraph. It surely denies the validity of self-righteousness, of finger-pointing, of condemnation toward other believers. It should make us all stop and think.
Isaiah 6: 4. “And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.”
The voices of the seraphim calling to each other were so powerful that the very foundations of the doorposts were moved, as in an earthquake. The smoke that filled the temple was the outcome of the worship of the seraphim; it arose from the altar of incense. That Isaiah was privileged to see this incredible heavenly activity was an indication of his own acceptance by God, the the preparation for his testimony.
This vision of the Lord is in stark contrast to the dishonor done Him by His people. It tells us that the day is coming when His holiness and glory will be visible to all people in all the corners of the earth.
What comes next is Isaiah’s response to this vision, and his commission to preach to the people.
Snow clouds, like gargantuan bags of frozen feathers, opened up and dumped all over the Midwest Friday and Saturday. I have friends out there. They commented on the beauty. Strong people, those who live in the farm belt.
They’re self-sufficient. Weather is a major part of life out on the plains, with no hills or mountains or vast woodland tracts to stand in the way of snow, rain, tornados or floods.
I’ve lived out there, and I’ve seen how quickly they respond when a storm of this size hits. The plows are out, clearing the stuff off the roadways. Sand trucks follow. The streets and roads are wider than most of the roads and streets here on the east coast, which were developed as horses, buggies, and wagons followed the same routes for years, around hills and mountains and alongside meandering creeks and rivers. Often, their names reflect their origins: Cowpath Road, Blue School Road, Mill Road, Creamery Road, Old Church Road, Forty Foot Road. These roads are all narrow, barely allowing for two-way traffic. I have immense respect for the school bus drivers who navigate them during the icy weather. Clearing them after a snowfall is a different challenge than what they face in the Midwest.
Time after time, out there, I watched as plows cleared opposite sides of the street at the same time, pushing the the snow into the middle of the street or doing that job with blowers attached to the plows. Then, dump trucks and bucket loaders took over, with the loaders dumping gigantic scoops of the plowed snow into the trucks, who drove it out of town and dumped it where it wouldn’t impede traffic. It was like watching a well-choreographed dance. In no time, the main streets were clear.
Out here, especially in the cities, the streets are often so narrow that it takes several days to get the mess cleaned up. Digging out a spot for one’s car becomes an Olympic event, because once you clear it, you have to put someone out there to save it until you get the car and park it there 🙂
I remember well, during my childhood in Minneapolis, that if it didn’t snow by Thanksgiving, there was definitely a problem somewhere. We anticipated that snow. When it finally came, we were out there in two or three pairs of pants, coats, boots, mittens, mufflers, hats. We slid, dug out caves, had snowball forts and fights, staying out until we were soaked and frozen. This was before the era of the snowmobile suits that kept you warm and dry for a lot longer!
Back inside we’d go, putting our wet gear over the radiators until it was dry. If it wasn’t too dark, we’d put it all on again and go back out for more. Fun times. The snow out there was usually wet enough for packing, but not the kind of wet we get out here, where it doesn’t get as cold.
The book of Job talks about snow:“Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail,” Job 38:22. There are others; the one most of us know best is probably Psalm 51:7.
PS. From the color of the sky and the velocity of the wind out there, I suspect there’s snow coming our way. Those gargantuan clouds must still have something leftover 🙂
I just read an article about the cast of “Hamilton” giving Mike Pence a message. He was there for the performance, and when a cast member asked him to stay to hear their “message,” Pence was booed. Then he was told that this cast was concerned that THEY would not be protected by Trump’s administration.They are a diverse group culturally, and I suppose it’s safe to assume sexually and spiritually as well. The guy who was delivering the message sounded so noble. In reality, he was just spewing the same old liberal trash that we’ve been subjected to ad nauseum for eight years, and which is getting louder as so many people storm the streets, accusing Trump and all conservatives of being the haters.
Yesterday I watched a video of riots somewhere, I don’t know where. There was a line of police officers, helmeted and probably wearing kevlar, because this is dangerous duty for them. A young woman had a pool noodle that she kept bopping over the head and face of an officer, who finally had enough and snatched the noodle away from her. She reacted by uttering one shriek after another and curling up in fetal position while other rioters rushed to her aide. Poor little thing, she’s grown up in the age of “everyone gets a trophy” and she really had no idea what it was like to be told “NO!” Either that, or she planned the whole thing ahead of time, hoping to get a cop in trouble.
Let’s talk for a minute about the safety of some other people: Business owners who hold strong beliefs based on the Bible. They are asked to bake, cater, provide flowers, etc. for a gay couple. Because they believe gay marriage is not approved in God’s Word, they politely decline. They end up being sued, forced out of business, ruined: and all the time, there were plenty of other businesses nearby that would have been glad to accommodate the couple. But no, everyone MUST bow to what the LGBT community demands, or they will find their stores vandalized and their money gone.
Would someone please explain how that is acceptable? For good, decent, law-abiding citizens running a private business, everything they have is on the line if they don’t appease people who are participating in something they cannot condone.They’re not making threats; they are glad to serve customers coming into their stores, and it doesn’t matter where they stand politically. But they’re not allowed to practice their religious convictions, even though no one is harmed by their doing so.Even though there are many other options for them to use in planning their weddings. None of that matters. They are “haters” because they hold to their beliefs.
I think all the nonsense taking place now in reaction to Trump’s victory is hateful. If it had gone the other way, there may have been a few Trump supporter who would have staged a protest; however, I am confident that it would never have been as long-lived, ugly, and relentless as what is happening now on the streets of our cities.
Okay, I’m done. And I welcome your comments on a couple of conditions:
Be reasonable, not hateful. Don’t call me or anyone else ugly names.I am a well-educated professional, not an ignorant low-information voter.
No profanity; no vulgar language; no swearing. And no threats.
If you can’t refrain from those behaviors, then I will not publish your comment. If you disagree with me and want to be treated with respect, then you have to give me the same.
Linda's Bible Study 