Reading:
Isaiah 6:1-5; John 12:41; Isaiah 6:6-14. "These
things said Isaiah, because he saw his glory; and he
spake of him."
John
was referring to the Lord Jesus - Jehovah of Hosts!
We
have seen that what took place at the time of Isaiah's
vision was related to the entirely new order of things
into which WE have come. It was the end of an
earth-centred system, the end of the earthly seat of
Divine government and priesthood; and the introduction of
the heavenly and the true, the abiding, the eternal. It
was not only a vision of the pre-incarnate glory of the
Lord Jesus, but it was a prophetic forecast of the new
order, the new economy - what we call the new
dispensation. He, our Lord, would be exalted far above
all rule and authority: the seat and centre of government
would be - as it now is - in Heaven with Him; the
priesthood is continued by Him; the house is now a
heavenly house. That came in, in its beginnings, with
this vision.
We
have spoken of the tremendous things that happened in
that eighth century before Christ. Now WE are in
the time of that vision's real fulfilment. That vision
is, or should be, the vision of the Church, the people of
God, now; and in the light of that vision the Church
ought to be fulfilling its ministry, as did Isaiah.
Because Isaiah, as we have pointed out and stressed, is
not just a historic figure or a representative of a
certain period in this world's history: he is a
representation and embodiment of a permanent, Divine
function, in relation to bringing the people of God to
God's thought and fullness in Christ. And that function
is as much here now as it was in the days of Isaiah: the
function of the prophetic ministry remains. There may not be a
people whom we today call 'prophets', in the Old
Testament sense, but the function of the Holy Spirit is
being carried on in this dispensation: the function that
seeks all the time to keep in view God's full end and
purpose before the people of God, and to bring them into
that purpose.
If
we are a part of the Lord's people, then these two things
apply to us: first, the vision of the exalted Lord; and
second, the ministry that issues therefrom. These two
things belong to US. Whether we are in the good
of them or not may be another matter. But that is why
these messages are being given: it is the Lord's occasion
for telling us about it - what we ought to see, and what
we ought to do.
For
brevity's sake, I am going to gather all this up into
three little words:
Verse
5: "Then said I, Woe...!"
Verse 7: "He touched my mouth with it, and said,
Lo..."
"And he said, Go..."
'Woe!',
'Lo!' and 'Go!' That sums it all up; everything is
gathered into that.
Let
me say at once that what we are speaking of relates to
fellowship with God in His purpose. This is not a message
to unsaved people: this is a message to the Church, a
message to the people of God; and it has to do
pre-eminently, fundamentally, with fellowship with God IN
HIS PURPOSE.
'WOE!'
"Then said I, Woe is me! for I
am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips..."
Isaiah
was not what we would now call an 'unsaved' man. He was a
chosen servant of God, and, as we now know, a very, very
valuable servant of God. And, seeing that this vision was
given to him, and all this happened in his experience, as
a servant of God, it quite strongly says that these are
the things which go to constitute such a ministry - a
ministry in fellowship with God concerning His purpose.
Yes, and - one says it deliberately - a part of the very
foundation of such a ministry, of the very preparation of
such a vessel, is this word, 'Woe!' The sinner not
knowing the Lord, coming under conviction of sin, might
utter that word. It ought, indeed, to be the very first
word of a sinner coming to the Lord. But here it is the
word, the expression, of a prophet, the exclamation of a
chosen servant of God.
Now,
remember that the man himself was in this condition
before he cried, 'Woe!', and had probably been in it for
a long time. Things around him, too, as you will see,
were in a pretty bad state, and had been like this for a
long time, and he was involved in them. Yet it seems that
he had not been stung into the realisation of his own
state, and of the real state of things around him. No
doubt he had deplored it, no doubt he had felt bad about
many things; no doubt he had grieved over the evident
declension; but it would seem that not until this moment
did he become fully alive to his own condition and the
condition around him. What was it that did it?
You
know, it is quite possible for us to have much to say
about the evils and the wrongs in the world around us, to
be quite prepared to admit that we ourselves are anything
but perfect, that there is indeed much that is not right
about us, without that being an adequate basis for our
serving God in this sense - that is, concerning His full
purpose. The full purpose of God requires something
deeper than that. And so it had to be brought home to the
prophet. And what was it that did it?
Well,
of course, he 'saw the Lord'. And he heard: "Holy,
holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts". And when he
really came into touch with the Lord, in this vital way,
the first effect was a realisation of the awful state of
his own heart, and of the nation around him. And we shall
not be of much use to the Lord unless that double sense
is with us in an overwhelming way. We must come into
touch with the Lord.
Now,
we have been talking about 'vision', but let us for the
moment forget that word. It is a word that, for most
people, conjures up all sorts of things, and might
provoke such questions as: 'What do you mean by a vision
of the Lord? I have never had such a vision. Am I to have
a vision of the Lord? Are you expecting ME to have
a vision of the Lord? Do you expect something like this
to happen to ME?' Instead of speaking of 'vision',
let us simply speak of 'coming, in a living way, into
touch with the Lord.'
For
after all, that is what it amounts to, and that can
happen without any objective visions. A real touch with
the Lord will inevitably result in this. It is the
declaration of a fact, and it is also a test of our
relationship to the Lord. Those who really are in touch
with God, those who really have this living relatedness
with Him, those who really walk near to Him, are the
people who carry with them this - not temporary,
desultory, occasional ejaculation, but - abiding
consciousness of the WOE of their own state - put
that in many ways - their utter worthlessness! "In
me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing"
(Rom. 7:18). Any complacency, self-satisfaction,
insensitiveness to sin; any absence of an agony and an
anguish over evil, means distance from God. The further
you get away from God, the less are you troubled by the
sense of sin. The nearer you get to God, the more acute
becomes this consciousness. And if He draws near, if the
Lord comes into any place or any life, this is the thing
that happens.
Now
look! 'This One', said John, 'this One whom Isaiah saw,
sitting on a throne, high and lifted up - this One was
the Lord Jesus; and He came down from that throne. This
One, this same One, is "Holy, holy, holy"; it
is this very One.' Oh, is it not overwhelming that the
One about whom the seraphim were crying 'Holy, holy,
holy, is the Lord of Hosts' - that that One was Jesus! But if He
left His throne in glory, if He has come out of Heaven to
this world, He has not left behind His holiness. Look! He
is here, and His very presence has the effect of creating
a spontaneous outburst. His enemies - they cannot remain
quiescent; the evil powers - they cannot remain silent;
sinners - they come to His feet. His presence, without
His saying anything, means that men begin to make
confessions. Sincere, honest people begin to seek Him.
Sinners, stricken with the consciousness of sin, say:
'Depart from me - I am a sinful man, O Lord!' The evil
people cannot bear this presence, they cannot endure the
presence of His holiness. The presence of God is like
that!
Look
again! Here is Saul of Tarsus, the Pharisee: 'as
concerning the righteousness which is of the law, found
blameless' (Phil. 3:6). That, he tells us, was the
verdict of his contemporaries. Not much room for
consciousness of sin there, is there? On his way to
Damascus he meets Jesus Christ; he sees the Lord high and
lifted up. What does he say? The erstwhile
self-congratulating, righteous Pharisee writes to
Timothy: "...sinners; of whom I am
chief" (1 Tim. 1:15). He has seen the Lord, and that
is the effect.
Job,
all through those long chapters of the book which goes by
his name, is trying to justify himself, and his friends
are saying so: 'Job is all the time trying to justify
himself - to put himself right with God and man.' It is a
long and terrible story, until the Lord meets him. When
his friends at last are silent, the Lord comes in and
says: "Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words
without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man:
...declare thou unto me. Where wast thou when I laid the
foundations of the earth?..." (38:2-4). And so on.
He meets the Lord. What is the end? "I had heard of
thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth
thee, WHEREFORE I abhor myself, and repent in dust
and ashes" (42:5,6). He has seen the Lord, he has
met the Lord, he has been in the presence of the Lord.
We
have quoted Peter. Peter was a very self-assured,
self-confident sort of fellow. But one day, in the
presence of the Lord Jesus, something of that majesty
broke in upon him, and he cried "Depart from me; for
I am a sinful man, O Lord" (Luke 5:8). It is just that; it
is a real test. A life that is really in touch with God
can have no pride, no conceit, no arrogance, no
self-complacency; it cannot be hard and cruel toward
people who are faulty and failing; it knows its own heart
too well. That is essential in a ministry that is going
to lead to spiritual fullness.
A
simple little story is told of a girl who started a
little class amongst slum children, poor little be-grimed
girls, ragged and dirty, who never knew much about soap
and water. She gathered them together, and wondered how
she could give them some sense of another kind of life.
And so she brought along a beautiful, white lily; a
large, white, perfect lily. They gathered round; she
didn't say anything; she held it up in front of them;
then she passed it round. 'Would you like to feel it?
Would you like to look into it?' A grimy little girl, in
all her mess and tatters, reached out a grubby hand to
touch the lily; and as it got nearer the flower, she
suddenly saw herself. She saw the contrast between the
hand and the lily, and drew back. She rushed out of the
meeting, ran home, sought out all the soap that she could
find, washed herself, put on some cleaner clothes, did
her hair, and came back. And not a word spoken!
That
is only a very simple illustration. But a little touch
with the real thing, a real touch with the Lord, should
shock us, should really show us ourselves. The background
and basis of any real spiritual value to the Lord is a
sense of His holiness and the contrast between Him and
ourselves. It must begin there; there can be no rushing
in.
For
I must remind you that Uzziah forced his way into the
Holy Place, and took up the censer to offer incense
unlawfully. Something that had no right to do so pressed
into the presence of God, and God smote it. And the
leprosy which broke out upon his countenance was only a
symbol of what was in his heart. When Isaiah cried:
"I am a man of unclean lips", do not forget
that he had seen Uzziah, and had heard the leper calling:
"Unclean, unclean" For it was a part of the law
that all lepers must do that, to let everyone know; he
had to pronounce his own uncleanness. It was that to
which Isaiah was referring: "I am a man of unclean
lips" - 'I am really no better than Uzziah: I am a
leper.'
That
is the first phase: 'Woe! Woe! Woe is me!'
'LO!'
"And he touched my mouth... and
said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine
iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged."
There
is a very great deal implied in this whole symbolic
setting. One of the seraphim, on hearing this cry of woe,
this confession of need and undoneness, went to the altar
- evidently the GREAT altar - and, with tongs,
took up a live coal, brought it over and touched the
prophet's lips. Remember that the lips are always the
symbol of the heart, for it is out of the heart that we
speak. He touched his lips with that LIVE coal. It
was not from the sacrifice of last week - that would have
been dead coal; it was not even the sacrifice of
yesterday - that would have been dead coal, too. Right up
to the moment, the coal was still burning: evidently the
sacrifice had just been offered, the altar was drenched
with blood.
You
have here three things: an altar, a burning coal, and (by
implication) shed blood - everything that goes to make up
the Cross of the Lord Jesus. It is not a little
impressive that, in that scene in Heaven in the fifth
chapter of the book of the Revelation, where the Lamb is
seen in the midst of the throne, the literal statement
is: 'as though it had JUST been slain' (v. 6).
Right up to the moment, right up to date, this thing is
still alive, it is still virtuous, it is eternally
efficacious. It was an up-to-the-moment thing that
happened. In the symbolism of the burning fire you have
the Holy Spirit, operating on the virtue of the Blood and
of the Cross of the Lord Jesus, creating the basis of
this service. This kind of service, in relation to God's
full purpose, requires that all this shall be in the
experience of a man or a woman, right up to date: a
knowledge of the tremendous efficacy of the Blood of
Jesus.
The
real servant of God does not make light of the Blood. He
makes a very great deal of the Blood, knowing that that
Blood needs to be permanently efficacious for him.
"The blood of Jesus" - you know the words of
the text - "the blood of Jesus his Son KEEPS ON cleansing
us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). The true servant of
God, one who is related to His full purpose, rests upon
the continuous, moment-by-moment, up-to-the-moment
efficacy of the Blood of the Lamb, and upon the mighty
power of the Holy Spirit, as fire. He rests, too, upon
the separating work of the Cross. Remember that that word
'holy' (the seraphim cried: 'Holy, holy...') literally
means 'separate'. He is separate. The statement about
Jesus is: "separated from sinners" (Heb. 7:26).
The Cross is the place of the separation, the dividing;
that is its meaning. And the separation is not only a
separation from the world - it is our separation from
ourselves.
It
is, then, the EXPERIENCE of those mighty energies
of the Blood, the Cross and the Spirit, on the part of
the Lord's people, of servants of God, that is
foundational to true ministry. It is not the doctrine,
the theory, the truth, objectively or mentally held. We
may know all that the Bible has to say about the Blood,
about altars, about the Cross, about the Holy Spirit, and
yet the reality may not be a deeply applied thing in our
being. And that is the tragedy of many a life, even of
servants of God today. They may be able to give you all
that the Bible has to say on these 'subjects', and yet it
may mean nothing; it may be mere cleverness or interest.
What God wants is men and women who have been TOUCHED in
their inner being by the power of the Blood, by the power
of the Spirit, by the separating work of the Cross.
'GO!'
"Then I said, Here am I; send
me. And he said, Go..."
Go!
You never get that opportunity given by God Himself
unless these other things are true. You may take up
Christian work, but a Divine, 'apostolic' commissioning
does rest upon these other two things. (Do not
misunderstand my use of that word 'apostolic'. I am only
interpreting: it just means being 'sent'. We all ought to
be 'sent ones'; the Church ought to be a sent body.) But
thank God for His response to the prophet's "Woe is
me!" The seraph said, "Lo"! That was
grace! A man like that, who is not exaggerating his
condition - it was true, far more true than perhaps he
realised, although he cried "Woe!" - a man like
that could be visited in this way, and commissioned. Oh,
mighty grace! If you had asked Isaiah in the ensuing
years how he came to be God's servant, he would say:
'Just by the grace of God - that is all! If you knew what
I came to know about myself, you would realise that this
would never be the place for me, but for the grace of
God! Marvellous grace!'
For,
although it sounds so elementary and simple, it is
nevertheless profoundly true; that anything that we are
allowed to do in relation to the Lord and His purpose
must bring to us an overwhelming sense of the grace of
God. When we are young men and women, we are all
ambitious to get into God's work, to be preaching,
speaking, and all that sort of thing. But as we go on,
that kind of thing has a strange way of changing, and we
come to the place where we say: 'God forbid that I should
ever be on a platform, unless - unless - He puts me
there. As long as I can keep off it I will; I will only
be there because the Lord makes me get there. Because -
who am I? Who am I, that I should talk to other people?
What am I that I should seem to be standing before them?'
That will grow as you walk with God. It is bound to be
like that. It will be of the infinite grace of God that
you will have any place at all in His purpose.
Here,
He says: 'Go!' And the 'Go!', as you see, is following
upon this sense of sin, and the overwhelming of Divine
grace. And then - "I heard the voice of the Lord,
saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?"
The Lord put it in the form of an interrogation.
"Who will go FOR US?" Do you get
that? 'WE are in need!' - the triune God! It is
the plural, "for US". 'We have need of
helpers; We are in need of someone to go.' "Who will
go FOR US?" This tests the motive for
all service. What is it for? a reputation?
self-gratification? Or is it 'for Us'?
'For
Us!' There is far more in that than it sounds. I always
come back to this great man, Paul. I am perfectly sure
that he would not have gone on very far in his work, if
it had been for himself; to make a name for himself; to
find gratification for himself; or for anything, other
than that his heart had been absolutely captured by the
Lord. It was for the Lord: "For to me to live is
Christ" (Phil. 1:21). The Lord had 'got' him! It was
a great love relationship. It is true, from one
standpoint, that we are chosen. The Lord said: "Ye
did not choose me, but I chose you" (John 15:16). We
are chosen and apprehended. In one sense, we cannot help
ourselves; we are the prisoners of Jesus Christ. That is
one side of it. But there is another side that is equally
true. It is that the Lord asks for our hearts: He appeals
to us as to whether He can have us. He has chosen us, but
can He HAVE us? Even though it is true that
we are under the mighty constraint, will we voluntarily
go with Him and for Him?
There
was a day when David, tired, weary and thirsty, made an
ejaculation, not perhaps intending that anyone should
hear. Somehow David was a man who was always making
ejaculations. If you look at the Psalms, you can see that
he is always just breaking out about something: 'Oh that
men would praise the Lord!' Oh! this... and Oh! that...!
He seems to have been a man like that. That is how it was
on that day. He just gave expression to a sigh, putting a
thought into words: 'Oh for a drink of the water of the
well at Bethlehem!' And some of his men who were standing
near him heard. They took their swords, broke through the
encompassing hosts of the Philistines, drew water from
the well of Bethlehem, and brought it to David. What did
David say? He poured it out before the Lord, and said:
'This is the very life of the men who drew it; I cannot
drink that'. (1 Sam. 23:14-17).
You
see the point. These men had such a loyalty, such a
devotion to their lord, that he only had to ejaculate
something, and they would risk their lives for him; they
would take their lives in their hands for his
satisfaction. Is not that what is here with Isaiah? 'For
Us! For Us!' The Lord is saying: 'Oh, for somebody like
this!' "Who will go for us? Then I said, Here am I;
send me." And the Lord replied, in effect: 'You are
the man I want! That is what I want - a man with this
experience, a man with this basis. Go! Go!'
Now,
if you are feeling that all that I have said is not
really necessary for the Lord's service; if you think I
have been 'piling it on' rather heavily - 'Surely we can
be servants of the Lord without all that!' - if you think
I am making a lot of it, making the Lord's service
complicated, difficult, involved, laying down more than
is really necessary: read what follows - read the
commission, and I venture to say that, if you had to do
the work that Isaiah had to do, you would never do it
without Isaiah's foundation.
"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 turn
again, and be healed."
That
was carried right on to the days of the Lord Jesus. John
said: 'This thing that Isaiah was told to do is here with
us today.' "Though he had done so many signs before
them, yet they believed not on him: that the word of
Isaiah... might be fulfilled" (John 12:37,38). Right
along there in the days of the Lord Jesus, the work that
Isaiah did stands. Of course it carries a very solemn
message, and perhaps it carries a very big problem for
us. But it simply means this - that these people had
persistently, and hitherto with impunity, resisted the
Word of God by the prophets; and it is a terrible thing
to do that. If you do that long enough, there comes a
time when you will not be able to believe when you want
to, you will not be able to understand when you want to.
You have brought your own judgment upon you. That is a
terrible thing! It is the explanation of Israel's doom.
But
let us leave that aside. Here is a man who has to 'go',
and the effect of his ministry is only to be the
hardening of many people. That is not pleasant ministry!
It is going to create a good many enemies. The Lord said
to Ezekiel: 'Son of man, I send you not to a people of a
strange language and tongue, that you cannot understand:
if I sent you to them, they would believe, they would
receive your word; but I send you to the house of Israel,
and they will not listen! that is where your difficulty
lies' (Ezek. 3:4-7). Very strange! The come-back is so
often from Christian people themselves. The real fight
arises in that realm, more than in any other. The hardest
work of all is the work of having to deal with
'traditional Israel'. It is not easy.
But
Isaiah was vindicated! "A remnant shall return"
(7:3, marg.). That is the great word that springs out of
his ministry. There were millions that went away into
captivity under this judgment, but only forty-two
thousand and a few more came back. "A remnant shall
return", indeed - but he was vindicated in the
remnant!
And
God always has a remnant. We must leave the others. I do
not expect, for one moment, that all Christians are going
to accept God's full revelation as to His purpose. It
would be folly to think that they will - they will not!
You will find your main resistance from Christians,
strangely enough. It is true! But, the vindication is in
a remnant: a remnant shall return. Compared with the
millions, the forty-two thousand may be very small; but
the word of the prophet is: "Who hath despised the
day of small things?" (Zechariah 4:10).