Reading: 2 Chron. 26:1-5, 16-21, 23; Isa. 6:1-10.
This is a
very impressive and striking story, and it circles round
the matter which has been brought before us at this time,
namely, that of spiritual sight. "I saw the
Lord"; "mine eyes have seen..."; and
everything gathers around that.
What arises
from the whole incident is this, that king Uzziah was
spiritually and morally a representation of Israel, and
of Israel’s prophets to a large extent. That is the
significance of the double statement by Isaiah the
prophet - I am a man of unclean lips, and I am your
prophet; and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean
lips. And that, as is very clear, connects with Uzziah;
for you know that a leper had to put a cloth upon his
upper lip and go about crying, Unclean! The significance
of the words: "I am a man of unclean lips, and I
dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips" is
just that: we are all lepers. Isaiah is saying, in
effect, What was true of Uzziah is true of us all,
prophet and people. You do not realise it, and I did not
realise it until I saw the Lord. We were all terribly,
deeply, impressed with what happened in the case of
Uzziah: we have been living in an atmosphere charged with
the awfulness of that thing, we have been speaking under
our breath about it, saying what a terrible thing it was,
what an evil thing Uzziah did, and how awful that our
king should turn out to be like that, and have an end
like that, what a horrible thing leprosy is; and we have
been speaking hard things about Uzziah and thinking many
thoughts, how grievous his case was, but I have come to
see that we are all in the same case. I, who have been
preaching to you (do not forget that five chapters of
prophecy have preceded this sixth chapter of Isaiah, this
is not the commencement of a preacher’s life, but
somewhere in his life when he wakes up by a new
revelation), I who have been preaching and prophesying, I
have come to see that I am no better than Uzziah. You
people, going on with your round of religious rites and
ceremonies, you, attending the temple, you, offering the
sacrifices, you, using your lips in worship, you are in
the same case as Uzziah: we are all lepers. You may not
realise it, but I have come to see. And how have I come
to see? I have seen the Lord! "Mine eyes have seen
the King, Jehovah of hosts." "I saw the
Lord... high and lifted up." I say this is very
impressive when you think about it.
Well, what
are we going to make of it? Perhaps we would do well just
to steal away and be quiet with that a little while, just
think it out.
Let us
dismiss one thing immediately. It is a popular idea which
somehow has sprung up, and by which most of us have been
caught, that it was this vision that made Isaiah a
prophet or preacher. We have heard that, perhaps we have
said that. Oh no! Why, if the Book is inspired and
governed by God, should it come long after he had been
prophesying so much? Look at those five chapters of
prophecies. What tremendous things are in those chapters.
No, it was not this that was making him the prophet, the
preacher. God was dealing with a man, not a prophet; God
was dealing with a people, not with an office. He is
getting down to what we are in His own sight. So we
cannot just transfer it to a class of people called
prophets or preachers, and feel that some of us are not
involved because we are not in that class, we are just
ordinary simple folk who do not aspire to be prophets and
preachers. It is not that. The Lord is getting down to
people here and seeking to make clear to them how He
views them in themselves, even though they may have been
preaching a lot; what they are, after all, in His sight,
in themselves. Sooner or later that reality has to break
upon us to safeguard everything and to secure His end.
What
God is Seeking
What is God
after? If you can see, if you have your eyes opened
to see what God is after, then you will understand His
method, and why He employs this method. Chapter 5 makes
clear what God is after; He is after a people who satisfy
His own heart. It is called a remnant. It is called that
simply because such a people will be but a remnant. He
knows quite well that the whole people will not conform
to His thought. He has foreseen that history of His
people right up to the days of the coming of His Son, and
what this very people will do with His Son. He knows
their hearts. That is why He tells Isaiah those terrible
things that he is to do: make this people’s heart
fat, close their ears and their eyes. He knows.
But
nevertheless, there will be those who will respond. They
will be but a remnant, and that remnant is mentioned
specifically at the end of Chapter 6 in these words - "And
if there be yet a tenth in it, it also shall in turn be
eaten up: as a terebinth, and as an oak, whose stock
remaineth, when they are felled; so the holy seed is the
stock thereof."
In the
stock that has been felled - and you notice what precedes
is the felling of the tree; Israel would be felled by the
nations whom God is going to call to cut down Israel, to
use as His instruments of judgment, and they would fell
this tree of Israel, but the stock will remain - and in
the stock, there will be a tenth, there will be a
remnant, a holy seed in the stock when the whole tree has
been dealt with. God is after a company, even out from
the whole general company of His people, who will satisfy
His heart, and to secure that remnant He lays hold of
Isaiah and deals with him in this way, and gives him this
vision. Beloved, in order that God should get His end, we
have to be thoroughly disillusioned and have our eyes
opened to see very clearly what we are in ourselves in
the sight of God. Terrible revelation! Anything which is
a suspicion or a suggestion of self-satisfaction,
self-complacency, of having attained or being satisfied
with our present condition, will disqualify from being in
the remnant or in any way instrumental toward God’s
end, God’s purpose.
So, after
this man had set out to speak of the wide ranges of the
sovereign judgments of God in the first five chapters of
Isaiah, suddenly it seems God arrests him. There is a
crisis in his own life and in his own ministry. God takes
him to the depths of an eye-opening as to what he is, and
what the people are, in His sight. He and they who had
judged and condemned, and spoken those words with bated
breath about the terrible thing that had happened to
Uzziah, were shown to be just as bad; there was no
difference. In God’s sight, they were all with the
cloth upon their upper lips, called upon to cry, Unclean,
unclean!
The
Leprosy of the Self-Life
And what
was this leprosy? Oh, we say, of course, sin. Yes, sin;
but what is this? Let us have a look at Uzziah and see
what leprosy meant, what leprosy represented or betokened
in the case of Uzziah. "He did that which was right
in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that his father
Amaziah had done", and while he walked in the ways
of the Lord, the Lord made him to prosper. A man blessed
of the Lord, walking in the light of the Lord and knowing
the Lord’s favour, and, alongside, that deeply
rooted thing which is in every man’s heart, always
ready to rise up and turn the very blessings of God to
his own account, to make a name for himself, to get a
position for himself, to bring himself aggrandisement and
glory and power and influence and satisfaction, to give
him a reputation and a position. That is it. What is
leprosy? What is this thing which is an abomination to
God? It is just that self-life which is in us all, which
is ever even coming into the things of God and seeking to
make them of personal advantage and account. The Lord
blesses, and we become somebody in our own secret hearts
because the Lord has blessed. We forget that the very
blessings that have come to us have come through grace
and the mercy of God, and secretly we begin to think
there must be something in us to account for it. It is
our ability, our cleverness, something in ourselves. We
begin to speak about our blessing, our successes. Oh, it
is that thing down there, the leprous germ in us all, the
self-life in its manifold ways which produces pride, even
spiritual pride, and causes us, like Uzziah, to press in
to holy things in self-energy, self-strength,
self-assertion, self-sufficiency. Yes, the leprosy is the
root of self, selfhood, however it may express itself.
Therein -
and it is another branch of things for which we have no
time now - therein lies the peril of blessing and
prosperity. Oh, how necessary it is for us to be
crucified in the midst of our blessings! How necessary it
is for God to make safe His blessing of us by continually
showing us ourselves, and that it is all of grace, and
that if He has given us any kind of blessing, any kind of
success, any kind of prosperity at all, it is not because
there is something in us in His sight, whatever men may
think. Whatever we may be amongst men, in God’s sight
we are no better than lepers, and what matters is not how
we get on amongst men, but how we get on with God. We
might arrive at some very high eminence in this world,
but whether we arrive with God or not is the thing that
matters.
Now perhaps
this goes past most of us, because we are not all too
conscious of having been blessed and prospered and having
much to boast about. Most of us know the opposite, a good
deal of emptying and humiliating. But let us get to the
heart of this thing. Even down there in the depths there
is a craving in us which is a self-craving, there is a
revolt which is the revolt of this self-life.
Well, Uzziah is brought to light here in order to show
that that is the thing in people and prophet which makes
it impossible for God to reach His end; and it has to be
dealt with, exposed; it cannot be overlooked; it must be
dragged out, and we must see.
The
Attainment of God’s Object - The Fruit of Seeing the
Lord
And so I
just come at once and directly to this point, which is
that God should get the end upon which His heart is set,
a people, though it be but a tenth, a remnant, a people
answering to His own heart-desire and satisfying Him in
the full purpose of His will. For Him to get that, there
must be a seeing, and one thing to be seen, which will do
all the rest, is the Lord; and to see the Lord, as this
makes so clear, is to see holiness; and when we see
holiness we see leprosy where we never suspected it, in
ourselves or in others. When we have seen the Lord, we
see the true state of things in ourselves and in those
around us, even of the Lord’s people. To see the
Lord is the need, in order that we should be in the way
of that end toward which He is pressing.
"I saw
the Lord"; "mine eyes have seen". What is
the result? Well, it is revealing of ourselves to
ourselves, and it is a revealing of the spiritual state
around us. When we have seen the Lord, we cry, I am
undone! If you look at that word "undone", you
will find that it just means this (but this it does
mean), I am worthy of death. That is exactly the meaning
of the Hebrew word there - worthy of death, I am worthy
of death! You and I will see the need for union with
Christ in death if our eyes are open to see the Lord; to
see that there is nothing else for it, it is the only
way.
Now, this
is not just language, these are not just words and ideas.
What I want us to see is this, for one thing, that the
work of the Spirit of God in us, by which our eyes are
opened to see the Lord, will result in our feeling that
the only thing for us is to die, the best thing for us is
to die, to come to an end. Have you got there? Of course,
Satan will play on that ground, as indeed he has with
many people, trying to drive them to make an end of
everything, to work upon something that the Spirit of God
is doing and turn it to his own account and create a
tragedy. Let us keep in the spiritual realm, and
recognise that the Lord will work in us for His own glory
and for glorious possibilities, by bringing us to the
place where we feel deeply and terribly that the best
thing for us is to die. Then He has got us in agreement
with His own mind about us. I am undone! - and the Lord
might well have said, And so you are: I have known it all
the time, I have had difficulty in making you know it;
you are undone.
Well now,
when you come to that place, you have come to the place
where we can start. While we are there, pressing in all
the time, occupying the place like Uzziah, coming into
the temple, into the house, into the sanctuary; busy,
active; we in ourselves, what we are; while we are
filling the temple, the Lord is not able to do anything.
He says, Look here, you will have to go out, and you will
have to come to the place where you hasten of your own
accord to go out because you see you are a leper. That is
put in there about Uzziah. "Yea, himself also hasted
to go out". At last he realises that this is no
place for him. When the Lord has got us to that place - I
am undone, this is no place for me! - then He can start
on the positive side, He has the way open. This seeing is
a terrible thing, and yet it is a very necessary thing,
and in the outcome it is a very glorious thing. The
commission came then.
Now I am just harrassed for want of time; there are so many things I want to say.
The
Reason for the Necessary Experience
I will just
add this one thing. Do you see how necessary it was that
a thing like that should happen with Isaiah? What was he
going to do? Was he going to preach a great revival? Was
he going out to tell the people, Everything is all right,
the Lord is going to do great things: cheer up, there is
a great day just about to dawn? No! Go, make this
people’s heart fat, close their ears, shut their
eyes! This is not a very joyful kind of work. What does
it amount to? Well you see, the Lord knew the state of
the people’s hearts. He knows quite well that they
do not want to see in reality. In reality they do not
want to see. If they wanted to see, oh, they would be
taking different attitudes altogether. They would be free
of all prejudices, all suspicions, all criticisms; they
would be reaching out and inquiring; they would be
showing their signs of hunger and longing; they would be
investigating, and they would not be readily put off by
other peoples’ judgments and criticisms. But He knew
that in their heart they did not want to see, they really
did not want to hear, whatever they might say about it;
and this prophet will say later on, "Who hath
believed our report?" (Isa. 53:1). The Lord knew,
and judgment always comes along the line of a
people’s heart. If you do not want, you will lose
the capacity for wanting. If you do not want to see, you
will lose the capacity for seeing. If you do not want to
hear, you will lose the capacity for hearing. Judgment
is organic, it is not mechanical. It comes along the
line of our life. You sow a seed of inclination or
disinclination and you will reap a harvest of inability,
and one effect of a ministry of revelation is to draw out
the people’s inclination or disinclination unto
their own judgment, and you will find that a ministry of
revelation and life only makes some people harder. The
Lord knows it is there.
Now, to go
on with a ministry like that is not a very comfortable
thing. You have to be a crucified man to do that, you
have to have no personal interest. If you are out for a
reputation, for popularity, for success, for a following,
then it is best not to go this way, not to see too much,
best not to have insight into things; better put blinkers
on and be an incorrigible optimist. If you are going the
way of the Lord’s purpose, of a people who really do
answer to His thought, it is going to be a way which is
cut clean through the mass who will not have it, and who
let you know they will not have it, and you go a lonely
way. They may think they have a case, but the fact is
that they are not hungry and desperate enough even to
investigate, to inquire at first hand. They are easily
turned aside by the slightest criticism of you, or of
your position, of your ministry, and you have to go on
with the few, the handful who are going on. It is the
price of vision, the price of seeing. Isaiah had to be a
crucified man in order to fulfil a ministry like that,
and in order for you and me to occupy a position with
God, we have to be crucified to that which was in Uzziah,
a craving for position. Not satisfied with kingship, he
must have priesthood. Nay, more than that, not satisfied
with the blessing of God, he must have the very place of
God. What a contrast is this! - on the one hand, king
Uzziah; on the other, "mine eyes have seen the
King."
Can you
follow this? It is searching, it is tremendous, but oh,
beloved, it is the way of the full desire and thought of
the Lord. It is a lonely and costly way, and the effect
is really to bring out what God sees in the heart of His
people, and in order to do that - which is going to mean that we suffer for
our revelation, for our vision, for seeing; we have to
pay a great price for it - in
order to do that, we have to be well crucified, to come
to the place where we say, Well, I am undone, I am
deserving of death; there is nothing for it but that I
should pass out! The Lord says, That is all right, that
is what I want - for you to pass out; I wanted
Uzziah to pass out: then I could fill the temple! Uzziah
is self, it is man as he is, and God does not co-occupy
His house with man, He must fill it.