The Prerequisites for Divine Service
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Introduction: Today I want to take you to the sixth chapter of Isaiah and the account of Isaiah’s commissioning by God for divine service. The reason we are moving from chapter 1 directly to chapter 6 is the striking contrast between the formalistic worship which was denounced in chapter 1 and the true and spiritual worship which we find in chapter 6. I believe as we view these two kinds of worship on successive Sundays, we will understand more clearly the worship that God hates as opposed to the kind that He loves and accepts. The real theme of Chapter 6, however, is service for God. We will see, I trust, how closely worship and service are related.
Since we will be drawing a contrast between chapters 1 and 6, it would be helpful if we would briefly review the six verses from chapter 1 that dealt with false worship, the kind that has a form of godliness but lacks the power thereof. Here is 1:10-15:
Hear the word of the Lord, You rulers of Sodom;
Listen to the instruction of our God, You people of Gomorrah!
11 “What are your many sacrifices to Me?” Says the Lord.
“I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fattened cattle;
And I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs, or goats.
12 When you come to appear before Me,
Who requires of you this trampling of My courtyards?
13 Do not go on bringing your worthless offerings,
Incense is an abomination to Me.
New moon and Sabbath, the proclamation of an assembly—
I cannot endure wrongdoing and the festive assembly.
14 I hate your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts,
They have become a burden to Me;
I am tired of bearing them.
15 So when you spread out your hands in prayer,
I will hide My eyes from you;
Yes, even though you offer many prayers,
I will not be listening.
Your hands are covered with blood.
The key to this passage, you will recall, is verse 13, the final part: God says, “I cannot endure wrongdoing and the festive assembly.” The message is clear that sin and worship don’t mix. In chapter 6 we are going to see that sin and service don’t mix either.
The chapter begins, “In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple.” The first prerequisite for divine service enumerated here is that we must see God as He really is.
Prerequisite #1: Seeing God as He really is.
Isaiah claims to have seen the Lord but he doesn’t tell us how. I would assume he saw Him in a vision or a dream, since the OT makes it clear that no man has seen God at any time, nor could he live if he did. However, it is possible that Isaiah saw the pre-incarnate Christ. In John 12:41, immediately following a quotation from Isaiah 6, we read, “These things Isaiah said, because he saw His (i.e., Christ’s) glory, and he spoke of Him.” So, it’s possible that Isaiah saw the second person of the Trinity, whether he was aware of it or not.
The prophet saw the Lord in the year that King Uzziah died. The very fact that this incident happened in the year of Uzziah’s death indicates that what we have in this chapter is not an account of Isaiah’s conversion, but rather some kind of post-conversion experience that prepared him for special service. The reason for this is that the first verse of chapter 1 indicates that Isaiah prophesied during the reign of Uzziah, but it wasn’t until the death of Uzziah that he saw the Lord as he really is.
Could there be more here than meets the eye? Some have suggested that the reason Isaiah didn’t see the Lord earlier was that he had his eyes too much on Uzziah. After all, Uzziah reigned for 52 years, and of the four kings mentioned in 1:1, he was certainly the most prosperous. He was basically a good king (at least until the very end of his reign) and the kind of leader who provided security for the nation and for its people. Even prophets and ministers can get to the point where they enjoy security.
I wonder how many of us have ever put so much faith and trust in a certain leader that we feel that we might not make it without them (Note added in 2024: Reagan was President as the election was less than 5 months ahead). If so, there is a real sense in which that person stands between us and the Lord. Then perhaps for one reason or another, the person is removed through death, or perhaps through some tragic moral decline in his life. And suddenly our security is gone, and we either bomb out due to our disappointment or we begin to see the Lord for the first time in our lives; really see Him!
Now the first thing that Isaiah saw about the Lord was His sovereignty and majesty.
His sovereignty and majesty (1). The text says, “I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple.” Whether this was the temple in Jerusalem where Isaiah had gone to worship, or some heavenly temple, I don’t know, but while worshipping he saw this vision. A throne always speaks of authority and sovereignty, but this was no ordinary throne, for it was lofty and exalted. The long, loose, flowing robe of the King was filling the temple, so that no place was left for anyone to stand. It is a scene of glorious, omnipotent majesty.
The significance of this attention given to the sovereignty of God is that Isaiah is shortly 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 the prophet must gain an understanding of God’s greatness. What if each of us were to catch a glimpse of the great majesty of our sovereign God? Wouldn’t that fill us with a sacred courage to dare anything against the false gods of our day?
The second characteristic of God which Isaiah grasps is His holiness.
His holiness (2-3). The scene painted for us in verses 2 & 3 teaches us concerning God’s absolute purity and separation from all evil. Earthly monarchs were always accompanied by their courtiers and their retinue, but the vision which Isaiah saw is unique in this respect. The God of heaven is attended by a heavenly court without comparison. His attendants are described as seraphim, or burning ones, who hover over Him and do His bidding. This is the only passage in the Bible in which seraphim are mentioned, so all we know of them comes from Isaiah 6:2-3. They are personal, spiritual beings with faces, feet and hands, they employ human speech, and they understand moral concepts. But they are not human, for each one has six wings. As a sign of reverence and awe before the Lord, each seraph covers his face with two of his wings. This is probably an indication that the glory of the Lord is so great that just as one cannot look directly at the sun for its brightness, so one could not look directly at the majestic figure seated upon the throne.
Further, the seraphim cover their feet with another pair of wings. This action was perhaps done as an expression of humility and unworthiness, since the feet are generally thought of as a less noble part of the body.
With the middle pair of wings the seraphim flew, perhaps to signify that mere humility cannot offer complete adoration; there must be active obedience and readiness of heart for service. Thus, they have four wings for adoration and two for active service, four to conceal themselves and two with which to occupy themselves in service. Perhaps we can learn from this that worship must always have prominence over service. We have but to think back to the example of Mary and Martha. While Martha was busy with much serving, Mary sat at Jesus’ feet and worshipped Him. And when Martha complained, the Lord told her that her sister had chosen the best part. In contrast many of us are so busy doing things for the Lord that we don’t take time to meditate, to pray, and to worship.
The seraphim appear to be involved in antiphonal musical praise, and the song they are singing is, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Next to the song, “Worthy is the Lamb,” sung by all the redeemed hosts in Revelation 5, I can think of no greater song than that of the seraphim: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.” If asked why they repeat the ascription of holiness three times, this might be because God is a tripartite being. Especially does this seem likely in view of verse 8, where the Lord uses the plural pronoun “us” in speaking of Himself.
The mention of the whole earth being full of His glory brings us to the final characteristic of God which Isaiah saw—the omnipresence of God.
His omnipresence (3-4). God’s glorious fingerprints can be seen everywhere in creation. I know there are some places and events that don’t seem to manifest His glory, but even in its sin-cursed state, the earth is very beautiful and clearly evidences the existence and power of the Creator. Someday it will be completely delivered from the Adamic curse.
The vision of God is concluded in verse 4, as Isaiah relates that he felt the foundations of the temple shake and the whole building was filled with smoke, reminiscent of other manifestations of God’s glory, as when the Tabernacle was set up (Exodus 40) and when Solomon dedicated the Temple (1 Kings 8).
The first prerequisite, then, of divine service is seeing God as he really is. The second is closely related: seeing ourselves as we really are.
Prerequisite #2: Seeing ourselves as we really are
None of us can get a true and accurate picture of ourselves unless we first get a true and accurate picture of God. Immediately after seeing the sovereign God in all his holiness, the prophet cries, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips.” We see here, first, the confession of personal sin.
Confession of personal sin (5). The Psalmist asks, “Who shall stand in His holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart?” But who has clean hands and a pure heart? Not Isaiah, for having seen God upon His throne, he can think only of his own uncleanness. He bursts out into an agonizing cry, “Woe,” using a word which indicates that calamity has fallen or is about to fall upon him. And he immediately explains the reason why this calamity is expected: “I am undone, I am ruined, I am doomed to die.”
What caused the prophet to render such a strong condemnation of himself? Is it possible that he was a particularly terrible sinner compared to other contemporaries of his? I doubt it. More than likely he was a comparatively outstanding and exemplary young man, honest and faithful in the discharge of his prophetic duties. But having seen God and having heard the pure and holy seraphim praise God, even hiding their own unworthiness, it dawned upon him how desperately sinful was his own state of heart and mind, and particularly his speech.
Isaiah’s mouth was what he used most in his ministry. He was a prophet, and a prophet does nothing if he does not speak. If purity is needed anywhere in a prophet’s life, it is in his mouth. This Isaiah realizes, and this he confesses. It’s not that Isaiah was guilty of preaching on Sunday and cussing on Monday. It’s more likely he was suffering from the disease of shallow lip service, which even (or should I say especially) affects men of the cloth. The Lord says, “My people draw near to Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.” Isaiah probably saw evidence of this in himself.
It’s a curious fact that those who are closest to God are often the ones most aware of their own unworthiness. Isaiah’s experience was like that of other biblical characters. Job, whom God Himself called a “blameless and upright man” (Job 1:8), was overwhelmed with a sense of his own worthlessness when he saw God: “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees thee. Wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:5-6) Does that mean that Job’s three so-called “friends” were right all along in attributing his suffering to the fact that he must be an outstanding sinner and hypocrite? No, it simply means that even the best of men cannot compare himself with the infinitely holy God.
Daniel, who was called by the angel Gabriel, “a man greatly beloved” (Daniel 10:11), was overwhelmed by the vision he had of the glory of God. He fell to the ground speechless and without strength (10:15-17). And John, “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” when he saw the Lord Jesus in glorified appearance on the island of Patmos, “fell at His feet as a dead man.” (Rev. 1:17)
Now someone may comment, “I didn’t think we were to abhor ourselves and think of ourselves as worms. I hear a great deal today in Christian circles of the need for a positive self-image.” If properly understood I think there is no contradiction between seeing our own sinfulness and having a healthy self-concept, for proper self-esteem results from seeing that the grace of God makes even the vilest sinner of infinite worth in God’s sight. But there is absolutely no place for pride and self-conceit in the Christian’s life. Where pride is found, it is obvious that the individual exhibiting it has not seen the Lord as He really is.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, “God will never do anything with us till he has first of all undone us.” I think there is much truth in that, and it should be of some comfort to those who are right now undergoing severe testing. Could it be that God is bringing you to the end of your rope so that you will surrender yourself totally to Him? When we are weak, then are we strong, according to the Apostle Paul (2 Cor. 12:10), for then we are willing to look beyond ourselves to the God who has promised to supply our every need.
But Isaiah not only confesses his personal sin; he also confesses the sin of the people among whom he lived.
Confession of corporate sin (5). A person can live a relatively holy life and keep short personal accounts with God, but he still will not be a good and effective servant of the Lord if he winks at the sin all around him. Unless that sin stinks in his nostrils, unless it makes his soul boil with holy indignation, how can he serve a holy God? Oh, how we need to see how weak and inadequate and sinful we are!
Prerequisite #3: Receiving cleansing and forgiveness
God did not allow Isaiah to receive this vision merely to leave him in despair. Isaiah’s confession led to cleansing. It was only when he acknowledged his need that God met that need. That is a principle in salvation. Many people never get to the place where they will admit they need God’s grace. Similarly, Christians often find their lives barren and fruitless because they will not confess their sins. But the Word of God says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)
The instruments God used in the cleansing of Isaiah were the altar and a burning coal.
The altar and the burning coal (6). Verse 6 says, “Then one of the seraphim flew to me, with a burning coal in his hand which he had taken from the altar with tongs. And he touched my mouth with it and said, ‘Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is forgiven.’” The altar was the central feature of the OT sacrificial system, but nothing is clearer from the NT than that the OT sacrifices pointed forward to Christ. In Hebrews 9 the sacrificial system of the tabernacle is described and contrasted with the priesthood of Christ.
“But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things having come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made by hands, that is, not of this creation; 12 and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all time, having obtained eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”
In view of this passage, I would suggest that the altar and the burning coal which the seraph brought to Isaiah prefigure the cleansing that Christ offers to all those who confess their sins.
I think it is instructive for us to notice that cleansing was offered to Isaiah for the very thing he had confessed. Isaiah acknowledged that he was a man of unclean lips, and the cleansing is applied to his lips. If there is a principle for us here, I think it may be that God isn’t in the business of cleansing bulk sins from the believer’s life. It is important for us to confess specific areas of disobedience in our lives.
There is one other important fact here and that is that God cleanses and forgives both the guilt andthe sin.
The guilt and the sin (7). At the end of verse 7 Isaiah is told, “Your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is forgiven.” The word “iniquity” can be translated “guilt,” and in this context that’s probably what it means. Sometimes we confess our sin before God but continue to carry with us the guilt from that act. In essence that amounts to calling God a liar, for He has promised to remove the stain as well as the sin. Forgiveness that doesn’t take care of guilt isn’t worth the breath it takes to speak of it.
I love the original words of the hymn, “Rock of Ages,” which, unfortunately have been changed in more recent hymn editions.
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and power.
Both the sin and the resultant guilt are taken care of by God. Of course, for those of us this side of the Cross, we know that cleansing comes through the Cross of Christ. He gave His life to pay for our sins and we must put our personal faith in Him to receive forgiveness and eternal life.
The prerequisites have all been met: Isaiah has seen God as He really is; he has seen himself as he really is; and he has received cleansing and forgiveness. It is time now for him to be …
Commissioned for service (8-13)
As I have stated before, I believe this is a post-conversion experience for Isaiah. He has already been out in the ministry, but now he is being fitted for a greater task. The first thing we see is God’s strange request.
God’s strange request (8). Verse 8 reads, “Then 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!'” I call this a strange request because of the scene Isaiah has just beheld. Here is the omnipotent, sovereign God of the universe, served by innumerable seraphim of the highest intellect and ability, asking for help from a human being. Why did not the Lord send the seraphim to do the task? Because He is pleased by the foolishness of preaching to save those that believe, and the preachers must be people like the rest of mankind.
It is surely a great condescension on God’s part that he has chosen human beings, but the fact remains that He has given this honor to us, putting His treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be all His own. And He is asking for our service, not demanding it. That, of course, is always how God comes to us. When He brings salvation, He makes us an offer that is too good to refuse, but when men do refuse it, He does not force their wills. When God has a job that needs to be done, He asks if we would like to be involved. If we say no, He accepts that, and we, of course, end up the losers, for God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, the wealth in every mine. He will simply give the privilege to someone else.
Foreign missionary service is only one of many appropriate applications of the strange request of God. God may be asking, “Whom shall I send?” regarding leaders for Vacation Bible School, or someone needed to share with an employee at Boeing who desperately needs Christ as Savior, or any number of other ministry opportunities. Would that more would answer as did Isaiah in verse 8: “Then I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!'”
Isaiah’s earnest response (8). Jill Briscoe has written a book which more accurately expresses the attitude of so many Christians: Here Am I, Send Aaron. So often we identify ourselves as belonging to the Lord, but then we give all kinds of excuses as to why we are not available for a particular task. Let me share something with you. Availability has nothing to do with how busy you are; it has everything to do with your priorities. As I look back over my years as pastor, I would have to say that most of the work accomplished by this congregation has been done by the 20% who are the busiest people. I’m talking about doctors who could easily work an 80-hour week, businessmen who have enormous responsibilities, housewives with several young children at home, and blue-collar workers who have two jobs. But they were available when God put out a call for volunteers.
There is perhaps something else of significance in Isaiah’s earnest response. We normally read it like this: “Here am I, send me.” I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to change the emphasis to, “Here am I, send me.” Isaiah is willing to go, but he does not want to go without being sent. His prayer is, “Lord, qualify me, open the door for me, and direct my way. I do not need to be forced, but I want to be commissioned. I do not ask for compulsion, but I do ask for guidance. Send me, then, Lord.” Friends, that takes a lot of the fear out of serving the Lord. If you know you’re sent, you don’t need to worry about your reception or your success. You’re just an ambassador, and the government that sends you is responsible.
Isaiah’s task (9-13). We are not going to spend a lot of time on the last five verses of chapter 6, but I do think it is important that we read them, for they contain the message that Isaiah was supposed to deliver to the nation of Judah.
9 And He said, “Go, and tell this people:
‘Keep on listening, but do not understand;
And keep on looking, but do not gain knowledge.’
10 Make the hearts of this people [d]insensitive,
Their ears dull,
And their eyes blind,
So that they will not see with their eyes,
Hear with their ears,
Understand with their hearts,
And return and be healed.”
11 Then I said, “Lord, how long?” And He answered,
“Until cities are devastated and without inhabitant,
Houses are without people
And the land is utterly desolate,
12 The Lord has completely removed people,
And there are many forsaken places in the midst of the land.
13 Yet there will still be a tenth portion in it,
And it will again be subject to burning,
Like a terebinth or an oak
Whose stump remains when it is cut down.
The holy seed is its stump.”
The message that God asked the prophet to deliver was not a pleasant one. He was not to win men, but to seal their doom by putting before them truth which they would surely reject. God had already given His people opportunity to repent and they had refused. Now the message is one of judgment.
When the prophet asks how long he must preach such a message, the response is that he must do so until the nation is destroyed and the people are taken into exile. Fortunately, according to the last verse, the destruction will not be total, for a tenth of the people will survive, perhaps picturing the small remnant who returned to the land after the Babylonian exile.
The picture used in verse 13 to illustrate this is that of a big tree (like a terebinth or an oak) that is left standing on a field otherwise desolate. Then that tree is caught in a fire that sweeps over the field. Then the seemingly dead tree is cut down. The stump that is left is, however, not yet dead. It has a “seed” in it with a trace of life that can yet spring forth in a new shoot. Even so, God’s people Israel will someday spring forth from near annihilation, but not in Isaiah’s time.
Thank God ours is not as hard a task as Isaiah’s. We have the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and people are ready and willing to turn from darkness to light if only someone will tell them. Not all, certainly, but more than we realize. News reports coming out of East Africa, Korea, Peru and many other countries indicate that people are turning to Christ in incredible numbers. Tens of thousands a day are becoming Christians, to the point that there are probably more Christians today in Africa than in the United States. Last month “Christianity Today” stated that the country of South Korea, where just a fraction of one percent were Christians 30 years ago, is now about 30% Christian. One church in Seoul seats nearly 30,000 people at a time and has seven overflow services every Sunday morning, plus over 19,000 home Bible studies.
The harvest truly is ripe all over the world, and God is calling each of us to have a small part in that harvest—for each one a different part. Are we willing to say, “Here am I, send me” or “Here am I, use me.” Or will it be, “Here am I, and frankly I’m pretty busy trying to achieve financial security for my family” or “Here am I, and I feel that I’ve discharged my responsibility when I’ve gone to church once a week and put a check in the offering.”
We cannot help but admire Isaiah for his willingness and readiness to serve God, even though he was told that his labors would appear to be fruitless. From this we can learn the necessity for continuing in the work of the gospel, even when outward success does not appear to attend our work.
Conclusion: There is an interesting oddity of translation in the King James Version which is useful in remembering the essence of our passage today. In verse 7 the word “behold” is translated by the Old English word, “Lo.” Thus, in verse 5, 7 and 9 we find the three words, “woe, lo, and go.” There is the woe of confession, the lo of cleansing and the go of commissioning. While that is simply an accident of translation, it nevertheless captures the truth that confession must precede cleansing, and cleansing must precede commissioning. The prerequisites of divine service are seeing God as He really is, seeing ourselves as we really are, and receiving cleansing and forgiveness from His hand through the sacrifice of Christ. Then watch out! It’ll blow your mind what God can do with you.
DATE: June 17, 1984
Tags:
Service
Sovereignty
Holiness of God
Confession
Forgiveness