Isaiah 6:1 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. 2 Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.” 4 And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. 5 Then I said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.” 6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. 7 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.” 8 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!” 9 He said, “Go, and tell this people: ‘Keep on listening, but do not perceive; Keep on looking, but do not understand.’ 10 “Render the hearts of this people insensitive, Their ears dull, And their eyes dim, Otherwise they might 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.”
In the last writing we looked at the God-centeredness of God in His creating the Seraphim who do nothing but sing about His holiness and glory. Then we looked at the response of Isaiah and how he was broken from his pride and strength of self in order to be nothing in his own eyes. That, however, was in order that he would be a man that sought the glory of God rather than the glory of self. That was so that he would be able to be a minister for the purposes and glory of God rather than looking to the success and honor of self.
The ministry that Isaiah was called to was certainly not one that would build him up in the esteem of others or make him popular and well-liked. Isaiah did not have a message that was winsome in any way and he was told that his message was going to succeed, but it would succeed in bringing down the nation of Israel. Isaiah was brought down to the point where he was ready to preach for the purposes of God at the expense of self being hated and spoken against. He was told to preach and as part of his duty in preaching he was told to render their hearts insensitive. He was told to render their ears dull and their eyes dim. He was told to do this so that they would not understand and so return and be healed. These are hard words that are not easy to bear now, but imagine Isaiah as a prophet to his people now told that judgment was coming and he was to be an instrument of that judgment.
Isaiah wanted to know how long he had to go and preach such a message. One would think that such a message would be for the purpose of bringing them down to a point, but surely it wouldn’t be for long. But instead he was told to preach for the goals mentioned above “Until cities are devastated and without inhabitant, Houses are without people And the land is utterly desolate.” When Isaiah was told to go and preach that message, it had to have been a shock to his system and utterly crushing to him. But now he was told that he was to preach this message until the cities were without inhabitant and the land was utterly desolate. In other words, he was to be the messenger of judgment and also of bringing judgment until the people were carried away in captivity.
The message and intent of the message that was given to Isaiah is demonstrative evidence that God is not man-centered as men think of man-centeredness. Instead, these severe judgments were sent by God and they declared His glory over the whole earth. These judgments declare to us that God is concerned about His holiness and His name rather than what we think of as well-being. The Israelites made many mistakes, but perhaps one of the mistakes they made was in thinking that God loved them and watched over them according to the ways of their own thinking. They thought that they were the chosen people and that He was focused on them and that they could worship Him as they pleased and also live as they pleased. But God does not grade on the curve and He does not treat people according to the way they think is fair. But instead God always acts according to Himself and His own character and He always acts according to His perfect holiness and always does what He does to the glory of His own name. In this way we can see that God is centered upon Himself and His own glory. The living God who is focused and centered upon Himself is a far different god than the one that is made up and so man-centered in the modern world. The devil couldn’t do better in all of his deceitfulness than to replace the true God-centered God with one that is focused on man in the modern world. Could it be that we are as deceived as Israel was?
God Loves... Himself 
Leave a comment