CALLED DURING CRISIS

By Rev. Richard Jones

rec 07-19-20

CALLED DURING CRISIS

Isaiah 6: 1-13

THE CALL OF ISAIAH   Isaiah 6: 1

 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 

THE CONDITION OF ISAIAH   Isaiah 6: 2-5

Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. ³ And one called 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 shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. ⁵ And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

THE CLEANSING OF ISAIAH   Isaiah 6: 6-7

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. ⁷ And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

THE COMMISSION OF ISAIAH   Isaiah 6: 8-10

 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” ⁹ And he said, “Go, and say to this people: “”˜Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.”™¹⁰ Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”

Isaiah 55: 6-11

“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near;
⁷ let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. ⁸ For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. ⁹ For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your way sand my thoughts than your thoughts. ¹⁰ “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, ¹¹ so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Ezekiel 33: 10-11

 “And you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, Thus have you said: ”˜Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we rot away because of them. How then can we live?”™ ¹¹ Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?

THE CONCERN OF ISAIAH   Isaiah 6: 11-12

Then I said, “How long, O Lord?” And he said: “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant,
and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste, ¹² and the Lord removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.

THE CERTAINTY OF ISAIAH   Isaiah 6: 13

And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled.” The holy seed is its stump.

(The application is that God has called us also, during a time of national crises, to share His message with our generation.)