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Transcript

Have You Prayed About Missions? · Reformed Thinking

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Picture yourself right now, just sitting at your kitchen table.
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Yeah, it's late at night. The house is totally quiet, and
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you have this massive map of the world spread out right in front
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of you. And you are just staring at it,
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feeling this, this agonizing weight in your chest.
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You've been reading through the Gospel of Matthew.
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You hit chapter 28. Great Commission.
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Yeah, the Great Commission. And you are feeling this
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intense, burning desire to take the gospel to people who have
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literally never heard the name of Jesus.
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But you're completely paralyzed. I mean, your mind is just
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spinning with questions. How do you know if God is
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actually calling you to go? Should you pack your bags, sell
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your car, and move across the ocean?
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Or you're supposed to stay right where you are, care for your
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aging parents, and just keep working your desk job.
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It's a heavy place to be. It is.
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You are terrified of making the wrong choice.
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You're terrified of going if God wants you to stay, and you are
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equally terrified of staying if God is commanding you to go.
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And that paralysis is honestly one of the most common crippling
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experiences for believers today. We are looking at an entire
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generation of Christians who really want to be obedient to
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the global mandate of the gospel.
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But they are, well, they're frozen by a modern crisis of
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spiritual discernment. Right, they want absolute
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certainty. Precisely.
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They want certainty, but they just do not know how to find it.
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Well, welcome to Reformed thinking.
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Today we are taking a deep dive into this whole concept of
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missionary calling and spiritual discernment.
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We are going to tackle this paralysis head on.
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Yeah, we are. We're looking at 2 specific
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texts today. One is called Have You Prayed
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About Missions? And the other is the sovereign
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altar. Both of these anchor their
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arguments in the classic commissioning of the prophet
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Isaiah right in Isaiah chapter 6.
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Such a massive text. Oh, absolutely.
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But before we get into the ancient world of the prophets,
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we really have to talk about the bad advice that is just
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constantly handed to that person sitting at the kitchen table.
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Right, the modern solutions. Yeah, when people look for
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guidance today, the modern church culture often hands them
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one of two incredibly flawed methods for figuring out their
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calling. The first one is what we might
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call pragmatic secularism. Yeah, Pragmatic secularism
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essentially treats the global harvest field like a corporate
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market. It borrows all of its wisdom
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from the business world. Like a Fortune 500 company.
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Spot on. Yeah.
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The idea is that we can evaluate a potential missionary or a
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calling through these cold calculating lenses of, you know,
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psychological profiling, demographic surveys, and social
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compatibility tests. Wow.
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So the advice you get from this camp boils down to gathering
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data. You survey the cultural trends
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in a specific country, you take a personality test to see if
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maybe you're an extrovert who can handle culture shock, and
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you calculate your likelihood of success before you make a move.
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It really does sound like a board of directors trying to
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decide where to open their next franchise location.
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Yes, exactly that. They sit around the table and
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say, well, let's check the demographics and the zip code to
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see if the franchise will be profitable.
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It treats the spread of the gospel like a math equation.
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If you have the right personality type and the target
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culture is receptive, boom, you have a calling.
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If the numbers don't look good, you just stay home.
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And that approach completely removes the supernatural element
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from the equation. It relies entirely on human
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wisdom. But then you have the complete
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opposite end of the spectrum, which is equally dangerous, and
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that is the method of subjective mysticism.
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Oh man. Subjective mysticism.
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That's where you are told to remain entirely passive until
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you receive this undeniable, miraculous sign.
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You're instructed to wait for an audible voice in the middle of
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the night. Or you are told to, you know,
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put out a fleece. Looking for some highly
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emotional personalized sign in the clouds or maybe in your
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morning coffee that guarantees God is pleased with your plan
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and that you will be successful? So the pragmatists tell you to
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calculate your odds of success based on sociology, and the
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Mystics tell you to wait for a customized miracle.
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And both of them leave you stuck.
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Both extremes leave the individual completely stuck.
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The pragmatist is stuck because the math of global missions
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never actually look safe or profitable from a human
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perspective. Right, it's inherently
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dangerous. Yeah, and the Mystic is stuck
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because the audible voice never comes and they end up spending
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their entire lives just waiting in the driveway with the engine
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running. So our thesis today is a massive
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course correction away from both of those errors.
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True calling is not forged in a corporate boardroom, and it is
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not found by waiting for a mystical shiver down your spine.
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Amen. True calling is forged on the
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anvil of text driven, scripture saturated prayer.
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It's an encounter with the living God through His written
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word that brings human autonomy, our desire to be in control,
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into absolute submission to God's decreed of will.
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Let's pause right there and unpack that phrase decreed of
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will. Yeah, please do.
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For a listener who might not be familiar with that theological
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category, God's decreed of will refers to His sovereign,
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overarching plan for all of human history.
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It is the reality that God has decreed whatsoever comes to
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pass, and His plans cannot be thwarted by human failures,
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geopolitical disasters, or the resistance of nations.
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Submitting to that will means we stop demanding to see the end
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from the beginning, and we bow to the one who actually holds
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the end from the beginning. I think about it like this.
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Relying on pragmatism or mysticism to find your calling
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is. It's like trying to navigate a
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really dark, dense forest using a faulty GPS unit that's only
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programmed to show you paved, comfortable, well lit roads.
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Oh, that's a great image. Right, the moment the road gets
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rocky or difficult, that faulty GPS just flashes, recalculating
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and tells you to turn around and go back to safety.
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If you want want to survive the forest, you have to roll down
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the window and throw that GPS out.
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Yeah. Get rid of it.
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You have to look up at the stars to find true north.
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You need a fixed point of reference that does not change
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based on your feelings or the terrain.
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And for the Christian, that true north is the sovereign holiness
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of God as he has revealed himself in Scripture.
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That hits the mark beautifully, and to find that true north
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today, we need to travel back to the 8th century BC.
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Let's go. We need to look at a specific
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moment of intense national and spiritual crisis in the southern
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Kingdom of Judah. This is the historical stage of
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Isaiah chapter 6. Let's set the stage, because the
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historical background here is not just, you know, Bible
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trivia. It is the entire reason the text
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hit so hard. The timeline is 740 BC.
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Isaiah Chapter 6 begins with this really specific, ominous
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timestamp in the year that King Uzziah died.
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Now, if you are just casually reading through the Bible on a
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Tuesday morning, you might gloss right over that.
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But for the people of Judah, King of Uzziah was an absolute
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Titan. He really was.
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Uzziah reigned over Judah for 52 years.
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Of two years. Stop and consider what 52 years
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of continuous rule feels like for a society that is more than
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half a century. It represents an entire era.
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Yeah, I mean, for the vast majority of the population alive
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in Judah at that moment, Uzziah was the only king they had ever
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known. Right.
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They couldn't even remember a time before him, and he was the
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architect of unprecedented national prosperity, massive
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military dominance and economic expansion.
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He was the anchor of their entire geopolitical stability.
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The historical accounts in Second Chronicles tell us that
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Uzziah built towers in Jerusalem.
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He dug cisterns. He had a massive, highly
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equipped army. I think the text says he had
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engines of war on the towers. Yeah, early artillery,
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essentially. And he completely defeated their
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regional enemies, the Philistines.
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He brought in agricultural wealth.
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The nation was booming. But it all comes crashing down
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in a horrific, really disgraceful way.
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The tragedy of Uzziah is that his prosperity bred A lethal
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arrogance. Man, it always does.
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Second Chronicles 26 records that when he became strong, his
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heart was so proud that he acted corruptly.
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He decided that being the king was not enough.
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He wanted to control the religious fear as well.
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He intruded into the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the
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altar. Now, this was an action in an
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office strictly reserved for the consecrated priests, the
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descendants of Aaron. It was a direct, blatant
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violation of the law of God. The priests actually confront
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him, right? Like 80 brave priests stand in
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his way and tell him to get out of the sanctuary.
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Yeah, they show incredible courage.
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But Uzziah gets angry. He has the censor in his hand,
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ready to burn the incense. And while he's literally raging
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at the priests, God strikes him with leprosy right there in the
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temple. The judgment is immediate and
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permanent. Leprosy erupts right on his
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forehead. The most powerful man in the
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nation, the architect of their golden age, is suddenly rendered
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ceremonially unclean. Wow.
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He's a social and religious outcast.
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He's forced to live the rest of his life in a separate house, in
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complete isolation until his dying day.
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His son Jotham has to take over the administration of the
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palace. That is just a staggering fall
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from grace. When Musiah finally dies.
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The geopolitical situation outside the borders of Judah is
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terrifying. Oh, it's a nightmare.
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You have the Assyrian Empire rising up in the north, led by a
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ruthless king named Tigleth Palaser the Third.
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The Assyrians were not just a strong army, they were a brutal,
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terror inducing war machine. Yes, they were known for
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skinning their enemies alive, deporting entire populations,
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and using this intense psychological warfare to break
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the will of the nations they conquered.
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They are this menacing shadow, growing larger every single day,
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ready to swallow up the smaller kingdoms.
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And internally, the situation in Judah is equally disastrous,
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even though it might have looked fine to the casual observer.
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Right, because on paper, they're still wealthy.
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Exactly. The people maintained a very
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strict outward religious formalism.
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They offered the required sacrifices, they tended the
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temple, they kept the feast days, and they recited the
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correct prayers. They lit the part.
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They did, but the first five chapters of the book of Isaiah
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ripped the mask off. That hypocrisy those afters
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exposes society drowning in systemic injustice, extreme
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greed, rebellion, and hidden idolatry.
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The Lord tells them through Isaiah that their hands are
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covered in blood even as they lift them up in prayer.
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So we have an empty throne, a looming foreign threat with the
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Assyrians, and a completely corrupt society.
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Here's my question thinking about how we read this text.
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If Uzziah was a leper living in isolation for years before he
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died, and the nation was already rotting from the inside out, why
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did God wait for the specific, literal moment of the King's
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death to give Isaiah this massive cosmic vision?
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That's the $1,000,000 question. Right.
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Why not give it to him five years earlier, when the
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Assyrians first started making noise?
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Because the contrast God is drawing is highly deliberate and
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honestly pastoral. Earthly kings, even the absolute
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best ones, the ones who reigned for 52 years and build massive
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economies, eventually fall. They succumb to their own pride,
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they contract incurable diseases, and they die in shame.
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Their Thrones sit empty and their nations panic.
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By waiting for the exact years of Ziah's death, God shatters
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the nationalistic complacency of Judah.
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He. Pulls the rug out from under
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them. Precisely, He waits until their
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earthly security blanket is ripped away.
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And precisely when the earthly throne in Jerusalem sits vacant
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and vulnerable, God pulls back the curtain and reveals his own
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throne high, lifted up and eternally occupied.
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It is a massive shift in perspective.
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It forces Isaiah to look away from the horizontal crisis, all
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the chaos around him, and stare at the vertical reality.
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The death of human security always forces a confrontation
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with divine sovereignty. Oh, I'll say that again.
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The death of human security always forces a confrontation
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with divine sovereignty. God is demonstrating to Isaiah,
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and by extension to the terrified people of Judah, that
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earthly instability does not threaten heavenly reality.
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The Lord is king regardless of who sits on the throne in
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Jerusalem and regardless of how many Chariots Tiglath Pulitzer
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is massing on the border. Think about how directly that
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applies to the anxieties of a listener.
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Today we look around at our own version of the Assyrians.
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We see global instability, political upheaval, economic
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crises, wars, cultural decay, you name it.
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Yeah, it's a mess out there. And the person operating from
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that pragmatic secularism mindset we talked about, they
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look at all the news headlines and say, well, this is a
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terrible time to consider missions.
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The geopolitical climate is too unstable.
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The economy is shaky. We need to stay home and build
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our own towers. Right.
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Wait for a better season. Yeah, but true biblical labor
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does not wait for a stable geopolitical climate.
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It rests entirely on the fact that the Lord is king over the
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chaos. That is the crucial take away
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from the historical context. The primary question for the
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prospective missionary is not does the current cultural age
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feel stable and welcoming? The primary question is, is the
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Lord reigning? God did not promise Isaiah
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popularity, ease, or a stable environment.
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He gave him a vision of sovereign holiness right in the
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middle of a collapsing society. Let's transition into that
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vision itself because this is where the text moves from
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history to a staggering theological reality.
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We are looking at verses one through 4 of Isaiah chapter 6.
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Isaiah is physically present in the Temple in Jerusalem, and the
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texts we are analyzing point out that the Temple was not just a
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religious theater for offering sacrifices.
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It was fundamentally designed to be a House of prayer.
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Yes, the Hebrew concept of the temple is the bet to Pilla, the
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House of prayer for all peoples, as Isaiah will later write in
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chapter 56. The entire sacrificial system,
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the incense, the altars, all of it was designed to facilitate
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communion between a holy God and a sinful people, and that
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communion is inherently a posture of prayer.
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So he's not just sightseeing. No, Isaiah is not just a passive
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bystander who accidentally stumbles into a cosmic display
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while he's out for a walk. He's occupying a position of
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deep humility and dependence in the place of prayer.
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And in this posture of prayer, what does he see?
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The text says he sees the Lord. The specific Hebrew word used
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here is adonai. Yes, Adonai.
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It's a title that highlights sovereign mastery and absolute
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authority, and Adonai is sitting on a throne, high and lifted up,
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and the train of his robe fills the entire temple.
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The visual description is staggering when you think about
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it. Yeah, tell us about the
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dimensions. Well, think about the physical
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dimensions of the Temple in Jerusalem.
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It was a massive, imposing stone structure, yet the hem of divine
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majesty, just the very bottom edge of God's royal garment, is
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so expansive that it completely overwhelms the sacred space.
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It fills everything. Exactly.
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There is no room for any other glory, no room for any human
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achievement. And standing above the throne
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are the Seraphim. The word seraphim literally
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translates to the burning ones, right?
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That is correct. These are fiery angelic
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ministers of the Divine Court, and their physical posture tells
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us volumes about the environment they are inhabiting.
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What do you mean? The text says each one has 6
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wings. They use two wings for flight,
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which indicates their constant hovering readiness to obey the
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commands of the king, but the other four wings are used for
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concealment. They use two wings to cover
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their faces, and they use two wings to cover their feet.
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Let's breakdown why they're covering themselves.
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Because these are sinless creatures.
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Yes, I always try to wrap my mind around this by thinking of
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a professional welder. Well, that's a good analogy.
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When a welder fires up in a settling torch, the light at the
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center of that flame is so blinding, so intense, that if
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you look at it with the naked eye, it will literally burn your
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retinas and blind you. Right, it's physically damaging.
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You have to wear a specialized, heavily darkened mask just to be
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in the general vicinity of the work.
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Are the seraphim covering their faces because the purity of God
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is like that welder's torch? Is the holiness so intense that
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it acts as a consuming force? That analogy captures the
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physical reality of the vision very well.
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The purity and the blazing light of God's unmitigated holiness is
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not just a moral category. It is a radiating, consuming
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force. Wow.
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These seraphim have never sinned.
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They have no guilt. Yet even as sinless celestial
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beings, they cannot gaze directly at the uncovered glory
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of their Creator. They require a shield, and
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covering their feet is an ancient symbol of absolute
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humility and creaturely reverence.
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So they know their place. They are intensely aware that
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while they are holy angels, they are still just creatures
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completely dependent on the one sitting on the throne.
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And as they are hovering, they're shielding themselves
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from the light they are calling out to one another.
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It's this alternating coral liturgy that shakes the
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foundations of the room. They cry.
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Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
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The whole earth is full of His glory.
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This is known as the tree saging, the threefold repetition
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of the word holy. Break that down for us the
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grammar of it. To fully grasp the weight of
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this, we need to understand a bit of Hebrew syntax.
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The Hebrew language does not have punctuation marks like
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exclamation points to show intensity.
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Right, no bold font or underline.
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Exactly. Instead they use repetition.
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The word used here is kadosh. If you want to say something is
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very holy, you would say kadosh, kadosh.
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But to say it three times, kadosh, kadosh kadosh is the
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absolute superlative. It is the highest possible
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elevation of a concept in their language.
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So it's not just saying God is morally pure, it goes deeper
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than that. Much deeper, the threefold
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repetition denotes ontological supremacy.
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OK, let's translate that term for our listeners.
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Ontology is the study of being or existence.
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Right. So when we say God has
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ontological supremacy, we mean his very category of existence
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is entirely different from ours. God is not just a magnified,
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slightly better, sinless version of humanity.
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He's not just the best guy in the room.
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No, He is wholly Other. He is infinitely separate from
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His creation, blazing in a perfection that we cannot fully
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comprehend. His Holiness is the attribute
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that defines all His other attributes.
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His love is a holy love. His justice is a holy justice.
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And the Seraphim don't just declare His Holiness, they
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declare that the whole earth is full of His glory.
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Think about the geopolitical situation we just discussed.
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The Assyrians are butchering people.
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Uzziah is dead. The people of Judah are corrupt.
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Yet the angels look down and declare that the earth is
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saturated with the glory of God. The God of Judah is not some
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tribal deity confined to the borders of the Middle East East,
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biting his nails over what the Assyrians are doing.
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Not at all. His glory is global and His
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authority is absolute. This brings us to a massive
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application for modern missions, which the text we are studying
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highlight beautifully. Today.
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So many missionary initiatives start entirely on the horizontal
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plane. Explain what you mean by that.
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To begin with cultural analysis, an organization will study a
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target demographic, figure out their own personal branding, and
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craft a snappy, culturally relevant presentation to try and
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market the gospel to a specific group.
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It's treating the Great Commission like an advertising
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campaign. The focus is entirely on the
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messenger and the audience. And that puts man at the dead
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center of the endeavor. But Isaiah 6 insists that any
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genuine outward movement, any true missionary labor, must
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begin with a crushing, majestic vision of theology proper.
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You have to look up first. Yes, you have to start by
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staring at the holiness of God until it shatters your own self
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importance. If a labor does not begin with a
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vision of the absolute holiness and sovereignty of God, they
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will inevitably make the mission about themselves.
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Right, because if you don't have that high view of God, what do
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you fall back on? You rely on your own competence,
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your own clever strategies, your own physical resilience and your
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own ability to persuade people. Exactly.
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You lean on your flesh. And when the work gets
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difficult, when the local government turns against you, or
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when you spend 10 years learning a language and nobody listens to
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you, that human foundation will completely crumble.
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You will burn out because your fuel source was your own ego,
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not the glory of God. The messenger must be broken
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before they can be sent. And that brings us to the
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inevitable, terrifying result of seeing this kind of holiness.
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We move into verse 5, which outlines the complete ruin of
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the messenger. This is where the scene goes
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from glorious to utterly terrifying.
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The text says the foundations of the thresholds are shaking at
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the voice of the seraphim. The house is filling with smoke,
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and Isaiah completely breaks down.
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He cries out. Woe is me, for I am undone.
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The Hebrew verb Isaiah uses for undone is nidmeti.
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It is a devastating word. What's it mean literally?
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It means to be cut off, to be physically destroyed, or to be
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reduced to absolute terrified silence.
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He realizes that his very existence is threatened by
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standing in the presence of this unmitigated holiness.
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He expects to be incinerated on the spot.
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I want to look at the literary genius of where this falls.
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In the book, we talked about how the 1st 5 chapters expose the
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corruption of Judah. Yes, in chapter 5 specifically,
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Isaiah acts as God's prosecuting attorney against the culture.
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He spends the entire chapter pronouncing woe on the society
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around him. He says woe to those who call
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evil good, woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, woe to
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those who acquire house after house.
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He's indicting them. Right, he is pointing the
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prophetic finger at the greed, the drunkenness, and the pride
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of his neighbors. But now in chapter 6, the moment
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he sees the Lord, that pointing finger turns violently inward.
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The third person condemnation of the culture immediately becomes
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a first person confession of total depravity.
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He stops looking at the sins of the people around him and looks
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directly at his own ruin. He cries out.
21:44
I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people
21:48
of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of
21:51
hosts. Now I have to ask a question on
21:54
behalf of the listener because this reaction feels shocking.
21:57
Isaiah is the prophet. He is the man chosen to deliver
22:00
God's mail to the nation. By all human metrics, he is one
22:04
of the good guys. Sure, he's the best of the best.
22:06
Right. He goes to the temple, He knows
22:08
the law, he preaches against sin.
22:10
Why is his reaction to seeing God one of absolute terror and
22:14
self condemnation? Why doesn't he?
22:16
If you feel a sense of joy or personal empowerment or some
22:19
validation for all his hard work, shouldn't he be thrilled
22:22
to see his boss face to face? It is shocking to our modern
22:25
sensibilities, but it is the only accurate response to the
22:29
divine nature. The principle here is that the
22:31
sight of God produces the truth about self.
22:34
That's heavy. When you spend your life
22:36
measuring yourself against other fallen human beings, it is
22:39
incredibly easy to feel self-righteous.
22:42
You can look at the corruption in society, the crime, the
22:44
greed, and think, well, I am certainly doing better than
22:47
them. I am a decent person.
22:48
We all do that. We do.
22:50
But when the blazing light of God's infinite pure holiness
22:53
falls upon you, all of those relative human comparisons
22:57
instantly disintegrate. Isaiah recognizes that his
23:00
fundamental nature is corrupt. And he focuses specifically on
23:03
his mouth. He doesn't say I have unclean
23:06
hands or I have unclean thoughts.
23:07
He says I'm a man of unclean lips.
23:10
Why does the Prophet zero in on his lips?
23:13
Because the mouth is the primary spiritual index of the heart.
23:16
Christ himself taught this principle in the Gospels when He
23:19
said that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speak.
23:22
Right, it just overflows. The words we produce are the
23:25
overflow of our internal state. For a prophet, the mouth is his
23:29
primary instrument of worship and his primary tool for labor.
23:33
If his lips are unclean, it means his core being is defiled.
23:37
The very instrument he uses to serve God is polluted by thin.
23:40
He recognizes his own total depravity.
23:43
Yes, he understands that he is utterly indisposed, disabled,
23:48
and opposed to any genuine spiritual good on his own merit.
23:52
This aligns perfectly with the historic Protestant
23:55
understanding of human nature. Before grace intervenes, there
23:59
is no part of the human person that remains untouched by sin.
24:03
Think about the massive warning this provides for anyone looking
24:06
to go into ministry or missions. A messenger who can clearly see
24:10
the sins of other cultures but remains blind to his own deep
24:13
uncleanness becomes incredibly dangerous.
24:15
Oh. Absolutely toxic.
24:17
If you pack your bags and go overseas with the underlying
24:19
assumption that you are bringing your Western competence, your
24:23
advanced education, and your moral superiority to save the
24:26
poor, needy people, you will be a disaster.
24:29
You'll be harsh, you'll be arrogant, and your ministry will
24:31
be entirely ineffective. You will end up preaching a
24:33
heavy burden of moralism instead of the liberating grace of the
24:36
gospel. True readiness for the mission
24:38
field or any spiritual labor requires the complete breaking
24:41
of human autonomy and self righteousness.
24:44
The missionary is not a superior specimen of humanity coming to
24:47
fix the ignorant. The missionary is simply a
24:50
rescued Sinner bearing the word of God to other sinners. 1
24:53
beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.
24:56
And that rescue, that finding of bread, is exactly what happens
24:59
next in the narrative. We move from the ruin of the
25:02
messenger to the sovereign altar and the coal of grace in verses
25:06
6 and seven. Isaiah standing there in the
25:09
smoke, completely undone, fully expecting the fire of God's
25:12
holiness to consume him. Right?
25:14
But instead of destruction, Grace initiates a rescue
25:17
mission. One of the seraphim flies to
25:19
him, and notice what the Angel is carrying.
25:22
The Angel takes a live coal. The Hebrew word is rispa, and he
25:26
takes it with tongs from the altar, The misbe.
25:28
And that's significant, right? The altar itself.
25:31
Highly significant. This specific detail is heavily
25:34
loaded with theological meaning. The altar in the temple is not a
25:37
fireplace. It is the place of blood
25:39
sacrifice. It is the specific location
25:42
where substitutionary victims, the lambs, the bowls, are
25:45
consumed by the fire of divine wrath to satisfy the justice of
25:48
God. So the fire is doing a job.
25:50
Yes. So the coal the Angel carries is
25:52
literally saturated with the theology of sacrifice and
25:56
atonement. The serif flies over, touches
25:58
Isaiah's trembling mouth with this burning coal, and declares,
26:01
Behold, this has touched your lips.
26:03
Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.
26:07
Let's really look into the mechanics of this cleansing
26:10
because it is crucial for our listeners to see who is doing
26:14
the work here. It is entirely passive for
26:16
Isaiah. Absolutely.
26:17
The theological term for this is monarchism.
26:20
Let's break that down for our listeners.
26:22
So mono means 1 and ergon means work.
26:25
It means God is doing 100% of the work of salvation and the
26:29
Sinner is contributing nothing. Wow.
26:32
Isaiah does not climb up onto the altar to prove his devotion.
26:35
He does not offer a frantic prayer of penance to try and
26:38
earn the coal. He does not pull out a checklist
26:40
of good deeds. He is completely helpless.
26:42
The purification comes down to him, sovereignly initiated by
26:45
God. He.
26:46
Just receives it. He just stands there.
26:48
Yes. The Hebrew verb used for atoned
26:51
for is tekupar, which carries the meaning of covering over or
26:55
making propitiation. His guilt is objectively removed
26:59
by the application of the sacrificial fire.
27:01
There is a stunning paradox here that I think we often miss
27:04
because we've heard the story so many times.
27:07
What's that? Well, fire, especially fire
27:09
taken directly from the altar of divine wrath, should by all
27:13
rights incinerate the unclean Sinner.
27:16
The wages of sin is death. When unholiness meets absolute
27:20
holiness, the unholiness should be destroyed.
27:23
That's the logical expectation. Right.
27:24
That burning coal should have burned right through his jaw and
27:27
killed him. But instead it is the very
27:29
instrument of his salvation. It heals him by burning away the
27:33
guilt. That paradox is the beating
27:35
heart of the Christian gospel. The fire of God's justice and
27:38
the provision of God's mercy meet at the altar.
27:41
And this brings us to the most vital Christological connection
27:44
in the entire passage. Yeah, let's go there.
27:46
We do not have to guess how this applies to the New Testament
27:48
because the apostle John provides the definitive lens for
27:51
interpreting Isaiah's vision. In John chapter 12, yes.
27:55
In John 12 verse 41, John quotes directly from this passage in
27:58
Isaiah 6, and then John adds this massive commentary.
28:02
Isaiah said these things because he saw His glory and spoke of
28:05
Him, and the hymn John is referring to in context is Jesus
28:10
of Nazareth. So the Lord sitting on the high
28:12
and lifted up throne, the Adonai that caused Isaiah to fall apart
28:16
is the pre Incarnate second person of the Trinity.
28:19
It is Jesus before Bethlehem. Precisely.
28:22
And if Christ is the Lord on the throne, then the altar points
28:24
directly to the cross of Calvary.
28:26
The burning coal from the altar is a picture of penal
28:29
substitution. OK, unpack that term.
28:31
That is another theological term that means Christ took the
28:33
penalty in our place on the cross.
28:36
Jesus Christ absorbs the consuming fire of God's holy
28:39
wrath in the place of the Sinner.
28:41
The justice of God is completely satisfied by the blood of the
28:44
Son, so that the Sinner can be forensically justified.
28:47
Let's define forensic justification for the listener
28:49
sitting at the kitchen table. Why does that matter to them?
28:52
Forensic justification is a legal term.
28:55
It means that God, acting as the Supreme Judge, legally declares
28:59
the Sinner to be not guilty and perfectly righteous.
29:02
But not because they clean themselves up.
29:04
No, not because the Sinner actually cleaned up their own
29:07
life, but because the perfect record of Christ is credited to
29:10
their account. The guilt is not just swept
29:13
under the rug or ignored, it is legally dealt with through a
29:17
substitute. Think about the immense weight
29:19
that lifts off the shoulders of someone who is agonizing over a
29:22
call to missions or ministry. So many people hesitate.
29:26
So many stay frozen at that kitchen table because they are
29:29
acutely aware of their own failures.
29:31
They feel disqualified. Yeah, they look at their track
29:33
record, their struggles with sin, their weak prayer lives,
29:37
and they think God could never use someone like me.
29:39
I need to spend the next five years getting my life perfectly
29:42
sorted out, conquering all my bad habits, and becoming a super
29:45
Christian before I can be a laborer in the harvest.
29:48
That underlying assumption, while it sounds humble, is
29:51
actually a denial of the gospel of grace.
29:54
If you wait until you are inherently worthy to go, you
29:57
will never leave your house. That's right.
29:59
The assurance we must give to the listener is this You do not
30:03
need to earn God's favor before taking action.
30:07
Biblical laborers do not go out into the dark places of the
30:10
world to earn God's love. They go out precisely because
30:14
they already possess God's favor through the finished work of
30:17
Christ. What a relief.
30:19
Your acceptance, your right to stand before God, rests entirely
30:22
on the righteousness and the blood of the mediator, not on
30:25
your own future missionary usefulness.
30:27
It completely frees you from the despair of never feeling good
30:31
enough, but the same time it frees you from the arrogance of
30:34
thinking you were God's gift to the unreached.
30:36
Yes, works both ways. You do not go out to prove how
30:39
great your faith is. You go out to declare how great
30:42
the grace of God is because you are a living recipient of it.
30:45
And once that grace is applied, once the burning coal touches
30:48
the lips and the guilt is removed, the entire posture of
30:51
the man changes. We move from the passive
30:54
reception of grace in verse 7 to the active, unreserved response
30:57
in verse 8. This is where we hear the divine
30:59
deliberation for the first time. In the vision, God speaks
31:03
directly about his mission. Isaiah hears the voice of the
31:06
Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?
31:09
Let's pause on that specific phrasing.
31:12
Whom shall I send and who will go for us?
31:14
That shift from the singular I to the plural us is a massive
31:19
theological hint, isn't it? It absolutely is.
31:22
Now we must be careful as interpreters not to read a fully
31:26
developed 4th century Nicene articulation of the Trinity back
31:30
into the minds of an 8th century BC audience.
31:33
Right, they didn't have all the categories yet.
31:34
However, reading canonical scripture with the lights turned
31:37
on by the New Testament, we recognize this plural pronoun as
31:40
a genuine glimpse into the triune nature of God.
31:44
The Culta mission is fundamentally A Trinitarian
31:46
endeavor. How so?
31:47
The Father sends the Son to accomplish redemption, the
31:50
Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit to apply redemption, and
31:53
the trying God sends the Church to proclaim redemption.
31:56
And when Isaiah hears this divine question hanging in the
31:59
smoky air of the temple, his response is instantaneous.
32:02
He says, Hineni Shilohini, here am I.
32:05
Send me. The Hebrew syntax of Hineni is
32:08
beautiful. It expresses unreserved
32:10
availability. It is the formal language of a
32:12
servant standing at attention before a master, offering total
32:16
presence with 0 preconditions. 0 preconditions.
32:20
That's key. Notice what Isaiah does not do.
32:23
He does not ask to see the destination first.
32:26
He does not ask for a map, a salary figure or retirement
32:29
plan, or a guarantee of physical safety.
32:31
He simply says, I am here. My lips are clean.
32:34
Send me. This response becomes even more
32:37
striking when we hold it up against other biblical figures
32:39
who were called by God. Look at Moses for example.
32:42
Oh, that's a brilliant contrast. Right, in Exodus chapters 3 and
32:46
4, God appears to Moses in the burning Bush and calls him to a
32:49
massive missionary task to go back to Egypt, face down
32:53
Pharaoh, and deliver the Israelites.
32:55
Moses is standing on holy ground interacting with the living God,
32:58
but his response is the exact opposite of Isaiah's.
33:01
Moses throws up five successive roadblocks.
33:04
Moses argues with the Creator. He says, Who am I to go to
33:07
Pharaoh? Then he asked, what is your
33:08
name? What do I tell them?
33:10
Then he doubts the audience. They will not believe me or
33:12
listen to my voice. Then he brings up his own
33:15
physical limitations. I am slow of speech and of
33:18
tongue. And finally, when he runs out of
33:20
excuses, he reveals his true heart.
33:22
Oh my Lord, please send someone else.
33:24
Moses looked inward at his own limitations and was completely
33:28
paralyzed by fear and self doubt.
33:31
He was evaluating the feasibility of the mission based
33:33
on his own perceived competence. But Isaiah, having just been
33:37
crushed by the reality of his own depravity and then radically
33:41
healed by the fire of the altar, does not look at himself at all.
33:44
He can't. There's nothing to look at.
33:45
He looks at the cleansed altar, he looks at the throne, and that
33:49
grace propels him forward. Grace always produces willing
33:52
availability. When human autonomy is broken by
33:55
the holiness of God and healed by the grace of God, the only
33:59
logical, rational response is surrender.
34:03
And it is this specific posture of surrender that prepares the
34:06
believer for providential redirection.
34:09
Let's make this tangible with a story.
34:11
The text we are looking at share a really compelling illustration
34:14
of what this wasn't like in the modern era.
34:16
It is the story of a missionary named Caleb Suko.
34:19
Ah yes, Caleb's story. When Caleb was 16 years old, he
34:22
heard a compelling presentation about the desperate spiritual
34:25
need in Togo, West Africa, and for years, Togo became the
34:29
absolute center of his universe. He studied the culture, he
34:32
prayed specifically for the people of Togo, and he
34:35
structured his entire education and life trajectory with the
34:38
goal of moving to West Africa. But the Lord had a different
34:41
map. Through years of text driven
34:45
submissive prayer, the kind of prayer that says here am I, send
34:48
me God slowly began to dismantle Caleb's personal preferences.
34:53
He closed the doors. The Lord subdued his initial
34:55
intense desires for Africa and providentially steered his steps
34:59
in a completely different geographical direction.
35:02
He eventually moved to Ukraine, where he spent decades laboring
35:06
in a completely different cultural context.
35:08
The natural human flesh despises that kind of uncertainty.
35:11
We demand a 40 year turn by turn map.
35:13
We want to know exactly what country we will live in, what
35:16
language we will be speaking, what our housing situation will
35:19
be and how the pension plan works before we take a single
35:21
step out the door. We want to be the CEO of our own
35:23
calling. Yeah, but the Spirit of God asks
35:26
us to take that incredibly detailed map, lay it on the
35:29
sovereign altar and watch it burn.
35:31
Because our prayers are not meant to act as a steering wheel
35:34
to alter God's eternal decrees. Rather, prayer is the mechanism
35:40
God uses to bend our fractured, anxious, controlling wills so
35:44
that they harmonize with His designs.
35:46
That's beautifully said. We lay our preconceived notions
35:49
of success on the altar, and we trust Him for the very next
35:52
step, resting in the knowledge that His providential ordering
35:56
of our lives is infinitely wiser and more effective than our most
36:00
brilliant strategic planning. Which brings us to a harsh
36:02
reality that a lot of modern churches and mission agencies
36:06
try very hard to sweep under the rug.
36:08
Verse 8 is highly marketable. Here am I Send me.
36:11
Oh yeah, it sells. We print that on coffee mugs, we
36:13
put it on youth group T-shirts, and we sing songs about it.
36:16
But the text does not stop at verse 8.
36:18
Verses 9 through 13 contain the actual job description God gives
36:21
to Isaiah and frankly, the job the description is absolutely
36:25
terrifying. It is what theologians refer to
36:27
as the hardening message. God accepts Isaiah's Commission,
36:32
but he gives the prophet no promise whatsoever of visible
36:36
success, mass conversions, or popular reception.
36:39
In fact, he guarantees the exact opposite.
36:43
The Lord tells Isaiah, Go and say to this people, keep on
36:46
hearing but do not understand. Keep on seeing, but do not
36:50
perceive. He tells him that his preaching
36:53
will actually make the hearts of the people dull, their ears
36:55
heavy and our eyes blind. The judgment.
36:58
Yes, the very message of salvation will act as an agent
37:02
of judicial hardening leading to national devastation.
37:05
I have to ask the hard question here because this flies in the
37:07
face of everything we are taught about ministry.
37:09
If the preaching of the Word is going to be widely rejected, and
37:12
if the delivery of the message is actually going to cause God's
37:15
judgment to fall heavier on the listeners by hardening their
37:17
hearts, how in the world do you measure success?
37:21
You don't use a spreadsheet, that's for sure.
37:23
If you take Isaiah's job description to a modern church
37:26
growth seminar or a missions board, they will tell you this
37:29
is a guaranteed recipe for total burnout, donor drop off, and
37:33
organizational failure. A pragmatic consultant would
37:35
tell Isaiah to immediately change his marketing strategy.
37:39
They would say your message is too harsh.
37:41
You need to soften the edges, make it more palatable, meet
37:44
their felt needs, and build a larger platform.
37:47
Give them what they want. But the biblical measure of
37:49
success is defined strictly and exclusively by obedience to the
37:53
text, not by visible metrics, conversion statistics, or
37:57
cultural popularity. The modern Western church has
38:01
really heavily absorbed a subtle form of the prosperity gospel
38:05
which assumes that if we are faithful and obedient, God is
38:08
obligated to reward us with full pews, massive influence and
38:12
cultural applause. We assume that faithfulness
38:15
automatically equals visible fruitfulness.
38:17
But God's Word never returns void.
38:19
It always accomplishes His sovereign purpose.
38:22
Sometimes that sovereign purpose is the salvation and gathering
38:25
in of the elect, and sometimes that purpose is the judicial
38:28
exposure and hardening of those who refuse to repent.
38:31
Sinners will always resist the light apart from the intervening
38:35
sovereign grace of God. Therefore, the missionary must
38:39
anchor their faith entirely in the objective written Word of
38:43
God, not in the immediate reaction of the audience.
38:45
And to survive that kind of rejection, you need a massive,
38:49
unshakable reliance on the closed Canon of Scripture.
38:53
We touched on the error of mysticism earlier.
38:56
The sources we are studying point out that modern laborers
38:59
do not have the Apostolic miracles to fall back on when
39:02
things get tough. They really don't.
39:04
If you are a missionary today, you cannot instantly speak an
39:07
unlearned indigenous language to prove your authority, you cannot
39:10
heal the sick in the village square to draw a crowd, and you
39:13
are not getting extra biblical dreams telling you which
39:15
specific town to visit next. Operating from what is called a
39:19
cessationist framework, which is the theological understanding
39:22
that the miraculous revelatory sign gifts of the systolic era
39:27
have ceased because the foundation of the Church has
39:29
been laid, we understand that the 66 books of the Bible are
39:32
the sole, complete, insufficient rule of faith and practice.
39:35
They are enough. Think about the reality of the
39:37
feel when a laborer is dealing with severe language barriers,
39:42
intense geographic isolation, physical illness, and the
39:45
absolute spiritual apathy of the culture around them.
39:49
Subjective emotional highs will evaporate within the first six
39:52
months. Oh, Week 1?
39:53
Probably, yeah. The only thing that will sustain
39:56
a person's sanity and calling in that environment is a faith that
39:59
is deeply fortified in the secret place of prayer, anchored
40:03
relentlessly to the objective written promises of God.
40:07
And even in the midst of this severe, terrifying judgement of
40:10
hardening, God does provide a promise for Isaiah to anchor his
40:14
soul to. The chapter concludes with a
40:16
glimmer of hope. God tells Isaiah that the land
40:19
will be devastated. Cities will be laid waste
40:21
without inhabitant. It will be like a massive oak
40:24
tree that is chopped down and burned, but a stump will remain
40:28
in the burned field. Yes, the text calls it the Zero
40:30
Kodesh, the Holy Seed. Even in the absolute severity of
40:34
national judgement in exile, God preserves his covenant promise.
40:38
He doesn't wipe them out completely.
40:39
The redemptive lineage of the Messiah will not be annihilated
40:42
by the Assyrians or the Babylonians.
40:44
The stump survives. The hope of the biblical
40:47
missionary is not rooted in immediate statentics or rapid
40:50
cultural transformation. It is rooted in God's
40:53
unbreakable, preserving promise. Christ will build his church,
40:58
and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
41:01
That brings us to the practical daily outworking of all this
41:04
massive theology we have talked about the throne, the altar, the
41:07
hardening. How do we actually apply this
41:10
kind of text driven, submissive prayer in our own lives today?
41:14
How does the person at the kitchen table move forward?
41:17
We have to look at our prayer closets.
41:19
Yeah, the texts we are studying quote JC Rile, the 19th century
41:23
English Bishop and theologian. Rile had a brilliant diagnostic
41:26
test. He called a person's prayer life
41:29
the weather glass of their soul. Weather glass or barometer
41:33
measures atmospheric pressure to indicate what kind of weather is
41:36
coming. Rao was pointing out that your
41:38
private prayer life is the most accurate diagnostic tool for
41:41
your spiritual health. You inevitably pray for the
41:44
things that dominate your affections.
41:46
If you want to know what a local church or an individual
41:49
Christian truly treasures, do not look at their doctrinal
41:52
statement. Look at their prayer life.
41:55
If there's a cold, persistent indifference toward the global
41:58
advancement of the Gospel, it is because there is a systematic
42:02
neglect of intercession in the secret place.
42:05
And when you look at the landscape of the church today,
42:08
the statistics of indifference are staggering.
42:10
The data from the Joshua Project, which tracks global
42:13
evangelization, is a massive wake up call.
42:15
The numbers are heartbreaking. We are talking about roughly
42:18
16,500 distinct ethnic people groups in the world.
42:23
Out of those, over 7000 are classified as unreached people
42:27
groups, meaning there is no viable self-sustaining church
42:31
presence among them. To put that in perspective, that
42:34
represents over 43% of the entire global population.
42:37
We are talking about more than 3.59 billion individual human
42:41
beings who have virtually no access to the gospel of Jesus.
42:44
Christ 3.59 billion. They do not have a Bible in
42:47
their language. They do not have a neighbor who
42:49
is a Christian, and they will live and die without ever
42:51
hearing the name by which they must be saved.
42:54
And when you look at how the modern church deploys its
42:57
resources and its laborers, the imbalance is an absolute
43:00
indictment. The ratios are heartbreaking.
43:04
Right now there is roughly one active Protestant missionary for
43:07
every 405,000 Muslims. Think about that ratio.
43:11
There is one for every 260,000 Buddhists, one for every 179,000
43:16
Hindus. Yet, incredibly, 74% of the
43:19
global missionary labor force goes to nominally Christian
43:23
areas, ministering to roughly 2 1/2 billion people who already
43:27
have at least some access to the truth.
43:30
We are sending the vast majority of our laborers to places where
43:33
the light is already shining while billions sit in absolute
43:36
darkness. The root cause of this massive
43:39
imbalance is not a lack of money or a lack of travel
43:42
infrastructure. The cause is a profound lack of
43:45
agonizing, scripture driven prayer.
43:48
We're just not praying. We have substituted the
43:50
strategic planning of the boardroom for the spiritual fire
43:53
of the prayer closet. If a local church can look at
43:56
those numbers, 3.59 billion souls, and feel nothing, it is
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because they do not pray for the unreached by name, they do not
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pray against their own comfort, and they do not pray against
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their own financial security. I think of prayer like a bellows
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for a fire. If you have a fireplace, your
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intellectual knowledge of theology, your sound doctrine,
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is like a smoldering log. It has potential, it has heat,
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but it is not doing much to light up the.
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Room, right? It's just sitting there.
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Prayer is the bellows. When you pump the bellows, it
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forces the oxygen of the Holy Spirit directly into the wood,
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igniting that Orthodox theology into a blazing, consuming
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passion for the lost. You simply cannot pray for 3.59
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billion unreached souls every single day and remain
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indifferent to their eternal state.
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It is spiritually impossible. Because prayer aligns your
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affections with the heart of Christ.
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When Jesus looked at the multitudes, He had compassion on
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them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without
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a shepherd. And this passion, ignited by
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prayer, must be ordered and directed by the wisdom of the
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local church. The application of Isaiah 6 is
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not that isolated individuals should just buy a plane ticket
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to the Middle East in a sudden burst of zealous emotion.
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Right, there are no self appointed lone wolf freelancers
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in the New Testament. The model for this is found in
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Acts chapter 13 with the church at Antioch.
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Look at the environment in Antioch.
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The prophets and teachers are worshipping the Lord, fasting
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and praying. It is not an individual making a
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unilateral decision. It is the corporate body seeking
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the Lord together, and it is in that context of corporate prayer
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that the Holy Spirit speaks through the church leadership
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and says, set apart for me, Barnabas and Saul for the work
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to which I have called them. The local elders examine their
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doctrine, their character, and their readiness, and the church
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lays hands on them and sends them out.
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The local church recognizes the calling, tests the calling,
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equips the laborers and commissions them.
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Submission to God's calling always includes submission to
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God's ordained leadership in the local church.
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If you are sitting at that kitchen table and you resent
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your elders, or if you refuse to submit to the discipline of your
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local body, or if you flat out refuse to minister across the
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street to your own neighbors, you have absolutely no business
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crossing an ocean to try and plant a church in a foreign,
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hostile culture. Present daily obedience is the
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primary testing ground for future global deployment.
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If you are not faithful with the small things in your own city,
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you will not be faithful with the monumental things in a
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foreign land. We have covered a massive amount
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of theological and practical ground today.
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Let's summarize the progression we have traced through Isaiah
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chapter 6 because it really does act as the ultimate blueprint
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for discerning a call. It all starts with beholding
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God's sovereign holiness, looking past the geopolitical
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chaos and sing the Lord high and lifted up on the throne.
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And that sight immediately leads to confessing our total
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depravity, realizing that our lips and our hearts are unclean
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and that we deserve judgement. Then comes the passive reception
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of grace from the altar, where the substitutionary atoning work
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of Christ completely removes our guilt.
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Only after we are cleansed do we offer our unreserved
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availability saying here am I send me without demanding.
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And finally, we anchor our faith firmly in the closed Canon of
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Scripture, ready to endure difficult obedience, rejection,
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and hardening, while trusting entirely in God's promise to
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preserve His holy seed. It is a complete reorientation
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from how the world operates. And sadly, it is a reorientation
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from how much of the modern church operates.
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It is not about taking a personality test to find your
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platform. It is about bowing in the dust
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before the King of Glory. And that brings me to a final
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thought for you, the listener, to chew on long after this audio
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ends. We discussed how Jesus Christ
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Himself is the ultimate fulfillment of this entire
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passage. He is the pre Incarnate Lord
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sitting on the throne, receiving the shielded worship of the
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blazing Seraphim. He is the sacrifice on the
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altar, absorbing the fire of wrath to take away the guilt of
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the world. And He is the ultimate
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messenger, the sent One who left the glory of heaven and
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perfectly obeyed the Father, declaring, Lo, I have come to do
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your will, even knowing that obedience would lead to a cross.
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So here is the question I want to leave you with as you look at
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that map on your table, when you finally close your eyes, shut
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out the noisy demands of pragmatic spreadsheets, ignore
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the desire for mystical signs in the clouds, and actually lay
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your personal life map on that sovereign altar.
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Are you prepared for the possibility that the King might
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ask you to walk across the street in obscure, quiet
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obedience long before he ever asks you to cross an ocean?
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Keep your Bibles open, keep your knees bent, and trust the Lord
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of the harvest. Thank you for joining us on this
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deep dive.