Ministry During Times of Rejection

If you have a copy of the Scriptures with you, please turn with me to Isaiah 6:8-13. In our time in the word together today, we are going to being taking a look at chapters 5 & 6. For now, as we turn our attention to the Word of God, lets read Isaiah 6:8-13 together (READ).

Pray with me please.

In the passage before us this morning, we find the Prophet Isaiah at what is commonly known as his “commissioning”. Many of the O.T. prophets give an account of their own commissioning.

Isaiah’s commissioning is a bit different though.

When Jeremiah was commissioned, he gives a specific date—> Jeremiah 1:1-3 “The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the exile of Jerusalem in the fifth month.”

Ezekiel gives a specific date as well —> Ezekiel 1:1-3 “Now it came about in the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was by the river Chebar among the exiles, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. (On the fifth of the month in the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s exile, the word of the Lord came expressly to Ezekiel the priest, son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and there the hand of the Lord came upon him.)”

But Isaiah’s is simply, “In the year of King Uzziah’s death...” This specific king’s death signified much of what the overall life was like in the 8th Century B.C. Kingdom of Judah.

King Uzziah reigned for 52 years. This provided stability and security. Much of the population did have another king. To put it in perspective, there were around 7 kings in the Northern Kingdom while Uzziah was reigning in Judah.

His long reign seemed to indicate that God’s blessing was upon the Southern Kingdom and that He was pleased with them.

They were a military powerhouse. 2 Chronicles 26:11-15.

They had great economic blessing. 2 Chronicles 26:8-10.

His reign would end in a mess of his own making though. As he gloated about his success, and 2 Chronicles 26:16-19 “But when he became strong, his heart was so proud that he acted corruptly, and he was unfaithful to the Lord his God, for he entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. Then Azariah the priest entered after him and with him eighty priests of the Lord, valiant men. They opposed Uzziah the king and said to him, “It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord, but for the priests, the sons of Aaron who are consecrated to burn incense. Get out of the sanctuary, for you have been unfaithful and will have no honor from the Lord God.” But Uzziah, with a censer in his hand for burning incense, was enraged; and while he was enraged with the priests, the leprosy broke out on his forehead before the priests in the house of the Lord, beside the altar of incense.”

Rather than recognizing the blessings from the Lord, knowing that it all came from Him, Uzziah rejected the Word of God and sought to take part in the sacrificial system that he was forbidden to. Which left him a leper the rest of his days.

The death of this king was a keen reminder of the judgment of God upon sin, and that no one, including a king, is outside His reach.

This message of judgment would become the theme of the Prophetic Ministry that Isaiah would have.

Let’s take a short glimpse of what life was like in Isaiah’s time as he was to preach judgment. As we do, we can see similarities to the difficulties in our own time.

Look over with me at Isaiah 5; in this passage we’ll see a selection of 8 “woes” pointing to the sins of the society of the time. (Read verse 8, and comment on “woe”—> Oy! Onomatopoetic devise signifying shock, and the a warning of danger.)

vv. 8-10. We see the gross materialism of taking more and more land to where you are alone and cannot see your neighbor. This is different from the farms and fields of today, in that these people were purchasing the Birthright land from other Israelites, and not returning it to the families when they were required to on the year of jubilee.

The judgment would be that the fields wouldn’t yield the crop that was expected.

Watching a moment of TV, or even trying to research what is the best baby stuff, will show you that life is about accruing a bunch of things.

the goal of society is not to be wealthy anymore; it is to look wealthy.

vv. 11-12. We see the pursuit of pleasure above all else. To the point that they neglect to be a part of and care for the Work of the Lord. They pursue “what is best for them” apart from recognizing the One True God.

Everything is made for ease nowadays. How many streaming services are there? How many grocery delivery services are there? Bottled water was invented in the 1950’s. Before then you had to find your own! One of the most common excuses for lack of church attendance is “I don’t have enough time”. What is your screen time like on your phone? Why do we neglect the things of the Lord?

vv. 18-19. The people were parading about in their sin. They no longer were ashamed for their sin anymore. Verse 19 shows us that they were mocking the Lord, essentially saying, “We’ll believe the Lord’s judgment when we see it.”

Romans 1:32 gives us vivid picture of this: they do the same and give hearty approval of that gross immorality.

v. 20. This is moral relativism or the reversal of morality. Which in all reality is a rejection of God’s Law, of His Word (look at verse 24).

v. 21. Rejection of all authority, including God’s, and following after what they think is best.

We’ve begun “living after our own truth”.

v. 22. Bribed verdicts passed down by drunken judges. This is justice given to the highest bidder, not blind justice as it should be. (Deut. 1:16-17.)

Justice is no longer about right verses wrong. Justice now has to have a qualifier: Social Justice, Climate Justice, etc. If you go against these, you are canceled, doxed, or assaulted in public.

Remember, that Isaiah is speaking of God’s judgment against His Chosen People! These People haven been given the Oracles of God, and the Promises, as Paul says in Romans 9.

Its easy to blame the godlessness of the age to the tyranny of Satan and the nearness of the end of the age. It may even be easy to blame the waning influence of Christianity on the immense darkness that has been bred out of modernism & postmodernism.

Even though that is true, it is undeniable that the Universal Church has become preoccupied with worldly things and has wandered off mission.

We too, like Israel, have wandered into gross syncretism, combining worldly things, and even at times pagan spirituality with Christian thought. We have wandered from the altar of God, into the High Place of Self-worship.

That is seen most evidently in our worship music; which has turned from God-exalting, theologically permeated masterpieces, to repetitious, mind-numbing, self-congratulatory pep talks.

Our message to the world, rather than focusing on the looming judgment of God, and the ONE way to be reconciled to Him, has become how to be fulfilled in this life and how to love yourself and be “self-actualized”.

How, then, do we prepare to minister in this world that rejects the One and Only true God? How do we prepare to preach judgment in a world that mocks anything Biblical?

We’ll see three things from Isaiah’s commission that we need to remember, as we minister in this age of rejection:

1. Remember The Powerful Sovereignty of the Lord (6:1)

Look at Isaiah 6:1. (Read). The king is dead, but the King of kings is still on the throne of the universe, exercising His will in all things.

As Isaiah we in the Temple in the year that the king died, he was caught up into the heavenly Temple, where he saw that the Lord was enthroned.

This is no accident. This is supposed to be a striking picture that even if all things political are going haywire, God is still on His throne.

This was very similar to Daniel in Daniel 7:9-14.

After he had just received a vision about 4 Beasts, who were 4 empires that would reign over Israel in some capacity, God gives him a vision of both the Ancient of Days on the throne, as well as the Son of Man, being given an everlasting Kingdom.

This is even after Daniel praised God for His divine Sovereignty: Daniel 2:20-21.

Revelation 1:12-20. The Lord knows.

No matter the times or the Epochs, God is sovereign. He is not left unaware of what is going on here.

in fact, even as we sit in a country that is ripe for judgment, we can trust that, as Isaiah 5:16 says “But the Lord of hosts will be exalted in judgment, And the holy God will show Himself holy in righteousness.”

The response the message that Isaiah was to preach is not up to him, but up to God (Look at Isaiah 6:9-10).

What we see here is what is known as a “Judicial Hardening.” This is where God renders the hearts of those who reject Him insensitive to the Message that is being preaching. This is a part of the judgment of God.

Famously it was done with Pharaoh, as Moses brought the messages from the Lord, Pharaoh continuously hardened his heart toward the messages from the Lord, and in the end, we see this in Exodus 11:10 “Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh; yet the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the sons of Israel go out of his land.”

Look at John 12:36-43. We see a couple of things here:

We see John apply this judicial hardening verse (v. 10) from Isaiah 6 to Jesus and the Jewish People of His day.

John says in verse 40 that is was Jesus that was blinding the hearts of the Pharisees, so that they couldn’t believe.

John also says that Isaiah saw Jesus’s glory in verse 41. Jesus was the One enthroned in Isaiah’s vision.

Not only has He ordained that people would be unwilling to repent, but He has ordained that there will be those that will be saved. Look at Isaiah 6:13.

This “tenth” and “holy seed” are the remnant that always will be faithful to the Lord. (More on that in a little bit.)

2. Remember The Piercing Holiness of the Lord (6:2-7)

It is hard to stress the importance of this passage enough. We see the Seraphim above, singing perpetually “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of Hosts, the Whole earth is full of His glory.”

It has been said that this is recognizing the Trinity: Holy is the Father, Holy is the Son, Holy is the Spirit…while that could be the case, another understanding seems to be implied here. We are confronted with the utter holiness of the Lord Here.

These Seraphs, although unfallen, pure, and holy angels, are in the presence of the Lord unable to look at Him while they sing.

Their other wings, were covering feet, recognizing their lowly creaturehood in the presence of their immense, high, and holy God, even while they were serving Him.

This repeat is to point to His absolute holiness. It is repeated to show how comprehensive His holiness is to His character.

Ezk. 21:27 “‘A ruin, a ruin, a ruin, I will make it. This also will be no more until He comes whose right it is, and I will give it to Him.’” This shows how comprehensive the judgment would be against Israel until the Messiah would come.

God’s holiness affects every bit of His character.

Everything He does is holy.

God’s holiness deals with more than His “moral character”.

it points to how unlike His creation He actually is. There is an utter difference between Him and us, in that He is, and we come from Him.

It points to how He doesn’t need His creation to survive, yet He sustains it all!

Yet His creation rebelled against Him, and would rather worship the creation rather than the Creator, Who is blessed forever, Amen.

Remembering the Holiness of the Lord, reminds us that we only deserve the judgment that we preach.

A lot is said about “judgment” these days:

“Only God can judge me” is a quote in many popular songs of licentiousness.

The only phrase of Scripture that the world seems to be able to quote nowadays is the King James Matt. 7:1, “Judge not lest ye be judged.”

As we preach judgment of sin, we must first recognize our own sinfulness before such a high and Holy God!

We see Isaiah do just that, as he says, “Woe is me!” The same word that he used as he prophesied against Israel’s sin in the previous chapter he uses for himself!

He then identifies Himself with the People of Judah.

The same judgment we preach is the very judgment we fled to Christ for. Were it not for Christ, we would be nothing.

The very love that Christ showed us on the Cross, by taking our the judgment that is rightly ours, is the very place we are warning this world to flee to because the wrath of God is storing up and is about to spill over.

The only way to be a minister for the Lord of Hosts, is to be cleansed by Him.

The vision of the heavenly altar is typified in the Sacrificial System.

There were cleansing sacrifices for everything.

Touching dead bodies.

Touching Gentiles.

The end of Menstrual Cycles.

Sin.

Service

It would seem that Isaiah was cleansed here for service, and not for salvation, because this is where he prophetic ministry began, and he was likely already saved.

I am not sure, either way, however, he was cleansed and prepared for service to the Lord.

We are utterly corrupted by sin, and need our savior to cleanse us

As we are serving the Lord, we need to be aware of our complete inability to do anything apart from Him.

We should be overwhelmed by His majesty. We’ve just seen it, as His glory fills the earth.

3. Remember The Prophetic Mission (6:8-13)

After being confronted by the immense sovereignty and absolute holiness of the Lord Isaiah receives the commission from the Lord (Read Isaiah 6:8-13).

It is God’s design to use a human messenger to take the message to His People.

Notice the way the Lord asks: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Similar to Genesis 1:26, we see a glimpse of the Trinity here!

Isaiah’s reply is one of faith and service.

After being cleansed by this sovereign and holy God, Isaiah is compelled to say “Hineni” or “Here am I!”

What else can we do but serve our magnificent God?

We’ve already see the message that God would have him preach, the message of coming judgment, a message that God uses to sovereignly divide humanity between those that reject Him and those that repent.

Look with me over at Isaiah 1.

Isaiah 1:7-20.

God offers grace if they would repent of their sin.

Isaiah 66:1, 2.

God is seeking the contrite heart.

Our message is similar, if not the same: turn with me to 1 Corinthians 1:18-25.

v.18—> The message we preach is “the word of the cross”.

Christ died to save sinners from the wrath of God against their sin.

This message splits those that reject and those that repent.

foolishness to those that are in the process of perishing

the power of God to those that are in the process of being saved.

vv. 26-30—> Our message is not of our own making or designs.

God has done this so that He receives all power and glory.

Conclusion:

In closing, turn with me to Luke 8:8, 9, 16-21.

Our response to the light of the Word of God is key.

He who has ears to hear, let Him hear.

We are going to close with Hymn #589, “Here I am, Lord”.