Words'nTone

“Send me.” First, we like the idea of God talking directly to us.  So preachers know that if they personalize a text, you know, placing your name in the text or in this case, trading Isaiah for you, then they’ve got us—got our attention and have made us seem as important as, say, an Old Testament prophet.  So we have here, instead of God interacting with Isaiah, we have Him addressing me, Chip.  And I hear the text differently than what was originally given:

In the year of President W Bush’s last year in office, I, Chip, saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.” And the foundations of the culture and congress trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the church was filling with smoke. Then I, Chip, said, “Wow God is speaking directly to me.  I am something special.  Not everyone gets this experience!” Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and now, you are forgiven and very special and a prophet of God.” Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I, Chip, said, “Here am I. Send me!”

Yes, we get all sentimental about seeing ourselves “in the text,” replacing the prophet for us.  And I know, this is hard to take, for so many missionaries responded to the call to the mission field because someone explained the text of Isaiah 6 in this way.  But that does not make it any more correct or proper.

We like the first set of verses—they can be made so personal.  And the “sending” can be adventurous, noble, extraordinary, honoring…but it’s the next set of verses that tell us what the sending is for.  These verses don’t make it sound promising.  The prophet is going to be humiliated—and as we know about Isaiah’s history, he will be sawn in two (cf. Hebrews 11:37).

“He said, ‘Go, and tell this people: “Keep on listening, but do not perceive; keep on looking, but do not understand. Render the hearts of this people insensitive, their ears dull, and their eyes dim, otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and return and be healed”’” (Isaiah 6:9-10).

God does not intend a huge return on this investment in terms of numbers.  In fact, the message was intended to cause the hardening of people’s hearts.  And then Isaiah (the one God is actually addressing here) asked, “Lord, how long?” How long will I have to proclaim this hard and harsh message where no one returns to You? And the promise is given, “Until cities are devastated and without inhabitant, houses are without people and the land is utterly desolate…” Tough verses.  Harder to find a joy in ministry.  The actual “sending” doesn’t seem as self-aggrandizing at this point.

So you see, we like to personalize (and preach) the verses that make for good feelings of importance.  It is harder to see this in the tough verses—so we ignore them, take them out of the text, so we can do as we please with the nice verses.  This is not only poor exegesis of Scripture, it is disingenuous and, really, deceitful to those we are preaching to.

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