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GOD’S URGENT CALL

 So High, So Unworthy, So Fitting – Isaiah

Introduction.  Some calls come quietly. A nudge in prayer. A burden that will not lift. Other calls come like an earthquake and leave a person standing in a different room than the one they entered.

Isaiah’s call was the second kind.

Today we come to the sixth message in our series, God’s Urgent Call. We have been tracing the way God summons people—not as a polite invitation to religious activity, but as a holy claim upon a life. Today’s text is one of the most famous throne-room scenes in Scripture, and one of the most honest. Isaiah does not begin with a résumé. He begins with a ruin. Only after the Lord deals with him does he say the words that have echoed through the church: “Here am I. Send me!”

The year is about 740 B.C. Judah has just lost King Uzziah. For fifty-two years he had given the nation strength and a sense that the old order would hold. Then pride entered the temple. He tried to do what only priests were allowed to do, and God struck him with leprosy. He finished his days isolated and unclean. When he died, the throne on earth looked empty. Assyria was rising. It was a year for anxiety.

Into that year God pulled back the veil.

What Isaiah saw was not a dead king but the living King. Not a leadership vacuum but a throne that had never been vacant. The passage moves with a holy logic. First the Lord is so high that the prophet can barely stand the sight. Then Isaiah discovers that he is so unworthy that he can barely stand himself. Then the Lord does something so fitting that a ruined man becomes a sent man.

That is still the pattern of an urgent call: high view of God, honest view of self, fitting grace that sends.

So high.

The exalted Lord, Isaiah 6:1.

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.  (Isaiah 6:1 | TNIV)

Notice the contrast. An earthly king has died. The heavenly King is seen. Uzziah’s robe had been folded and put away. The Lord’s robe is so vast that its train fills the temple. Uzziah’s throne could be inherited, contested, or emptied. This throne is high and exalted. No successor is required.

Isaiah says, “I saw the Lord.” The word used here is Adonai, the sovereign Master. Later he will name Him the Lord Almighty, Yahweh of hosts, the God who commands the armies of heaven. The vision is not first about Isaiah’s job description. It is about God’s glory. Before there is a mission there is a Majesty.

We live in an age that shrinks God without meaning to. We talk about Him as if He were a resource for our plans or a chaplain for our emotions. Isaiah will not let us do that. The Lord is high. He is not one more actor on the human stage. He is exalted. He is not waiting for our vote. He is seated. The government of the universe is not in crisis, even when the government of Judah is.

The temple was the place where heaven and earth were said to meet. Isaiah sees that meeting from the inside. The train of the robe is a picture of overflowing sovereignty. There is no unused corner where human pride can still pretend to be in charge. The vision answers Uzziah’s pride with a simple fact: the temple is already full. It is full of the King.

Some of you have come with an empty chair in your mind—a loss, a change of leadership, a nation that feels unsteady. Isaiah’s first word is not “try harder.” It is “look higher.” The year a king dies is still the year the King reigns.

Heralds of the Holy, Isaiah 6:2, 3.

Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. [3] And they were calling to one another:   “Holy, holy , holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”  (Isaiah 6:2, 3 | TNIV)

Around the throne are seraphim, a word related to “burning.”  These are blazing attendants of the Holy One. Each has six wings, and the use of those wings is a sermon by itself. Two cover the face: even sinless creatures cannot stare at God as if He were a spectacle. Two cover the feet: even their going is veiled in humility. Two are used for flight. Worship and work are not opposites here. They are the same motion.

They call to one another. This is holiness answering holiness. And the content of the cry is the most concentrated description of God in the Old Testament. Not “mighty, mighty, mighty,” though He is mighty. Not “loving, loving, loving,” though He is loving.  It is “Holy, holy, holy.”

Hebrew repeats a word to strengthen it. Holy, holy, holy is the superlative. Only here in the Old Testament is an attribute of God raised to the third power like this. In Revelation the living creatures take up the same song. Holiness is not one item on a list of divine qualities. It is the blazing center from which all His other perfections shine. His love is holy love. His justice is holy justice. His power is holy power.

Then comes the second line, easy to miss because the first is so famous: “the whole earth is full of his glory.” Holiness is what God is. Glory is holiness going public. The earth is not a neglected province. It is already full of the display of who He is. The tragedy is not that God is absent from the world. The tragedy is that the world is blind to the glory that fills it.

A religion that treats God as a private comfort cannot survive this song. Neither can a religion that treats service to Him as an optional department. If the whole earth is full of His glory, then every street, classroom, kitchen, and hard conversation is already claimed territory. The question is not whether God is there. The question is whether anyone will say so.

The seraphim cover their faces and still they cannot stop speaking. Reverence does not silence praise. It fuels it. If the first movement of an urgent call is “so high,” then the first work of a congregation is to recover height. We will not be useful to God on the earth until we have been undone by the God who fills heaven.

So unworthy.

An overwhelming scene, Isaiah 6:4, 5.

At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. [5] “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”  (Isaiah 6:4, 5 | TNIV)

The song angels is not background music. It has architectural consequences. Doorposts shake. Thresholds tremble. Smoke fills the house. In Scripture smoke and cloud mark the overwhelming presence of God—the glory that both reveals and hides. Isaiah is standing in a place that itself won’t still.

Some of us want a God who soothes but never shakes. We want worship that settles our nerves and leaves the furniture where we found it. Isaiah’s temple will not cooperate. When God is seen as He is, the thresholds of a life begin to move. Assumptions crack. Pride loses its balance.

Isaiah’s first words in the vision are not a volunteer form. They are a funeral cry. “Woe to me!” In the chapters around this vision he has already spoken woes over others. Now the prophet puts himself under the same sentence. That is the difference between a man who uses religion and a man who has met God. Before the throne, the preacher does not get a professional exemption.

“I am ruined,” he says, a phrase than can mean “I am cut off,” “I am silenced,” “I am undone.” He is not saying he had a moving experience. He is saying he cannot survive this. Holiness is not safe for the unholy. To see the King is, for a sinner, to see the end of every disguise.

Why does he mentions lips? Because Isaiah’s calling will be speech. Because the mouth is the overflow of the heart. Because Judah’s public life was full of religious talk that did not match holy reality. Unclean lips are not merely bad vocabulary. They are the evidence of a people who have said much about God and lived little before God. Isaiah knows he belongs to that people. He does not stand above them and diagnose them. He stands among them and confesses with them.

Then the last clause of verse 5 lands like a gavel: “my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” The problem is not only that Isaiah is sinful. The problem is that he has seen the King. In the light, stains that seemed minor become glaring.

Many people avoid a high view of God for this very reason. If God is only slightly better than we are, we can negotiate. If God is holy, holy, holy, we cannot. There is no urgent call from a modest deity. The God who sends is the God who first undoes.

Overcome with guilt, Isaiah 6:5.

“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”  (Isaiah 6:5 | TNIV)

Isaiah is not vaguely spiritual in this moment. He is specifically guilty. Guilt is not fashionable language. We prefer “issues,” “wounds,” “brokenness,” “mistakes.” Some of those words name real things. None of them is strong enough for verse 5. Isaiah is not merely hurting. He is unclean. He is ruined before the King.

This is mercy, though it does not feel like mercy yet. A person who has never been overcome by guilt in the presence of God will also never be overcome by grace. Cheap comfort skips this verse and jumps to the coal. Isaiah cannot skip it.

He is also overcome by corporate guilt. “I live among a people of unclean lips.” The urgent call does not lift a man out of his people so that he can despise them. It binds him to them in confession. God will send a man who has already admitted that the disease he will preach against is in his own house.

Some of us are waiting to feel worthy before we will take the next step of obedience. Isaiah would tell you that worthiness is not the doorway into the service. Unworthiness, honestly faced, is. God is not looking for the person who can stand in the temple unshaken. He is looking for the person who knows why the temple is shaking.

Do not misunderstand. This is not an excuse to remain in sin. Isaiah is not celebrating his uncleanness. He is dying of it. Overcome with guilt is the prelude to cleansing. Comfortable with guilt is a counterfeit. A low god produces a light conscience. A high God produces a true one.

So fitting.

Action and result, Isaiah 6:6 – 8.

Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. [7] With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for. ” [8] Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? ” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”  (Isaiah 6:6 – 8 | TNIV)

Watch the order. Isaiah does not climb up to the throne with an offering. A seraph flies to him. Grace takes the first step.

The coal comes from the altar. That detail matters. This is not a random spark of inspiration. It is fire from the place of sacrifice, where a substitute stood in the sinner’s place. Isaiah’s cleansing is not a pep talk. It is atonement applied. The seraph does not say, “Try to do better with your speech.” He says, “Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

Taken away. Atoned for. Those are objective words. Something has been removed. Something has been covered and satisfied. The basis is an act of God, touching the exact place Isaiah named as unclean.

That is so fitting it almost frightening. Isaiah said, “unclean lips.” God answer is to  “touch the man’s lips.  The wound and the remedy meet in the same place. He applies grace to the point of pain.

We cannot read this now as if the altar were only bronze and coal. The whole Bible is moving toward a better altar and a better sacrifice. The fire that cleanses a prophet points forward to the cross where guilt is taken away and sin is atoned for once for all. The live coal is a shadow. Calvary is the substance. If Isaiah could rise from ruin to serve, it’s because a coal touched his mouth, how much more may we rise because the blood of the Lamb has spoken a better word?

Notice what the cleansing produces. It does not produce a man who wants to stay in the vision forever, gazing. It produces a man who can hear a new question. Before the coal, Isaiah is talking about himself. After the coal, he can hear the Lord talking about a mission.

Guilt, when it is only guilt, turns a person inward. Grace turns a person outward. Shame loops. Grace sends.

The Lord’s question is striking. He does not bark an order. He asks. The “us” reminds us that the Holy One is not a lonely monarch. He wants more than a conscript. He wants a voice that answers.

And the result is a man who can speak again. The mouth that was unclean is now the mouth that can be sent. God does not find good speakers and use them. He takes ruined speakers, atones for them, and then opens their lips.

Challenge and acceptance, Isaiah 6:8.

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? ” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”  (Isaiah 6:8 | TNIV)

Here is the heart of the urgent call.

The challenge is not vague. Someone must be sent. Someone must go. The holy God is not collecting admirers who will remain in the balcony of the vision. He is seeking a representative who will carry a word back into a nation of unclean lips.

Isaiah’s answer is famous because it is simple. He does not bargain. He does not request the details first. He does not ask how successful the mission will be. If you read the rest of the chapter you discover that the assignment is hard. The people will hear and not understand. The prophet will preach into resistance. The call is urgent, not because it is easy, but because it is necessary.

“Here am I.” In Hebrew it is a short word of presence: “behold me.” I am here. Available. No longer hiding behind my ruin, because my ruin has been addressed. No longer disqualified by my mouth, because my mouth has been touched.

“Send me.” He does not say, “Consider me.” He does not say, “Use me if you cannot find anyone else.” He offers himself for the job. The man who moments earlier said “I am ruined” now says “send me.” What changed? Not the difficulty of Judah. Not the threat of Assyria. Not Isaiah’s native courage. The altar changed him.

This is so fitting that it should correct two errors common in the church.

The first error is the unsent enthusiast. Some people are ready to go before they have ever been undone or cleansed. They have energy without awe and activity without an altar. The true sequence is throne, then woe, then coal, then “send me.” Skip the middle and you will send an unconverted confidence into the world and call it ministry.

The second error is the perpetual penitent. Some people live in verse 5 and never reach verse 8. They know they are unworthy, but they will not believe that guilt can be taken away. They sit in the temple smoke and call it humility. It is not humility. It is unbelief dressed in religious clothing. If God has touched the lips, the only fitting answer is availability.

The urgent call is not a call to impress God. It is a call to present a cleansed life to a holy God who still asks, “Whom shall I send?”

He asks it of churches. Will we go to our neighbors with more than friendliness? Will we speak of the King whose glory already fills the earth? Will we offer the atonement of Christ as the only coal that can cleanse a mouth and a people?

He asks it of households and of ordinary disciples. Parents, the first mission field is often down the hall. You may never stand in a pulpit. You will stand in a workplace, a shop, a team, a waiting room, a difficult friendship. The question is the same. Whom shall I send into that place? The answer God loves is not, “Send a professional.” It is, “Here am I.”

Isaiah does not know, in verse 8, the full cost. He will preach for decades. The acceptance comes before the fine print because the One who sends is the One he has seen. Once you have seen the Lord high and exalted, lesser fears lose their authority. Once you have had your guilt taken away, lesser disqualifications lose their veto.

Conclusion. 

So high. So unworthy. So fitting.

That is the inner logic of Isaiah 6:1–8, and it is the inner logic of every true call.

See Him high, or you will never understand why the call is urgent. Feel yourself unworthy, or you will carry a proud mouth into a holy work. Receive what is fitting, or you will either rush ahead uncleansed or hang back unsent.

King Uzziah died. Kings still die. Leaders still fail. Nations still tremble. But the Lord is still high and exalted. The train of His robe still fills the house. The song has not changed: holy, holy, holy. The earth is still full of His glory. And the voice still asks, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

You do not answer that question by becoming impressive. You answer it the way Isaiah did. You come into the presence of the Holy. You tell the truth about your lips and your people. You let the fire of the altar—now the finished work of Jesus Christ—touch what is unclean. Then, with a mouth no longer your own, you say the two sentences that turn a spectator into a servant.

Here am I.  Send me

May the God who sat upon the throne in the year that King Uzziah died sit in power upon our hearts today. May He shake what must be shaken, cleanse what we cannot cleanse, and send a people who have seen the King.