Isaiah

Of all of the prophetic books that I studied, Isaiah might be the one that I found with the most applications for missions. That being said, time still will not allow me to develop all of them. I commend this rich book to your further study and hope that the few insights I can share with you will be profitable. (Get it, prophets, profitable? Haha, seminary joke.)

Isaiah: The Call

Many people have addressed the subject of Isaiah’s call and, indeed, Isaiah 6 is a popular text on missions. I am sure that I will not fully do the subject justice in this post, but encourage you to look to other authors if you want to study this passage more extensively (or more intensively, for that matter!). My goal in this post is simply to outline some general observations from this passage to get the wheels turning in regards to missions.

1. Isaiah’s call started with a vision of God’s holiness. (Is. 6:1-4) Seeing God for who He is must be the foundation of our ministry. As we saw with Jonah, unless we understand God’s character aright and submit to it, we will be hard-pressed to minister well. After all, sharing the Gospel is fundamentally sharing with others about God. If our view of God isn’t correct, how can we accurately share about Him with others?

2. Isaiah’s vision of God led to an overwhelming sense of conviction and despair over his own sin and that of his people. (Is. 6:5-7) Before we can humbly go to others with a message of warning and salvation, we must realize our essential sinfulness and out utter need to be cleansed by God ourselves. Especially as full-time ministry workers, it can be easy to think of ourselves as somehow in that position by our own merit. God, spare us from that mindset! If the prophet Isaiah was a “man of unclean lips,” guess what? So are you! Thank the Lord, though, that He takes it upon Himself to cleanse us and make us fit for His service! May that knowledge fill us with humble gratitude!

3. When Isaiah has seen God’s holiness and been cleansed of his sin, he responded eagerly to God’s call. (Is. 6:8) Our response should be similar. Because of who God is and what He has done for us, we should eagerly respond to His call to go and preach His message.

4. Just a teaser for further study: The remainder of this beautiful chapter (Is. 6:9-13) is honestly somewhat of a downer! What was the message that Isaiah was to proclaim? Destruction! I invite you to wrestle through this on your own and realize that many gems such as this are bordered on both sides by the wrath of God. We must be careful to look at the context of a passage, even if it makes us uncomfortable. Happy studying!