And He said, Go, and tell this people: Keep on hearing, but do not understand; Keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; let they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed. 

Isaiah 6:9, 10 

God gave Isaiah a message to deliver to Israel. It was a message calling them to repentance. As our text reflects, it was not a positive message. What God was saying through Isaiah was that even though the truth was going forth to call them to repentance and faith, they would hear, but not understand and would see, but not perceive. Thus, the utterance of the truth would become a testimony against them because of their insensibility to the value of it. The effect of the message would be to, ‘Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; let they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed.’ This could not have been an easy pill for Isaiah to swallow. Essentially God was telling him, ‘Proclaim the truth and understand that the more you preach, the less your audience will be capable of understanding.’ We have a brighter prospect. Our hope rests upon the words of Christ, ‘All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.’ Christ is using the declaration of the Gospel to draw those whom the Father has given Him to Himself. We have hope that as we preach Christ, the Holy Spirit will give our hearers faith to believe and to embrace Him. 

Our Good and Wise God, 
we rejoice that You have given unto us the privilege of preaching Christ. 
We praise You that by the power of the Holy Spirit, 
You will draw souls unto Yourself. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here am I! Send me. 

Isaiah 6:8 

A clear sight of Christ will have an effect upon our heart. We see the evidence of that in the life of Isaiah. When he saw Christ, ‘high and lifted up,’ he understood Who Christ is; who he was and what Christ wanted from him. Having thus understood what Christ wanted, Isaiah responded with, ‘Here am I! Send me.’ He was willing to go and do the work to which God was calling him. This willingness is not always immediate. Moses, Jeremiah and Jonah all offered some resistance to the revealed will of God. They were not immediately onboard with His call to them. Thus, God may reveal His will to us and we may not immediately embrace it. What will change our hearts, is a clear continuous sight of Christ. The work to which Christ calls us involves the imitation of Him. Therefore, it is the contemplation of Christ that leads to the imitation of Christ. As we behold Him in the Scripture, dwell upon Him, and see more and more of how He does, we learn to imitate Him, until we will to do His will. 

Our Gracious Master and our God, 
we rejoice that You draw us unto Yourself. 
We praise You that as You reveal Yourself to us, 
You bring us to the place where we do Your will. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here am I! Send me. 

Isaiah 6:8

What does God want from us? Isaiah saw Christ ‘high and lifted up.’ This was a life-changing moment for him. His clear sight of Christ enabled him to better understand Who Christ is. It also enabled him to better understand himself. Our text shows us that once he had seen Christ clearly, he began to have an idea of what God wanted from him personally. In Isaiah’s case it was that he would become a prophet to the nation of Israel. God wanted Isaiah to preach to His people. It was by gaining a clear sight of Christ that Isaiah came to understand this. We can have hope that God will so lead us. We have the Scriptures which show Christ to us. He is there on the pages of the Word of God in both the Old and New Testaments. As the Holy Spirit takes the things of Christ and shows them to us, we can not only understand more about Who He is, and who we are; we can also come to some conclusions about what He wants from us. He may not call us to be preachers, but He has created us for some specific purpose, and reveals it to us by Christ. 

Our Wise and Holy God, 
we rejoice that You do everything with intention and by design. 
We praise You that You have made us  
as we are for Your glory. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

So I said: Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth with it, and said: Behold this has touched your lips; Your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged.  

Isaiah 6:5-7 

A clear sight of Christ will enable us to understand who we are. Once we have seen Christ, high and lifted up, it will have a humbling effect upon us. In Isaiah’s case, he uttered the things he understood about himself that most troubled him. He said, ‘I am a man of unclean lips.’ He went on to confess, not only his own sin, but also the sin of his people. It is important to be honest about who we are. It is also important to understand that Christ is the answer for all that is wrong with us. As soon as Isaiah had confessed his sin, one of the seraphim flew to him, with a coal from off the altar. He touched Isaiah’s lips and said, ‘Behold, this has touched your lips; Your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged.’ John makes the point more universally for us all by saying, ‘If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’ We want to understand that a clear sight of Christ will do more than just cause us to see our own unrighteousness, but also that there is forgiveness with Him. Thus Christ is the answer, not only for who we are by nature, but also who we shall be by grace. He will conform us to His image. 

Our Gracious, Forgiving God, 
we rejoice that You cleanse us from our sin. 
We praise You that You ever lead us more 
to the Person and work of Christ. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

And He said, Go, and tell this people: Keep on hearing, but do not understand; Keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; let they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed. 

Isaiah 6:9, 10 

God gave Isaiah a message to deliver to Israel. It was a message calling them to repentance. As our text reflects, it was not a positive message. What God was saying through Isaiah was that even though the truth was going forth to call them to repentance and faith, they would hear, but not understand and would see, but not perceive. Thus, the utterance of the truth would become a testimony against them because of their insensibility to the value of it. The effect of the message would be to, ‘Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; let they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed.’ This could not have been an easy pill for Isaiah to swallow. Essentially God was telling him, ‘Proclaim the truth and understand that the more you preach, the less your audience will be capable of understanding.’ We have a brighter prospect. Our hope rests upon the words of Christ, ‘All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.’ Christ is using the declaration of the Gospel to draw those whom the Father has given Him to Himself. We have hope that as we preach Christ, the Holy Spirit will give our hearers faith to believe and to embrace Him. 

Our Good and Wise God, 
we rejoice that You have given unto us the privilege of preaching Christ. 
We praise You that by the power of the Holy Spirit, 
You will draw souls unto Yourself. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning