Greetings and welcome to a sermon series on the book of Isaiah called Let Us Reason Together. And I thank you for being here today as we get to reason together with the book of Isaiah. You and I together, and we will take a look at the book of Isaiah in an introductory kind of way. And we're starting at the beginning, at least it is for Isaiah. It's in Isaiah chapter 6, and yet this is the account of his call to the prophetic ministry. And so we're going to walk through this with him, and we're going to learn a great deal. Now, you might be asking yourself, you know, what do I have in common with Isaiah the prophet? Why should I be learning from this book? Isaiah the prophet prophesied in the late 8th and early 7th century BC. That's over 2,700 years ago he began his ministry. He prophesied to the people of Judah and the kings in Jerusalem under the old covenant between God and Israel. And so we do have to ask ourselves, and we rightly should, what could we possibly have in common with someone who lived 2,700 years ago in a different place, in a different culture? What could his messages possibly mean to us today and to our modern society? Well that's really the point of the sermon series called Let Us Reason Together and it is about the book of Isaiah. It's based on a verse in Isaiah chapter 1 verse 18 as the Lord calls upon Israel because of her sins to come let us reason together and he says though your skins are like a scarlet they shall be white as snow though they are like crimson they shall become like wool. And indeed this is kind of the subject of the entire book of Isaiah. And we're going to look at everything in this kind of a framework. It has Israel's problem and the Lord's solution. The problem is sin and the Lord's salvation is the solution. But this, as we'll see in the book of Isaiah, reaches beyond God's relationship with Israel because Israel was always intended to bless the entire world. From its very conception, when God called Abram to follow Him, He said, through you all nations shall become blessed. And so, we're going to see that this has relevance to us, even to this very day. And so, we're going to be here in chapter 6, and we're going to find that the way it relates to us is the fact that God has not changed. that mankind has not changed. And though things look very different, and though there's been very much that has happened in 27 years, man and God are the same. And much of what this prophet speaks to is perfectly relevant to our world today, as you will see, and to those of us who serve God. And so we're going to begin here with Isaiah's call into ministry, because we're going to see that God still calls in much the same way, and God still equips in much the same way, and though we may not experience all the exciting things that Isaiah did, we have that same opportunity with that same God to serve Him, to know Him, and to be relevant to the world through Him, and minister to many people in His name. So we're going to go to chapter 6, and we're going to read the 13 verses we find there in chapter 6. And the setting is simply this. Isaiah is living in Judah, the southern kingdom, because the kingdom had split. The kingdom of Israel split into a northern and a southern kingdom. He's in the southern kingdom. And it is the year that King Uzziah died, about 740 BC, in what appears to be the beginning of his ministry. And Isaiah, the book, is not chronological. This is why we're starting in chapter 6. We've discerned this to be the beginning of his prophetic ministry, but we're going to find the book jumps all over the place and so will we. But we're going to start right here and see what the Lord has to say to us today. So, without further ado, let's get right to the important part, the scriptures. Isaiah chapter 6, here's what it says. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim, each had six wings, with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called 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 thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said, woe is me, for I am lost, for 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 burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said, Behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here I am. Send me. And he said, Go and say this to 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 blind their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and in turn be healed. Then I said, How long, O Lord? And he said, until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste, and the Lord removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled. Let's begin with a word of prayer. Father God, we thank you so much. for this scripture. We pray that this day that you will make yourself known through it. And Lord, we hold on to the promises that your word will accomplish the things that you send it to do. So it is our desire that you would accomplish those in us this day as we consider these scriptures, the words that are said and what they mean to us. We thank you, Lord. Bless our time together in Jesus name. Amen. Well, here we have a powerful message and I'm going to give you a very simple outline to follow here that might help you keep track. Let me get back here and see if I can find this for you. Okay. Here are four things that we can expect to find here in these 13 verses. First of all, we'll see that the Lord calls, and we'll see that the Lord atones, and we'll see that the Lord speaks, and we will see that the Lord accomplishes. So all four of those things ought to give us a great opportunity to experience what Isaiah experienced on this day. Let's first of all look at this, the fact that the Lord calls. When we look at verse one, this is what we see. We see in the year the King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne. Isaiah saw. Now Isaiah saw this, but it's not like Isaiah traveled to the place where he knew he would see this. It's not like he had God's address and he stopped by to see what's happening. No, he may have been in the temple because it does say that in his vision the, you know, the robe of the Lord fills the temple, but we see that this was a surprise to him, and we can tell because of his response to it, that the Lord had revealed himself. Now, obviously God had revealed himself, obviously Isaiah wasn't expecting it, and this is exactly how the Lord calls. With each and every person which come to know the Lord, the Lord reveals himself. It begins with a revelation of himself. And that revelation always results in the conviction of sin. Think back to the garden when Adam and Eve had first sinned. God went looking for Adam and calling out to him. He went to him. When you think about this at Abraham and at the Tower of Babel even before that. God went down to see what was going on, to witness what was happening there in the building of the city and the tower there in Genesis chapter 11. And then at the call of Abraham in Genesis chapter 12, it was God who initiated the contact. He called Abraham to himself. He spoke to him time and time again. He calls Israel to himself through the prophets. And this is how it is with people today. Look how Jesus states it in John chapter 6. He says this, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. And so this is important that the resurrection, that those who believe and everything else, it ultimately is initiated by God. It is something that God initiates as he reveals himself and then he draws people to his son. Jesus says it again in John chapter 16. He puts it this way as he speaks to just his disciples on the night that he was arrested, taken to be crucified. He said, when he comes, that is the Holy Spirit, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. Concerning sin, because they do not believe in me. Concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father. And concerning, and you will see me no longer, concerning judgment because the ruler of this world is judged. So here we see the work of God through the Spirit calling people to himself. And it is a two-fold call. This is very important. The first is the call to know him. And he does that with Isaiah by showing up. Just by revealing himself, now Isaiah knows him more. He has seen the Lord. And he has seen what the angels are saying about the Lord as they hover around him. These fantastic created beings worshiping God. that first is the call to know him but then secondly the call to serve him. Isaiah is the only one there and the voice of the Lord says whom shall I send and who will go for us. Well the implication is he's asking Isaiah. He's giving an invitation to Isaiah. Now he's not saying it personally to Isaiah. He's allowing Isaiah that opportunity to say hey me to raise his hand go what about me send me and he wanted Isaiah to participate in this process. Right here we see the application very plainly as we read the prophets that these were preserved for God to continue to speak. As we read Isaiah, He's continuing to speak today. As we read Jeremiah, God is continuing to speak through His servant Jeremiah. And all the prophets and all the writers of the Old and the New Testaments the different personalities, the different places they lived, the different styles that they had. God used them all to continue to speak to people throughout the world today. See, these are not mere history lessons as we read the Bible. It's just as Isaiah was called, so we are called into the ministry of Jesus Christ just as Judah was convicted and warned by the writings and the preachings of Isaiah so we today should be convicted and warned about these timeless messages and we receive the call to come and reason with God much as they did. Now when the Lord shows up and reveals himself, there's immediately a problem. Now look at this in verse 5 and look at Isaiah's response to this. When he sees the Lord high and lifted up and he sees what's going on there with the angels and the smoke and all that, he says, woe is me for I am lost. 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." It was believed in the Israelite religion and indeed in many world religions all throughout time have believed that for an inherently sinful person, for anyone indeed who has even committed just a single sin, to be in the very presence of God would be to invite His wrath and His complete and total destruction. And that is not far from the truth. Because the truth is God is perfectly holy, and in order for Him to be perfectly loving and perfectly just, He absolutely must punish sin. He cannot be a good God and leave sin unpunished and undealt with. And so we cannot be in his presence having sin without that sin being dealt with in some way. And foremost, they would believe that that was annihilation. And so whenever you see in the Bible an angel shows up, the angel first has to say, do not be afraid because people are freaking out because the angel of the Lord has shown up. And each of us in our heart, we know we deserve that destruction. We know we deserve the judgment of God for the things in which we have done wrongly in our hearts and with our hands and with our mouth. And so he says, woe is me for I am lost. And this is the song that was being said in verse 3 really speaks to this because it's holy, holy, holy. In the Hebrew language, when things were repeated, it was significant. If they wanted to say something was very good, they might just well say it's good, good. And here we have holy three times, and three generally in scripture and generally in many cultures around the world. It's an idea of completeness, an idea of wholeness, an idea of everything. So this is saying holy, holy, holy. He is perfectly holy. And holy doesn't just mean without sin. It means he is utterly and fundamentally set apart, distinct from the world and from mankind. Now, we know that he is in the world, that in him, as the New Testament says, we live and move and have our being. And we know that He is everywhere, but He is utterly distinct from His creation. And one of those distinctions is that He Himself is without sin. As a matter of fact, He is the definer of all things true and good. And so he himself is the standard and it is defined, all of reality, the goodness and morality is all defined by his own being and his own character. Not just some list of rules that he made up, but his very existence, which is the basis of our reality itself. Understand His holiness is to take a look at verse 5 and to look at Isaiah's objection. I can't be near this. I'm a man of unclean lips. I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. Now unclean lips, he's just talking about the things he said. He's not even talking about the things he may have done. And that's amazing and important to understand. As people living in this sinful world, being a part of it in our thought and in our words and in our deeds, we become numb to the difference. A good illustration for you might be this. I used to live in a town in which was located a paper mill. And this paper mill had attached to it a pulp mill, which is the part of the paper mill that turns the wood into paper. And you go, oh, how hard can that be? Do they just cut it really thin? No, it's actually quite a complicated chemical process in order to get that into a form in which it can be produced. But the problem is, it creates this incredible odor. And for this particular process that was in this plant, it smelled something like overdone boiled cabbage. And it was a smell that permeated anything and everything in the entire town. Well, the thing is, after being in town just a few days, you become accustomed to it. You don't even notice it after a while. And as people who lived there, we rarely noticed it, except on those particularly foggy days. when the moisture held all the odor low to the ground, and we could get a good dose of it. But even then, it didn't bother us because we were used to it. People would come to visit us, and if they didn't know what it was, they would say, what is that smell? And we'd be like, what smell? They'd be like, oh, oh, the paper mill. Okay, I understand. Yeah, yeah, that's the paper mill. You'll get used to it. Well the problem is in the world we live in we get used to it and we don't realize it and it has been said by other people to use a different illustration, pigs don't know that pigs stink. And so we see this great holiness of God that all of a sudden in contrast to himself is God and these beautiful created beings going around singing about his great holiness. Now all of a sudden Isaiah can smell it. He understands his situation, and it comes bearing down on him in this great woe. These creatures, he is so holy. How holy is God? Well, look at this. These creatures are flying around him, and they are perfect creations. They had never sinned. They were free from sin, but they're covering their face and their feet. Why? Why would these creatures who have never sinned, who have no reason to have any indictment from God, why are they covering their face and their feet? Because the Lord deserves that kind of respect. He is so utterly different and so utterly holy that a revelation like this of Himself is more than we can bear. And so we see Isaiah recognize the problem. And we see that Isaiah states this very plainly, but God is going to be gracious and he's going to do something about it. Now when the people of Israel had encountered God in the wilderness after he brought them out of Egypt with so many great wonders and signs, he brings them out of Egypt and this is what it says, The Lord says to Moses, when Moses says, you know, I've been hanging out with you a lot. I've been up here on the mountain with you 40 days. I've been interceding for the people. I've been talking to you. You've been talking to me. Let me see your glory. And the Lord says, you cannot see my face for man shall not see me and live. Now this is the prophet Isaiah living several hundred years later. He has these scriptures, he knows these scriptures, and in the back of his mind is this great truth, you can't see me and live. And so the Lord makes a compromise with Moses, lets him see a glimpse of his backside, so to speak, and it leaves a visible impression on Moses. So there are exceptions. The Lord reveals himself, as in the cases of Moses, and Jacob, and Israel, and Gideon, and Manoah, and even to Isaiah here. Only here it's explained how this can be. How is it that God can reveal himself to these people? Are they without sin? Well no, clearly Isaiah knows he's not without sin. If we look at what happens in verses six and seven, all of a sudden we can understand. One of the seraphim flew to me, he says, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said, behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for. Well, to stand in the presence of the Lord, we have to have atonement provided for us. Now in the temple, the Israelites did many sacrifices upon the altar, and this was the work of atoning for the sins of the nation. Although there was nothing magical about this, we find out in the New Testament, it was really these things being done by faith that was the atoning work. and the things that were done in heaven later by the Lord Jesus Christ are the things that actually atone for it. And so, in Hebrews, in the book of Hebrews, in the New Testament, we find out that there was a great heavenly sacrifice. Jesus, who offered himself once for all, for all those who would believe past, present, and future. Jesus was offered in the holy place of heaven and so in this vision what Isaiah is seeing is he is seeing the atonement that will be made for him by Jesus Christ himself for all those who believe, all those who have been called according to the purposes. of God. And here in this vision, Isaiah sees that it has been atoned for. And I can say with great confidence, what we read in the New Testament, this is because of the work of Jesus Christ. For in Christ alone is the fulfillment of all the promises, of all the covenants, and he's a shadow of all atonement and worship. Look what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1 20. He says all the promises of God find their yes in him. He's speaking of Jesus Christ. That is why it is through him that we utter our amen to God for his glory. So it is through Jesus Christ that we are able to commune with God and it is because of his sacrifice. Here's how it's stated in Hebrews chapter 11. And when we speak of all the believers of the Old Testament, many of them mentioned here, Isaiah would be among these in the list here. It says, these all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. So let's go on and read some more of that. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country that is a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them. a city. And so this is speaking of all the Old Testament saints that they had faith in God. They were looking ahead to the fulfillment of the promises of God, understanding their present situation to be just a part of the journey. Jesus atoned for the faithful of all the ages, offering himself once for all in the holy place in heaven. And it did not matter that he was yet future in Isaiah's time. All the promises and atonement that Isaiah trusted in was trust in the Lord who provided the fulfillment of those things ultimately in Jesus. So Isaiah and all the others of the faithful of his days, they were believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. If they were believing in all that the forefathers had been promised by God. The Lord, therefore, can reveal himself to those who have been atoned for, like Isaiah, and all who believe. And the Lord is good to give Isaiah this great illustration, this vision of this burning coal taking place and him seeing this. And so, we see that the Lord initiates contact and that the Lord provides atonement for his servant. And then the Lord speaks to and through His servants. He speaks to His servants here in the Word of God and in testifying worthy of the Holy Spirit and by His people. He speaks to His people through His people. His revelation of Himself is always instructive. and constructive. Let me say that again. God's revelation of himself is always instructive and constructive. This is how he has always done it. This is how he teaches his people. This is how he builds his people. This is how he accomplishes his work. Look how it's said here in Hebrews chapter 1, as that great book is introduced, which explains so much of this. He says, Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. This is how he has continued to reveal himself. Look in the book of Acts in chapter two is the day that the church is launched by Peter's great sermon and by the ministry of of all who were there that day over a hundred believers there and at this first coming of the Holy Spirit at the really first the worship service of the New Testament. We see this it says in the last days it shall be God declares that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even on my male servants and female servants, in those days I will pour out my spirit, and they shall prophesy." And then their prophecies become part of the scripture, and the scripture then is handed down to us. It's always a blessing when the Lord speaks to his people. It's how he calls us to faith. It's how he perfects us and corrects us and guides us and teaches us. Look how Paul describes it to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3.16. He says, all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. And look at this in verse 17, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Yes, the people of God are equipped completely by the Word of God. And this, indeed, is why the Lord speaks. And He speaks to each and every one of those that He calls to Himself. He speaks through His Word, and He speaks through the fellowship that we have in the context of the Church. Now the Lord also, not only does he call his people and atone for them and speak to them, he accomplishes. He accomplishes things. Look at verses 9 and 10 here. Isaiah says, yeah, here am I, send me. And the Lord says, go and say this to this people. Keep on hearing, but do not understand. And this is quoted in the New Testament. Keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy and blind their eyes. lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn and be healed. And you say, well that's a terrible and a miserable assignment. Yeah, indeed it was. It was an exceedingly difficult assignment for Isaiah, but Isaiah's mission was to go and preach anyway. His success was found in obeying God to do so, not in the necessarily the surface results. Now many people believed Isaiah's teaching and followed him and obviously kept hold of this and treasured it up, but the nation by and large did not change at the ministry of Isaiah. He had good times, he had bad times. He served during the time of some decent kings and during the time of some very wicked kings. And when we think about it, for Isaiah, Uzziah had just died and he was overall a pretty good king. Now in his later years there were some prideful things he had and some problems he had and he overstepped his bounds in the temple one day and paid the price for it with God. Then he had Jotham and Ahaz, who were both pretty bad, but then he had Hezekiah as a companion that Isaiah ministered to King Hezekiah, who was a good king, who ministered over a good revival in the nation, but also himself faced many challenges and also had some failures of his own. And then came Manasseh, one of the worst, in fact, the worst king of either the northern or the southern kingdom in all the days of Israel. Manasseh, according to Jewish historians, had Isaiah's son in two. So for the nation during Isaiah's reign, there were good times and there were bad times. But by the time of Isaiah, God had already decided their fate. He had made a covenant with them. He said, look, I'm taking you into this land. I'm giving it to you as a gift. The people who are living there now have earned their destruction. I gave them 400 years to straighten up. Now I'm bringing you in to judge them. And I'm giving you this land and if you will obey me while you're in this land, things will be great. You'll have great crops and big families and peace from all your neighbors and you will be successful and you will thrive. But if you do not obey me and you seek after other gods, etc. I'm going to bring enemies upon you. Things are not going to be good in the land. You're going to have famine. You're going to have difficulty and destruction and sickness and all kinds of things. God was keeping his word. And he had already made up his mind that they had earned the ultimate punishment. exile, that they would be taken out of the promised land. But, also according to his covenant, someday he would return them. Isaiah predicts it over and over. He predicts their exile, he predicts their return, and he points them often to a day that will come in the future in which God will purify his people of all their unrighteousness, and that He indeed will not only do this for His people, but for all the nations, and He will establish perfect justice upon the earth. But I'm getting a little ahead of us, but you'll have to stay tuned to find those glorious things in there that the Lord speaks about those days that are yet coming even for us these many thousand years later. So Isaiah's job, it seems, according to these verses, is to make sure they get a clear message that they can refuse, so that the Lord can have evidence piled up, a justification, as it were, for all that he was about to do. And this is what Isaiah has been said to do. And it's his word that accomplishes his will on earth. Look what the Lord says through Isaiah in chapter 55, verse 11. He says, So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth, it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. Here, starting in verse 10 back here, he is comparing his word to rain. He says, as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there, but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the water. That's how my word is. And so shall be my word that goes out from my mouth. It's not going to return to me empty. God's word accomplishes his will. And so it's a word that will not pass away according to Isaiah chapter 40 verse 8 And this is quoted by Peter in the New Testament the grass withers the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever And it is this word that became flesh. This is the same word used for our Lord Jesus Christ. In John 1.14, the word, and it's speaking of Jesus, is how he's introduced by John. The word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory. Glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. Christ, who said the same thing, that his word will accomplish all that he is sent to do. He says, truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Generation there meaning age. He says, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. So Isaiah's mission may sound grim, but there's great hope at the end of the message. In verse 13, this all sounds bad all the way until verse 13, though a tenth, very small amount of the people of Judah will remain in the land, it will be burned again like a terebinth or an oak whose stump remains when it is felled. The holy seed is is its stump. It's very interesting because there is going to be a great scouring of the land as if by fire. That there would be, however, a faithful remnant. And the holy seed would be the stump. See, many trees, even when they are burned, will come back with shoots from their stump. And this is a reference in the book of Isaiah sometimes to the Lord Jesus Christ, that he is a shoot from the stump of Jesse, who is the father of David, and Christ was promised to come from this line of David. And so this is a reference that there is still hope, though. No matter how much judgment God pours upon Judah, there is still going to be this remnant. And it is through this remnant and the return of these people to the land that he's going to bring forth his good servant, his servant king, Jesus Christ, to come and restore all order of things. The holy seed harkens us back to Genesis 315. As soon as Adam and Eve sinned, God began revealing his plan that was actually made before the foundation of the world to redeem mankind. He said to the serpent, I'll put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. That's the word seed, the same word used back there in Isaiah. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his. His heel. Well, this is the holy seed and it is the remnant and it is fulfilled by Jesus Christ. And we will see all through this book, we'll do an entire sermon on just the concept of remnant in the book of Isaiah. And Isaiah is going to continually come back to this idea. This holy seed, this remnant is Jesus Christ. but it's also the body of Christ. All those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, both Jews and Gentiles, are part of this great remnant, part of this remnant that will go out and will accomplish things and make a difference and change the world and take this saving message of salvation of God to all the ends of the earth. Well, so here are some encouragements for you. We'll take you back to the outline here so you can see what we've done so far. And in the outline here, we saw that the Lord calls and the Lord atones, the Lord speaks, and the Lord accomplishes. His word actually works. And this is incredibly encouraging to us. And here are some of those encouragements. First of all this, God calls us to himself and his service. There will be no believer in Jesus Christ that is not also a servant of Christ, doing the will of Christ. Jesus told his disciples to go and make disciples. And the implication there is that that's what disciples do. Disciples make disciples. We're all involved in the Lord's work of expanding the number of this holy remnant that is going to occupy the new heavens and the new earth and live forever with the Lord. And so understand this God calls us to himself and to his service and a further encouragement is this I think I need to back up a little bit No, it's right here That he atones for our sins and appoints us into his service and if you're sitting there thinking and you're hearing this call of Isaiah and you're thinking man, that's great and that's a good God and everything but I know Isaiah said he was sinful, but I know I am sinful. I am terribly sinful. There's no way that God can use me. Did you see what happened with Isaiah? He calls. Isaiah says, send me. Isaiah doesn't judge himself. Okay, but he knows himself and he says woe is me for I'm undone nevertheless. He says send me Okay It is not for you to decide if you are qualified for the Lord's work He decides because he is the one that's going to atone for you and understand this great principle right here And I'll say it very plainly you will never be good enough for the work of God By your own power and by your own efforts You won't be. We can't be. We're broken. We need repaired. We need born again. This is what Jesus said to Nicodemus in a very famous line that we understand and we use the phrase to this day. He says, you must be born again. In other words, you need a complete do-over. It's not about straightening up your life and cleaning up the house a little bit. It's about a complete surrender to the God who made you that he may remake you. And so he says, you must be born again. And so this atonement that is done, this atonement that is done, this thing comes and this coal burns the lips of Isaiah. It's a painful thing. And burning represents in the Bible very often purifying, cleansing. And indeed, it also represents death. Well, this is how the Lord cleanses us. We're dead to the old life. We're made new in Jesus Christ. All those old things have passed away. And you're sitting there, and you're hearing this message from me, and you're hearing other messages in the world, and you're reading, maybe reading the Word of God, and you understand you're being called by God. The Word is being proclaimed to you, and the invitation given So don't harden your heart. By thinking you're unqualified, He qualifies. By thinking you're too sinful, He's the one that paid the price for sins upon the cross for all those who will but believe in Him. So then seek to believe, for God calls us to Himself and He calls us into His service. So do not refuse Him today. He has made a way for you to know Him, to enjoy Him for all eternity. So confess all your sins to him. There's probably more than unclean lips that you're concerned about. Lift that up to the Lord and see if he won't forgive it. Repent of it and turn away from it and resolve not to do it anymore and ask for his help in doing so. And accept the atoning work of Christ, the one who took your place for your forgiveness of sins. So it's a great encouragement that God calls us to himself and his service, and he equips all of that. He atones for us. He makes a place for us. He makes it possible. He fills us with his Spirit. He changes us from the inside out to be qualified for his service. Secondly, we want to understand this, that God's work will succeed. God's work will succeed. He has called you into the work of his word to make disciples. The work of his word will absolutely have success. So don't rely on anything else. There's a lot of gimmicks churches are coming up with today. But look what Jesus said in his great commission, as we call it, when he told his disciples before he ascended into heaven he said all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me and the implication is it's also he's deputizing here i have all authority in heaven and on earth and then he says go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the father and son of the holy spirit teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. What has Jesus commanded? He's commanded the entire Bible. He is the Word of God in the flesh. And so that is our raw material for the work of the ministry. Do not rely on anything else but His Word. It's not about spreading our opinions. It's not about spreading, you know, some kind of thoughts we have on how to follow God or a method we have for following God. It's all about His Word. And we bring His Word to bear and we open it up and we discuss and we understand and we search it and we wrestle with it. Because only his word has that promise. God's work will absolutely succeed. And this is why we begin to see how relevant Isaiah is to us this very day. Because this message that we saw from 2700 years ago of the call of Isaiah, God is still calling. He is still calling this way. He is still atoning for sins. He is still equipping people for the service, calling them into service. His work is succeeding. Many have come to believe, and we can rejoice in that because He has done so much to this day. Well, let's close here with a word of prayer. Father God, we thank you for this word. We thank you for the ministry of Isaiah. We pray as we study it together that we really, thoroughly understand. Lay it upon our hearts. Let us seek it from you. Not the opinions of men, but let us be washed by your holy word. that we may be equipped for the work of your ministry. We thank you for the call. We thank you for the service that you have called us to. And we thank you, Lord, for the success that it will have. We thank you, Lord, for all that you have done and all that you have given in Jesus name. Amen. Well, thank you for joining me. I invite you to find many other sermons are already being posted in this series. And so there are many other things to learn from the prophet Isaiah. Be reading it along with what we learn here, and it will be a blessing to you. So until then, if you have any questions or concerns, you can find out more about us at whites run.org, whites run.org, or you can email us at whites run baptist at gmail.com. I will answer those emails personally and I will answer them quickly. So please email us at whitesfrombaptist.com, at gmail.com. If you have any questions, concerns, if you need help finding a church near you, if you want further understanding of these things, if you disagree and you think I'm wrong on these things, feel free to express yourself and we can talk about these things because ultimately the Word of God and not my opinion accounts. So please contact us. God bless you.