‘SEND ME’
‘Here am I; send me.’
Isaiah 6:8
These words are Isaiah’s response to his Divine call to the prophetic office. It was an extraordinary call to an extraordinary mission. Through the deep waters of conviction and spiritual cleansing he needed to go before he was ready to stand before a sinful world as the representative of God. The initial step in his preparation was:—
I. A vision of God.—Uzziah the king, after a brilliant reign of fifty years, had just died. Never since the Queen of Sheba had witnessed Solomon’s glory had the national pride stood so high, or the nation’s dream of sovereignty touched such remote borders. Yet the closing act of this proud monarch was one of spiritual profanation. With the presumption of an irreverent and worldly temper, he entered the Temple and attempted with his own hands to burn incense. Instantly the Divine judgment smote him with leprosy, and he passed from the throne of royalty to die in a lazar-house.
The sin of Uzziah was the sin of the people. What a picture of spiritual decline and moral abomination is given in the first chapter! The youthful Isaiah had seen the regal splendour and then the judgment. He was a member of the sinful nation. He felt himself involved in the guilt. Then came the vision. Heaven opened. The seraphim cried, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy!’ Isaiah was overwhelmed. He confessed his unworthiness to stand before God. His penitence and self-abasement were rewarded. One of the seraphim took a live coal from the altar and touched the lips that had confessed themselves unclean. It was the symbol of forgiveness and cleansing. The youthful penitent knew that he was restored. Then in the consciousness of this new life and enduement he heard—
II. The call.—A voice said, ‘Whom shall I send?’ ‘Here am I; send me,’ was Isaiah’s eager and instant reply. It was a volunteer’s response to a general summons or invitation. It was as purely a spiritual response as prophet or apostle or missionary ever made. It sprang from a heart cleansed of conscious guilt and consciously fitted to do God’s will. What a magnificent ideal of consecration for the young minister and missionary, or for any who would serve humanity in God’s name!
III. The commission.—It was an appalling task. The callous and indifferent people, steeped in sin, would only be hardened by the message. ‘Make their hearts fat, their ears heavy, and smear their eyes, lest they see, hear, and understand, and turn and be healed.’ This was the very mission to which Jesus and Paul felt themselves called. To hard and wilful sinners the preaching of the ‘good tidings’ is only a preaching of judgment.
God never calls men to a holier and harder task than proclaiming His truth to a sinful world. Hence the need of deep preparation through heart cleansing and profound spiritual vision. The more assured one’s sense of forgiveness and restoration, the more eager does he become to save the blinded and fallen everywhere. A more genuine consecration in the average Christian, a clearer vision of God and of human sinfulness in the light of His holiness, would result in many a call which is now never heard, because we are not fitted to say, ‘Here am I; send me.’ He wants to send us. He will send us if in true penitence we open the way for Him to touch our lips with heaven’s fire and burn away all our sin. Our first call is to such consecration.