Here Am I Send Me

Send Me

30 May 2021

Richardson

The truth hurts! Actually it really does. It’s documented that the truth hurts when it’s something you don’t want to hear.

I read a really interesting article about how psychologists first studied this. In the early 50’s, Dorothy Martin, a Chicago homemaker claimed to channel aliens from the planet Clarion. Aliens! So of course I was hooked.

She said they told her that on December 20th, 1954, the earth was going to be flooded and everyone would die accept her and her followers. They were to be rescued by a giant flying saucer that would arrive at midnight 3 days before the flood. A group of psychologists heard about her and her followers, and joined just to study the reactions of the group come the morning of December 21st. Well, no matter what their friends told them, on the 17th, they sold or gave away their possessions and waited for the coming ship… and waited, and waited. The psychologists noted the ever increasing discomfort felt by the people in the group as the time came and passed. Then on the 21th, and still standing on dry land the cult began calling newspapers in jubilation. They said their new message was they "had spread so much light that God had saved the world from destruction."(1)

It’s actually part of our psyche to avoid proved wrong … at any cost. It’s called “cognitive dissonance”. That’s the clinical name for the pain of information counter to what you believe, and what lengths you’ll go to keep what you thought was true intact. And we will do some pretty outlandish things just so we don’t ever have to admitting we were wrong.

I bring this up after reading Isaiah Chapter 6. I was looking at verses that said:

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!” 9 He said, “Go and tell this people: “‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ 10 Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes.[a] Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”

First off, those verses made me think of the term “Who wants and opportunity to excel!”

I remember the first time I heard those words in my military Basic Training. They called it an opportunity to excel but what it really meant was a whole lot more work. We would end up standing in a rent-a-crowd, fetching something, or a whole lot cleaning something. It was never something fun. We all quickly found out that in the military you never volunteer.

We’ve all experienced that at work too. Your boss wants a volunteer and you think it will help out and all you get is a lot more work and no more pay. What if the job you’re doing makes you unpopular? We’ve all learned to wait until you're voluntold!

But when God calls, how can we ever turn that down? Even if the task God was asking Isaiah to do sounded pretty thankless.

… tell this people: “‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ 10 Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes…

Why would God tell Isaiah to make the people to do that? Would it really make sense that you’d be told to make people turn more away from God? Imagine you’re sent out to preach but you know the result will be people will hear without understanding at all and that ultimately it’s going to end up with the cities desolate. Doesn’t that sound like a job without a purpose?

You have to wonder who would have wanted to be a prophet. In ancient times, their life was usually not a good one.

In Matthew it says (5:11-12, NKJV).

“Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

But if you really look at what Isaiah is asked to do, he really isn’t asked to make people not understand. God just wanted Isaiah to tell them was the truth. The people needed to hear the hard message that they had strayed from the path and their reaction of disbelief was more of a prediction than anything else.

And, now that ties in with my earlier story of Dorothy Martin and her aliens. The Israelites didn’t want the truth. Just read the Old Testament. Through the history of the Jewish people, they had constant cycles of following the Lord, they would prosper, and then falling away. A prophet would come, preach the unpopular message and get the country back on track, only to have the nation of Israel fall back into idolatry and turn away from the Lord.