Most of us who were old enough to understand at the time can remember where we were on November 22, 1963. President John F. Kennedy’s motorcade was on its way to a luncheon in downtown Dallas. The president and his wife were sitting in the back of an open convertible, and Governor and Mrs. John Connally were sitting with them. The large crowds which gathered were wildly enthusiastic. Kennedy had become one of the most popular presidents ever. In 1962, he successfully backed down Nikita Khrushchev during the Cuban missel crisis, which some believe prevented a third World War. He had just negotiated a nuclear test ban treaty with the USSR in August. He had written two popular books, one of which, Profiles In Courage, won a Pulitzer Prize. John and Jackie had transformed the White House, and brought a new appreciation of culture and tradition. The media kept his moral failures private and promoted the successes of his presidency. There was an air of royalty and romanticism which surrounded the Kennedys, and the newspapers began describing the Kennedy household and administration as “Camelot.” Pride and optimism were growing in the nation. But with the assassination of Kennedy there was widespread shock and mourning. There was a sense of irreplaceable loss. Problems in Viet Nam were looming large. The thought of Lyndon Johnson being president was not a comfort to most people, and there began to be a growing concern about the future of the country.
That was much the same mood that we find in the sixth chapter of Isaiah. King Uzziah had died. There had not been another king like him since Solomon. Uzziah was an able administrator and military leader. He began his reign at 16, and it lasted 52 years — a remarkable tenure. He was an extremely popular king, and his accomplishments were many. Under his leadership the nation of Judah had grown and known tremendous prosperity, peace and stability. But with Uzziah’s death came the death of hope for many. It was the year hope died, because Judah was facing the transition from one very popular and proven ruler to an inexperienced and less favored successor. There was anxiety and concern throughout Judah. Would Uzziah’s son be able to lead them? To the north, the Assyrians were gaining power and were gulping down nations all around them. They were pushing closer and closer every day. An even larger threat was presenting itself in the rising kingdom of Babylon. It was a frightening and depressing time in the history of the nation.
What do you do when hope dies and fear comes alive? Where do you go when stability is lost and the future is uncertain at best, and something to be dreaded at worst? There are three clear messages in this chapter of Isaiah, and the first is this: When hope dies we need a vision of God. Isaiah said, “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted....” It was depressing to think of what was going to happen to the nation with the death of the king. Judah was in need of continuing great leadership if the nation was going to remain free and prosperous. All of this was now uncertain with Uzziah’s death and Isaiah was in despair. Isaiah needed a vision of God to bring him out of it. With the death of Judah’s king, Isaiah needed to see THE King — the Sovereign of all the earth whose kingdom will never end.
How often we have puny little concepts of God which put life out of perspective. I have had people tell me that they do not believe in God. Sometimes I ask them what they think God is like, and after they tell me I say, “I don’t believe in that God either.” Their idea of God is distorted and inadequate. In a time of despair you need to run to God, not away from him. But be sure it is the true God and that your God is not too small. Take a look at Isaiah’s God and see how yours compares. If you are not occasionally overcome with the thought of the bigness and greatness of God, then you need a new vision of God.
Even people outside the Christian faith have noticed that if God does exist, he exists in a grandeur unknown to us who are confined to time and space. J. B. Phillips, in his book Your God Is Too Small, says: “The discoveries of modern physical and biological science, of astronomy, and of psychology, have profoundly influenced his conception of the ‘size’ of God. If there be a Mind behind the immense complexities of the phenomena that man can observe, then it is that of a Being tremendous in His power and wisdom: it is emphatically not that of a little god.” Sara Maitland, in her book A Big-Enough God, observes: “So, as it turns out, we do not have a little, tame, domestic God, thank God, but we do have a huge, wild, dangerous God — dangerous, of course, only if we think that God ought to be manageable and safe; a God of almost manic creativity, ingenuity and enthusiasm; a Big-Enough God, who is also a supremely generous and patient God; a God of beauty and chance and solidarity — or one could say, an Extreme God.”
You may have other gods in your life because your idea of the real God is too small. How foolish we are when we place our hopes in a certain form of government, or a particular political leader. How foolish to put our confidence in any person or earthly kingdom. I will never forget hearing about a well-known religious leader a few years ago who stated that “If America falls, the kingdom of God fails.” I believe that is blasphemy, for it confuses the kingdom of God with a particular political system and ties it to a specific nation. The kingdom of God is bigger than the United States, or even all the nations of the earth together. It is good to be patriotic, but to confuse our faith with our belief in this country is an error of monumental proportions. To place our love of country along side our love for God is a major misunderstanding of who God is and the kind of commitment he requires of us. Our hope is not in the United States, our hope is in God. And God allowed Isaiah’s hope in his country to die, in order to give him a new hope in the King of the universe whose kingdom will never end. His false hope died in order that real hope could come alive. Isaiah was given a new vision of God. Above the chaos and change of what was happening in Judah, Isaiah was given a vision of the sovereign God ruling over the affairs of heaven and earth with wisdom and purpose. He had been seeing only visible things; God gave him a vision of invisible things that were more real than anything he had ever touched.
It is so easy to get our eyes on the things of this world. It is so easy to watch the Dow Jones average or the Nasdaq, and let our hopes rise and fall with the market. It is easy to think that the future of the country depends on our particular political party getting into power. But hope will die if it is tied to the power and prosperity of this world. Paul wrote about this when he said, “What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who... buy something [should live] as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away” (1 Corinthians 7:29-31). What Paul was trying to say was that our eyes need to be on something bigger than our present circumstances. We need a fresh vision of God. We need to see him above everything else. Actually, you need this vision before hope dies. When you are focused on THE hope, then hope does not die. In fact, God may have to allow your hopes to die in order for you to begin to see your real Hope. If you only have a vision of what is happening in this world your hopes will be dashed, but if you have a true vision of God your hope will never die.
Isaiah had been in the presence of king Uzziah and it was impressive. His throne and his attendants were majestic. The military power and the royal authority contained in the palace of the king were overpowering, even intoxicating. The colors and the grandeur of ceremony which was played out each day would impress anybody. But Uzziah’s court could not even be compared to what Isaiah saw in his vision of God. He was thunderstruck. So majestic and powerful was the presence of God that it devastated him. There was smoke and fire, and singing like he had never heard before. The whole place was shaken by the awesome presence of God, but nothing was shaking more than Isaiah. He flew to the floor and landed on his face. And Isaiah saw that God’s glory was not limited to heaven. As the burning seraphs flew back and forth, they called out to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:3). Isaiah may have had the idea that God’s glory was confined to heaven, but he now saw that God’s glory extended to all the earth — a glory greater than any earthly king.
And when Isaiah saw who God really was, he also saw who he really was, and he thought he was done for. He thought he would die. Something essential was taking place in Isaiah’s life. He saw the inadequacy of his earthly king when he caught sight of his heavenly king. But when he caught sight of the holiness of God, he saw the inadequacy and sinfulness of his own life. That’s when any hope for his life died. He expected God to kill him, but instead God cleansed him and changed him. And this is where the second point comes in: When hope dies, you need a transformation of the heart. Isaiah was not able to stand in the presence of God. But it was not that God was infinite and he was finite that bothered him. It was not that he was overpowered. What concerned him was that God was holy and he was unclean. His condition seemed hopeless as he stood before a righteous God. There was uncleanness in his life. Isaiah had probably not thought of himself as unclean before this. In fact, as he compared himself to the other people in the nation, he thought of himself as righteous — perhaps the most righteous person in the nation. But when Isaiah stopped comparing himself with other people, and compared his life with the holiness of God, he saw what a moral failure he really was. Isaiah saw his sin and confessed it, and when he did, his sin and was cleansed. His guilt and shame were taken away.
I love the fact that when Isaiah saw that his particular sin was located in his lips, a burning coal was placed on his lips. God always touches us in the exact area of our need. Isaiah had said, “I am a man of unclean lips,” and the angel came and placed the burning coal to his lips. The coal came from an altar in the temple. There were actually two altars. One was the altar of incense, which represented the prayers of God’s people rising before him. The other altar was the altar of sacrifice. I like to think that the coal came from the altar of sacrifice. The burning ember, saturated with the juices of the sacrificial lamb, was placed to Isaiah’s lips. The atoning sacrifice was not just for the people, it was specifically for him. It was personal. Isaiah saw himself as worthy of death. He confessed his sin. He did not expect to be forgiven, he expected that justice would be carried out and that he would die. But he experienced mercy and grace as the angel flew to him in order to touch his unclean lips with the atoning sacrifice. Is that wonderful or what? God, who is rich in mercy, meets us at the point of our sin and touches us with the sacrifice of Christ. Our sin is cleansed and our hearts are transformed. John wrote: “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1).
There is a wonderful early American hymn which beckons: “Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore; Jesus ready stands to save you, full of pity, love, and power. I will arise and go to Jesus; he will embrace me with his arms; in the arms of my dear Savior, O there are ten thousand charms.” Whether hope is dead or alive you need a transformation of the heart. It comes as a result of humility and confession. It comes because God is good and wants to redeem us.
The third thing that this passage tells us is: When hope dies you need a mission in the world. You need to get your focus off of yourself, your problems and what is wrong in your world, and focus on what God is doing in the world. You need to see the bigger picture and get on board with God’s eternal purposes. Isaiah said: “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’” With charred lips Isaiah cried out, “Here am I. Send me.” In my mind I picture Isaiah as an elementary student in class who is waving his hand in the air trying to get the teacher’s attention: “Here I am! Call on me! Please. Please.” Isaiah had encountered God. He had seen the one, true, and living God. He had been cleansed from his sin, and his heart was full of excitement and gratitude. He wanted to be used by God, and God gave him a mission in the world. His heart and mind were full as he considered the awesome task of speaking God’s Word to the needy people around him. Despair turned to hope.
But Isaiah would not have been ready for service if he had not been cleansed. If the atoning sacrifice would not have been applied to his life, he would not have been available to answer the Lord’s call. We have a lot of people today who try to serve God, but whose lives have not been cleansed. They have never confessed their sin and need of God and feel that they can serve God with a life that has not experienced the holiness of God. Christian history is littered with the lives of those who never had the burning sacrifice applied to their lives, and they have left a trail of moral and practical failure that the church continues to try and live down. If you want to have a mission in this world you first have to have a transformation of the heart. Perhaps the reason there are not more people who are responding to God’s call to mission in the world is because they have not first responded to his call for a transformation of the heart. I believe that when, like Isaiah, the transformation takes place in your heart, you cannot help but go. The transformation creates a desire to be in mission.
There is nothing better than the realization that God wants to use your life for his purposes in the world. J. H. Newman discovered this truth when he wrote: “God has created me to do him some definite service; he has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission — I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for nothing. I shall do good. I shall do his work. Therefore, I will trust him, whatever, wherever I am. I cannot be thrown away.”
Jesus has given his call to all of us. He says: “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation” (Mark 16:15). In 1998, Barbara Vogel, a fourth grade teacher at Highline Community School in Aurora, Colorado, began to read about the civil war taking place in Sudan. Muslims in the north were rounding up Christians in southern Sudan and selling them into slavery. Mrs. Vogel began telling her class about what was happening as a part of their current events lessons. The children could not believe that slavery still took place. They decided to do something about it, and started what they called S.T.O.P.: Slavery That Oppresses People. They learned about Christian Solidarity, an organization which buys back slaves and returns them to their families. Even though many of the students lived in public housing, they saved their allowances, sold lemonade, T-shirts and old toys. They started a letter writing campaign to newspapers and public officials. In nine months they raised more than $50,000, and more than five thousand slaves were set free through their efforts. The U.S. Congress gave the class special recognition and flew a flag over the capitol in their honor. Barbara Vogel said, “As a public-school teacher, I cannot say [in class] that Christ is the most important thing in my life, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t model my faith.” Here is a woman who wanted to be a part of what God was doing in the world and has made a world of difference. She involved other people. She heard the call of God, and God has used her and the children in her class in amazing ways.
Do you have a vision of who God really is? Do you have a transformed heart? Are you living out your mission in this world? God is inviting us to have a new vision of who he is. He is wanting us to experience a transformation of the heart. He is calling us to fulfill our purpose and become involved in his mission to reach a world in need of him. When that happens it will do more than renew your hope, it will change your world.
Rodney J. Buchanan
July 16, 2000
THE YEAR HOPE DIED
Isaiah 6:1-13
“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!’”
(Isaiah 6:8).
When hope dies, we need:
1. A ____________________ of ________________________.
2. A _________________________ of the _______________ .
3. A _____________________ to the ___________________ .
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION (July 16, 2000)
1. What makes the service of worship a profound encounter with God for one and a routine ritual for another?
2. Read about Isaiah’s encounter with God. What did he discover about God?
3. Why are many people’s concept of God so small? What is the remedy?
4. What did Isaiah learn about himself in his encounter with God?
5. What was the remedy to Isaiah’s problem? How does this apply to your life?
6. Why did God send Isaiah if he knew the people would not listen? (See the clue in 6:13.)
7. Must we, like Judah, go through calamities before we will listen to God’s words, or is there a better way?
8. Read 1 Corinthians 7:29-31. What was Paul trying to say here?
9. How does it make you feel to know that God wants to use your life here on earth? What do you think your personal mission is?
10. Why was Isaiah so willing to go? Why are others so reluctant?
11. Would you do what God asked you to do if he told you before you went that you would not be successful?
12. Is your life making a positive difference?
