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The Bible Breakdown
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The Bible Breakdown
Isaiah 06: Lord, Send Me
How do moments of crisis reveal God's divine plan and inspire transformation? Join us on a journey through Isaiah, chapter 6, where we explore the profound calling of the prophet Isaiah during a time of national turmoil. You'll gain insight into the significance of King Uzziah's reign, a period of prosperity that ultimately succumbed to pride, leaving the nation in shame. Discover how Isaiah's courageous response, "Lord, send me," exemplifies a willingness to embrace God's purpose, even amidst uncertainty. With Isaiah's vision serving as a powerful reminder of divine sovereignty, we explore how personal transformation can arise from seeing beyond human failures to the enduring power of faith.
In this episode, we reflect on Isaiah's encounter with the divine, where a vision of God's holiness leads to his purification and renewed mission. As Isaiah takes on the challenging task of delivering a difficult message, we draw parallels with today's tendency to over-rely on leaders who may falter. The episode encourages shifting our expectations towards God's unchanging nature, finding solace and strength in His control. By embracing forgiveness and understanding human imperfections, we celebrate the hope and victory that faith in God's sovereignty offers, inspired by the assurance found in Isaiah 12:2. Join us as we raise our expectations of God's power, drawing comfort from the promise of a resilient, holy remnant amidst life's challenges.
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The More You Dig. The More You Find.
Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon. Today, Isaiah, chapter 6, and today's title is Lord, Send Me, Lord, Send Me. Isaiah has a moment in his life that changes everything, and I want to talk about the idea of what happens in our life when God does the exact same for us. We'll get into all that in just a moment, but, as always, if you like what we're doing here, make sure you like, share and subscribe to the YouTube channel and the podcast. We love it when you share with us what God is doing in your life. And also, we are on the road to 2,000 subscribers and I'd love for you to help us to do that. So, make sure that you are subscribing yourself, but then also sharing with other people, so that we can all get in on this together. And, of course, as always, make sure you're going to the Bible Breakdown Discussion on Facebook, Because, man, the more we dig, the more we find, and they're doing an amazing job there, sharing God's Word with all of us.
Speaker 1:Well, if you have your Bibles, I want to open up with us to Isaiah, chapter 6, we're continuing this theme and it's this long journey in the same direction of the prophet Isaiah, as he is prophesying to the southern kingdom, Judah, and he's talking to them about this idea of God is our salvation. And the only way to do this properly is Isaiah is first having to call them to account. And he's saying you need to take stock of your life and see where you are and see that we're going in the wrong direction. But God doesn't leave us in those bad places, right? He lets us know where we are, so when we can see where he wants us to be. That's why the overall theme is God, our salvation. You don't have to start going whoa, this is not a good place to be, and then you go. Well, yeah, it sure seems like we need a Savior, and that's who God is. And what we're going to read today is maybe I don't know there's so many great chapters in the book of Isaiah, but I would definitely put today's chapter in one of the three top chapters in the entire book of Isaiah to me, and so I want to set the tone with you and then we're going to read it, then we're going to look at it again Back during the time of Isaiah, the times of kings and queens and militaries that were part of kingdoms, and it was life or death situation.
Speaker 1:Nowadays, if something doesn't go right, if you live in a democracy, you can vote out whoever your sovereign is your president or your prime minister Back then. Whoever became king, they were king for the remainder of their life and what they said is what went. And so you really prayed to have a good king, and then, when you had a really good king, you felt blessed. Well, if a good king died, you were extremely upset. Number one, because you learned to love that king and even if you didn't always agree with that king, that was your sovereign and you love them. And especially if they were a good king, because you didn't know who was going to come next, you know what they were going to do, and so the birth and the death and the coronation of a king was a really big deal in the life of the people during this time. And that sets the tone for what happens in Isaiah, chapter six, because the very first verse tells us that this king, a king named Uzziah, had died.
Speaker 1:Now a little bit of background about Uzziah. Uzziah was apparently a really good king. Like he was somebody you would have wanted to be king while you were alive, except for toward the end of his life, he became proud. He became so proud that he started to think of himself as being better than even the priest that God had set up. And so one day he goes into the temple and he decides that he is going to offer the sacrifices and do the things only God had told the priest to do. And when he did these things he wasn't supposed to do it. He ended up being judged by God and he came down with leprosy all over his body and he had to be put in a separate place until eventually, he died. Well, this was a horrible thing, because for a little while things looked so good with Uzziah, but then he shamed himself and he embarrassed himself and embarrassed the whole nation, and because of that they were having to grapple with the shame of their fallen hero, their fallen king. But it's in the depth of this shame that God does something great in the life of Isaiah. So let's read this together and let's see what God's word will say to us today.
Speaker 1:So if you're ready, Isaiah, chapter six, verse one, says this it was in the year of King Uzziah, when he died, that I saw the Lord. He was seated on a lofty throne and the train of his robe filled the temple. Attending him were mighty seraphim, each having six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, With two wings they covered their feet and with two they flew. And they were calling out to each other holy, holy, holy is the Lord of heaven's armies. The whole earth is filled with his glory. Their voices shook. Then I said Amen, I am doomed, for I am a sinful man, I have filthy lips and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the Lord of heaven's armies. Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal that he had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. He touched my lips with it and said See, this coal has touched your lips. Now your guilt is removed and your sins are forgiven.
Speaker 1:Then I heard the Lord asking whom shall I send as a messenger to this people? Who will go for us? And so I said here I am, send me. And he said yes, go and say to this people listen carefully, but do not understand. Watch closely but learn nothing. Harden the hearts of these people, Plug their ears and shut their eyes. That way they will not see with their eyes. They will not hear with their ears, nor understand with their hearts, and turn to me for healing. Then I said Lord, how long will this go on? And he replied until their towns are empty and their houses are deserted. The whole country will be a wasteland until the Lord has sent everyone away and the entire land of Israel lies deserted. If even a tenth a remnant survive, it will be evaded again and burned, but as a tabernacle, and the oak tree leaves a stump when it's cut down, so Israel's stump will be a holy seed.
Speaker 1:Now there's a couple of things there before we end our time together. First of all, what was the prophecy that God gave Isaiah? He said I want you to go and I want you to tell the people that I'm going to keep telling you to repent, but you're not going to listen. I'm going to keep telling you these things, but you're not going to do it. And if you just turn to me, you would be healed, but you're not going to turn to me. And Isaiah was like well, how long is this cycle going to go? And God was like the cycle will go until they're completely destroyed. However, there'll be a small remnant of people that won't give up and those people will be the seed for the future. Well, it's going to take someone who's really got their mind right and their focus right to be able to say something like that, because that's hard to say right. Well, turns out that's going to be Isaiah because he, in the lowest moment of his life, the most uncertain season, his sovereign, his king, had died.
Speaker 1:In this low moment, God did something amazing in his life. He showed him the heavenly throne room and around him were these seraphims, and seraphims are a type of angel. Now, in the Old Testament we think of angel and we automatically think of like one kind of angel. If you grew up in one kind of way, you think of angels as these, you know overweight little babies with wings, you know what I mean With harps, you know that is not what an angel looks like. As a matter of fact, an angel is a job description in the Old Testament and New Testament because within the context of angels, the word actually means messenger. There are different kinds of angels there's cherubim, there's seraphim, there's warlike angels, there's all these different kinds of spirit beings that fall under the category of angels. One of the categories are seraphim and, according to God's word, seraphim have six wings and they fly around and they must be very beautiful creatures. And for these seraphim, their whole job description is to attend to the Lord. They're worshiping God, they're doing things for God in his throne room. It's just a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1:And in this low moment of Isaiah's life, God comes to him and he says I'm your sovereign, I'm the one who's actually in charge. Don't let what's going on get you down. There's so much going on that you don't understand. And then he says who will go and tell the world this truth? Who will go and tell the world who's truly in charge and who we should truly be worshiping? Well, after seeing all of this, Isaiah was like send me Lord. And he says okay, go. It's going to be a hard message, but you're the man for the job. Well, what can we get from that today? Because from this moment on, you will see that the ministry of Isaiah really goes to a whole new level. We're gonna start seeing more in our treasure hunt as we start to see more and more messianic prophecies and looking forward to the future king that is coming one day. Because of this, that experience that happened with Isaiah and he was never the same after this moment.
Speaker 1:Well, can I tell you, I feel like that that is exactly what's going on in the generation we're living in right now. I can't speak for other generations. I can see the parallels in previous generations, but we don't live in those generations. We live in this one and I can see how, for so many people, those who were supposed to be their leaders have failed them. And I see this in all over the world. And I know I don't just have a United States of America audience, we have an international audience. But I dare say there's probably at least one person in your life that intentionally or unintentionally kind of set up on a higher pedestal and said, okay, this person is going to lead the way, they're the one that's going to help us out of this, Only to be disappointed, Only to have a time when you go. What are we doing here? We had such high hopes and now there's these low delivery on our high expectations.
Speaker 1:Well, to me, Isaiah 6 reminds us that we need to lower our expectations of man and raise our expectations of God, Because in the lowest moment of Isaiah's life, his sovereign, his king, his leader had died. God shows him and he says guess who's still on the throne, Me. God is still on the throne. His rule has not been interrupted by the affairs, by the downfall, by the uplifting, by the things of men. God's rule has not been affected one way, and when you get into God's presence, you never leave the same, You're always impacted. And I want to say this to you right now, wherever you're listening from, whenever you're listening, and I want to say this to you right now, wherever you're listening from, whenever you're listening God's got a plan for you and if for nothing else, God's plan for you might be to open your eyes so you can see that his rule is not affected by the successes or failures of people.
Speaker 1:And maybe God's word for you today is it's time to lower our expectations of man and raise our expectations of God. And I want to ask you this question what in the Lord can you encourage yourself? What about God? Can you encourage yourself? Do you know? What encourages me Is that God is not intimidated by the things going on around me. God's not nervous, he's not worried. There's never been a moment when he was unsure. And can I tell you, that brings me comfort, because there's times when I don't know what's going on and I wonder, God, how can you make a miracle out of all this mess? But then, when I get an idea of who God is and I see who he is in his word, I realize that none of this can stand in the presence of God. That brings me comfort. What about you? What is it about God and his rulership, his sovereignty that can bring you comfort today? And maybe your mantra today needs to be I'm going to, in advance, forgive everybody for not being perfect. I'm going to lower my expectations of man because I have a raised expectation of what God can do and watch what God does. In that, let's pray together.
Speaker 1:God, thank you so much for today. Thank you, God, that you're not nervous, You're not worried. You've got everything under your control. I ask you, God, today you help us to lower expectations of others around us. That doesn't mean we don't hope for things and we don't love people, but it's we're going to take them out of the center of hope for our life and we're going to place you as our hope and our expectation. We celebrate you today in Jesus name. We pray Amen, Amen. God's word says in Isaiah, chapter 12, verse two God has come to save me and I will put my trust in him and not be afraid. The Lord is my strength and my song. He has given me victory. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow. For Isaiah, chapter 7.
