THE VOICE OF THE MASTER: "WHOM SHALL I SEND?" I SPOKE UP, "I'LL GO. SEND ME!"

Isaiah 6:8 The Message (MSG) Holy, Holy, Holy!

6 1-8 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Master sitting on a throne—high, exalted!—and the train of his robes filled the Temple. Angel-seraphs hovered above him, each with six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two their feet, and with two they flew. And they called back and forth one to the other, Holy, Holy, Holy is God-of-the-Angel-Armies. His bright glory fills the whole earth. The foundations trembled at the sound of the angel voices, and then the whole house filled with smoke. I said,

“Doom! It’s Doomsday! I’m as good as dead! Every word I’ve ever spoken is tainted—blasphemous even! And the people I live with talk the same way, using words that corrupt and desecrate. And here I’ve looked God in the face! The King! God-of-the-Angel-Armies!” Then one of the angel-seraphs flew to me. He held a live coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. He touched my mouth with the coal and said, “Look. This coal has touched your lips. Gone your guilt, your sins wiped out.”

And then I heard the voice of the Master: “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” I spoke up, “I’ll go. Send me!” 

Isaiah entered his ministry at about the time of the founding of Rome and the first Olympic games of the Greeks. European powers were not quite ready for wide conquest, but several Asian powers were looking beyond their borders. Assyria particularly was poised for conquest to the south and to the west. The prophet, who was a student of world affairs, could see the conflict that was imminent. Assyria took Samaria in 721 b.c., resulting in the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel and its people being taken into Assyrian captivity.

One of Isaiah’s purposes was to declare God’s displeasure with and judgment upon sin in Judah, Israel, and the surrounding nations. Almost all the Hebrew words for sin are employed by the prophet. A parallel purpose was to endeavor to turn God’s people away from disobedience in order to avert disaster, a purpose that was only partially successful. Perhaps the greatest purpose, however, was to lay a foundation of hope and promise for the faithful remnant of God’s people. Thus the book is full of promises of restoration and redemption, of the certain advent of the Messiah, of salvation for all the nations, and of the triumph of God’s purposes in spite of intervals of suffering.

No Old Testament book, with the possible exception of the Psalms, speaks more powerfully and appropriately to the modern-day church than the Book of Isaiah. Isaiah has been called both the “messianic prophet” and the “evangelical prophet.” He prophesied for all future ages, predicting both the first and second advents of Christ. His very name means “Salvation,” a salvation not only for those of his day, but also a salvation of the peoples of the nations for all time. This salvation issues from a Savior or Redeemer who has provided a ransom; it is always a vicarious salvation by grace. The prophetic time frame of Isaiah will not close until the Son of David rules over His kingdom of peace (2:1–5; 11:1–9; 42:1–4; 61:1–11; 65:17–25; 66:22, 23).

Isaiah speaks as powerfully to our day as he did to the society of his day. He focused a spotlight of holiness upon the sordid sins of Israel and Judah; he summoned his contemporaries to cease from their social injustice, their quest for carnal indulgence, their trust in the arm of flesh, and their hypocritical pretense of orthodox religion. He also warned of the consequences of judgment if sin continued.

After His resurrection Jesus walked with two of His disciples and “expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:27). To do so He must have drawn heavily from the Book of Isaiah, because seventeen chapters of Isaiah contain prophetic references to Christ.

Christ is spoken of as the “Lord,” “Branch of the Lord,” “Immanuel,” “Wonderful, Counselor,” “Mighty God,” “Everlasting Father,” “Prince of Peace,” “Rod of Jesse,” “Cornerstone,” “King,” “Shepherd,” “Servant of Yahweh,” “Elect One,” “Lamb of God,” “Leader and Commander,” “Redeemer,” and “Anointed One.” (MSG)

ELIJAH WAS A MAN SENT FROM GOD

Elijah was a man sent from God. He was sent to a wicked people to declare that judgment was coming from the hand of God. He was not afraid to speak up and expose the evils of his day. He was not afraid to live by faith in the God of Heaven. He was not afraid to put his very life into the hand of God and trust God all the way through. I just wonder this morning how many of us are like Elijah? How many of us are trusting God com what may? How many of us are taking our stand for God in the midst of this wicked world? How many of us are standing against the tide of evil in the world today? How many of us really know God like Elijah did. We need some Elijah's in our day. Elijah's God has not changed. Where are the Elijah's who will believe Him regardless of the cost?

God has a place that each of His children must pass through. He has a university, a training experience, for each of those He intends to use. When we think of Elijah, there are usually two events that seem to characterize his life. The first is the fact that he was carried away to Heaven in a chariot of fire. The second has to do with his great victory on top of Mount Carmel. I think we need to be reminded that before we can be trusted to stand on Carmel, we must first pass by the dry brook. What I am trying to communicate is the truth that before God can use His servants, He must train them. Before He can use us greatly before men, He must first break us before Himself.

Remember that God is sending Elijah to school. He is training a prophet. He is building a man of God. God knows that before Elijah can stand in power on Carmel, he must first be broken at Cherith. His goal is the same in our lives today. Many of us have attended the same university that Elijah attended. We are alumni of Dry Brook University. Others are just enrolling. Brooks are beginning to dry up in your life. You wonder what to do and how you will make it. My advice today is that you come to the place early where you roll everything off onto the Lord and you trust Him to take care of you.

Elijah holds in his hand a diploma from Dry Brook University. He has trusted God to take care of him even in the most desperate of situations. He trusted God to send the ravens to feed him, and he trusted God to supply his water using the little brook Cherith. He watched as God met his needs day in and day out. He also watched as God allowed his brook, the only source of water he had, to dry up before his eyes. Surely, enduring this kind of trial would count for something! Surely, things would get better for the prophet now!

Yet, when God speaks to Elijah, it is to send him into another difficult situation. You see, the prophet's training isn't over just yet. God is creating a man of God! Elijah may have graduated from Dry Brook University, but now he is about to enroll in Empty Barrel Graduate School. At Cherith God broke the prophet's flesh: He taught Elijah to depend on God. At Zarephath, God will break Elijah's pride. Here, he will learn that God, not Elijah calls all the shots of life. He will learn that things are never like they appear. He will learn that God can use the humblest of means to train His children fro His glory.

Remember, God intends to use this man in a mighty way! When we get to chapter 18, we will see why God put the prophet through such rigorous training. God is building a man of God!

Now, with that in mind, there are times when it seems that our trials come back to back to back to back. That is, it seems that before one trial can end, another begins! When these times come, we may be tempted to question the Lord as to what He is doing. Simply stated, God is getting you in a position where He can use you in a greater way. I will remind you that before He can mold us, He must first melt us! After all, God's goal for every saint of God is that we be made into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ, "Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:", Eph. 4:13.

Elijah is a recent graduate from Dry Brook University. There he learned to depend upon the Lord for all his provisions and not upon himself. It was there, by the brook Cherith, in the wilderness, that Elijah had his flesh broken. As soon as that trial of faith was past, Elijah finds himself enrolled in Empty Barrel Graduate School. While there, he has his pride broken as he must trust the Lord to provide for a widow, who in turn provides for the prophet. It seems that Elijah's life is marked by one trial after another. Someone who did not know any better might start to think that Elijah is being punished for something.

Of course, the Bible teaches us a different truth. God isn't correcting His prophet, He is perfecting Him. God is teaching Elijah lessons that can be learned in no other fashion than through trial and difficulty. You see, it is in the storms of life that we learn God can walk on the waves. It is in the valleys of life that we learn that He is the Lily of the Valleys. Sometimes we must go through the fires of life to find out that He will go with us every step of the way. These are the things Elijah is learning and they will serve him well in the very near future. God is preparing Elijah to stand for Him in very powerful way.

After a three year period of being hidden away from public view, first by the Brook Cherith and then at Zarephath, Elijah is brought back into the spotlight. When he first appeared before the throne of king Ahab and announced the drought, he was a man of faith. However, as he passed through the trials of the dried brook, the empty meal barrel and the dead son, Elijah was transformed into a man of God.

He is a man wholly dedicated to the Lord God! As he reenters the public eye, Elijah's first encounter is with a fellow believer by the name of Obadiah. While both are believers, the contrast between these men is striking! Elijah is seen to be a faithful servant of God, while Obadiah is pictured as a mere hireling, that is, one who gives lip service to God, but by his life he denies the God he claims to serve.

All the training, all the trials, and all the trusting have been to bring Elijah to the place where he could stand in the pure power of God and show a lost nation that Jehovah, not Baal, was Lord of all. You see, the entire nation of Israel, with the exception of some 7,000 faithful people, 1 Kings 19:18, had given themselves over to the worship of the false god Baal. Things were so bad that even the king and the queen of Israel were leaders in promoting the worship of these idol gods. However, God had not forgotten His investment in His people! He had not forgotten how He had chosen them out of all the other people's on the face of the earth. How He had brought them out of Egypt and led them through the wilderness. He remembered giving them the land, the Law and the covenants of promise. He never forgot for an instant that they were His people and that he had plans for them.

Therefore, God had called, trained, and groomed a man named Elijah. All the preparation had been for just this moment. A moment when God would call the nation back to Himself. A moment when God would prove beyond all question that He was Lord and God.

For Elijah, this was a event that required great faith and courage, but he had been adequately prepared by the Lord for a task such as this. In fact, it was time for Elijah to prove that he was who he was rumored to be. It was time to put up or shut up. In other words, It's Showtime!

If you are a child of God, may He help you to come to the place where you realize that everything that happens in your life is part of God's plan for you, Rom. 8:28. And that nothing can happen in you or to you that He does not allow.