While we are thinking in this vein, I just wonder how far you and I really understand, and what have we seen that has captured us completely, and brought us into living contact with the Saviour, so that He is the center of everything as far as we are concerned. However, let’s just try and get some thing of the background of the call of this man Isaiah, very little is known of him. According to Rabbinical tradition, the name of a prophet’s father is given when he, himself, was a prophet. In Isaiah’s case we notice that his father was named Amos. This was probably a short form of the name Amaziah which means “strong is Jehovah.” Isaiah’s name means “Jehovah saves.” The presumption of these facts is that Isaiah came from a godly background in which Jehovah was known and ac knowledged in the family life. One writer has made this comment: “It may be inferred without much risk of error, that from the circumstances of Isaiah’s call he was a priest. The vision which he saw was from the court which none but the sons of Aaron might enter. So here we have a man, presumably from a background where Jehovah was honored; a man who had been anointed for the priest’s office, and had access to the temple of God. Isn’t the Bible up to date? Here is the uncertainty of fear and doubt. Here is corruption of their national life. Here is a show of prosperity. In our western world, today, these things are strikingly apparent, and in the midst of them the church has to give its wit ness. God realizing this is drawing near to Isaiah to manifest to him His own glory and His own grace. Let us look at what Isaiah saw. It says, first of all, “I saw'the Lord sitting
upon a throne high and lifted up.” Now we want to look at the words “high and lifted up.” There came a day when the Lord of Glory was lifted up between heaven and earth. There came a day when men nailed Him to the Cross and there, alone, He over came the power of sin and darkness. There the Lord took upon Himself the sin of a dying and lost world. This is a vision that you and I need to see; it is not just a teaching in which we need to be brought up. It is not something that we need simply to accept with our minds, it goes very much deeper than that. Here is some thing that has to be revealed to the heart—to the very core of a man by God, Himself. The Apostle Paul made this plain when he said that the Gospel which he preached did not come to him by revelation from man, it was revealed to him by Jesus Christ. And there is a sense in which you aiid I have to enter into the same understand ing, the same revelation. Isaiah saw the Lord lifted up. Have you seen Him lifted up upon Calvary? And then He saw Him on the throne. Have you seen Him reigning in glory? What a difference this makes in life! When the problems .and the difficulties come, what a rest of heart it gives to know that the Lord is there upon His throne — even when we look out into world affairs we can turn to Him in prayer to ask that His will be carried out in the movements of men and na tions. Here is rest and here is quiet confidence for the child of God. Here is something that takes a man radiant ly out into the world and enables him to stand and witness before his fellow man. His witness carries weight be cause it carries with it authority. Then Isaiah saw the Lord of Glory. He saw the One whose glory filled everything. He heard the cry of the hosts of heaven. Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts. Heaven and earth is full of Thy glory. And when this was burned into his consciousness, he was never the same man again. “I saw the Lord . . . I saw Him upon the throne . . . I saw His glory.” 24
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker