25. Go and Tell

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Hymns: RHC 242 Blessed Quietness 243 The Comforter Has Come 244 Fill Me Now

Isaiah 6:8-13

 8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me. 9 And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. 10Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. 11 Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, 12And the LORD have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. 13 But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.

Go and Tell

OUTLINE

(1) Audience (v9)

(2) Attitude (v10)

(3) Alas (v11-12)

(4) Alive (v13)

INTRODUCTION

When the Great Commission is given by our Lord Jesus to the church before His ascension, He also told them the scope of the work – the goal is to preach the gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15), beginning in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth (Acts 1:8). The time frame for the work – Matthew 24:14 (KJV) And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. 

The disciples are told to expect persecution, but the Lord will be with them to give an answer for their faith in Christ.

Mark 13:10-11 (KJV) And the gospel must first be published among all nations. But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost.

For 2000 years, the Lord continues to raise men to preach the message of repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:21).

Where do we find the strength to witness for Him, when He has forgiven us of our sins and energized with His Spirit to witness for Him!

For the prophet Isaiah, the assurance of forgiveness produces its usual effect of readiness to do God’s will – Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I (literally, behold me, or lo I am); send me.

The form of expression in the first clause may imply that the speaker was now invisible, perhaps concealed by the smoke which filled the house. The phrase was equivalent to “Who will be our messenger?” 

The Lord was first afar off but now Isaiah is near enough to overhear him saying “as he said”. Isaiah had expressed his own “silencing” but now he is free to speak to God and to associate with His purposes. The “us” in “who will go for us?” is a plural consultation. The New Testament, however, relate this passage both to the Lord Jesus (John 12:41) and to the Holy Spirit (Acts 28:25), finding here that which will accommodate the full revelation of the Triune God.

John 12:41 (KJV) These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him.

Acts 28:25 (KJV) And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed, after that Paul had spoken one word, Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers,

Isaiah’s response was immediate. A moment before he had feared that there as no hope for him; now, however, that he has received the assurance of the forgiveness of his sins and understands that God will not banish him from His presence, he is ready to do service for the sovereign Lord. It is the readiness of true faith. Indeed, even before the prophet knows what God’s bidding is, he is willing to do that bidding. Here in this matchless passage, we find the reason why so few are willing and ready joyfully to serve God, to go wherever God may call him. Does our day and age have any greater need than the preaching of the law, that men may know of their sin, and the gospel that they may look to Him who has turned aside their iniquity and pardoned their sin?

Psalm 51:13-15 (KJV) Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise. [Edward J. Young]

(1) Audience (v9)

9 And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.

Isaiah’s message constitutes at first sight, the oddest commission ever given to a prophet; to tell people not to understand and to effect heart-hardening and spiritual blindness. There is however no way to evade the meaning of the verses.

Verse 9 speaks of both the outer faculties (hearing, seeing) and the inner ones (understanding/discerning, perceiving/knowing). 

Upon the expression of Isaiah’s willingness, the command follows immediately. Messengers of God are sent, and they are sent that they may speak. God’s message to mankind comes in words, and the proclamation of those words is the task of those throughout. “This prediction,” remarks Alexander, “is clothed in the form of an exhortation or command addressed to the people themselves, for the purpose of bringing it more palpably before them, and of aggravating their insanity and wickedness in ruining themselves after such a warning.” [Edward J. Young]

God takes Isaiah at his word, and here sends him on a strange errand – to foretell the ruin of his people and even to ripen them for that ruin – to preach that which, by their abuse of it, would be to them a savour of death unto death. 

And this was to be a type and figure of the state of the Jewish church in the days of the Messiah, when they should obstinately reject the gospel, and should thereupon be rejected of God. These verses are quoted in part, or referred to, six times, in the New Testament, which intimates that in gospel time these spiritual judgments would be most frequently inflicted; and though they make the least noise, and come not with observation, yet they are of all judgments the most dreadful. Isaiah is here given to understand these four things.

That the generality of the people to whom he was sent would turn a deaf ear to his preaching, and wilfully shut their eyes against all the discoveries of the mind and will of God which he had to make to them (v9): 

Isaiah must preach to them, and they will hear him indeed, but that is all; they will not heed him; they will not understand him; they will not take any pains, nor use that application of mind which is necessary to the understanding of him; they are prejudiced against that which is the true intent and meaning of what he says, and therefore they will not understand him, or pretend they do not.

There are many who hear the sound of God’s word, but do not feel the power of it. [Matthew Henry]

The prophet how receives his commission, together with a solemn declaration that his labours will be fruitless. This prediction is clothed in the form of an exhortation or command addressed to the people themselves, for the purpose of bringing it more palpably before them, and of aggravating their insanity and wickedness in ruining themselves after such a warning. And he said, Go and say to this people, Hear indeed, or hear on, but understand not; and see indeed, or continue to see, but know not. 

But here where the blindness and infatuation of the people are foretold, they are allowed an abundant opportunity of hindering its fulfilment if they will. Not only is their insensibility described in the strongest terms, imply extreme folly as well as extreme guilt, but, as if to provoke them to an opposite course, they are exhorted, with a sort of solemn irony, to do the very thing which would inevitably ruin them, but with an explicit intimation of that issue is the verse ensuing.

(2) Attitude (v10)

10 Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.

Verse 10 arranges these into a rounded structure (heart, ears, eyes, eyes, ears, heart) thus emphasizing a total inability to comprehend. 

According to the criticism levelled at him in Isaiah 28:9-10, Isaiah taught with such simplicity and clarity that the sophicates of his day scorned him as fit only to conduct a kindergarten. 

Isaiah 28:9-10 (KJV) Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that areweaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little: 

The preaching of Isaiah has come to us bearing all the marks of a plan, systematic, reasoned approach. It is clear that Isaiah did not understand his commission as one to blind the people by obscurity of expression or complexity of message. He, in fact, faced the preacher’s dilemma: if hearers are resistant to the truth, the only recourse is to tell them the truth yet again, more clearly than before. But to do this is to expose them to the risk of rejecting the truth yet again and, therefore, of increased hardness of heart. It could even be that the next rejection, will prove to be the point at which the heart is hardened beyond recovery. The human eye cannot see this point in advance; it comes and goes unnoticed. But the all-sovereign God both knows it and appoints it as he presides in perfect justice over the psychological processes he created (Exodus 4:21).

Exodus 4:21 (KJV) And the LORD said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go. 

It was just at such a point that Isaiah was called to office. His task was to bring the Lord’s word with fresh, even unparalleled clarity, but in their response, people would reach the point of no return. The imperatives of these verses, must, therefore, be seen as expressing an inevitable outcome of Isaiah’s ministry (Isaiah 2:9). And, of course, so it turned out to be, as is made clear in chapters 7-11. These were the days in which the decisive word was spoken and refused. 

“Opportunity in human life is as often judgment as it is salvation.”  

That, forasmuch as they would not be made better by his ministry, they should be made worse by it; those that were wilfully blind should be judicially blinded (v10): “They will not understand or perceive thee, and therefore thou shalt be instrumental to make their heart fat, senseless, and sensual, and so to make their ears yet more heavy, and to shut their eyes the closer; so that, at length, their recovery and repentance will become utterly impossible; they shall no more see with their eyes the danger they are in, the ruin they are upon the brink of, nor the way of escape from it; they shall no more hear with their ears the warnings and instructions that are given them, nor understand with their heart the things that belong to their peace, so as to be converted from the error of their ways, and thus be healed.” 

The conversion of sinners is the healing of them. A right understanding is necessary to conversion. God sometimes, in a way of righteous judgment, gives men up to blindness of mind and strong delusions, because they would not receive the truth in the love of it, (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12). He that is filthy let him be filthy still.

2 Thessalonians 2:10-12 (KJV) And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Even the word of God oftentimes proves a means of hardening sinners. The evangelical prophet himself makes the heart of this people fat, not only as he foretells it, passing this sentence upon them in God’s name, and seals them under it, but as his preaching had a tendency to it, rocking some asleep in security (to whom it was a lovely song), and making others more outrageous, to whom it was such a reproach that they were not able to bear it. Some looked upon the word as a privilege, and their convictions were smothered by it (Jeremiah 7:4); others looked upon it as a provocation, and their corruptions were exasperated by it.

Jeremiah 7:4 (KJV) Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these.

 (3) Alas

11 Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate,12 And the LORD have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.

For how long…? Is shorthand for “How will things go and what will be the end?” The Lord predicts cities and lands devasated amd emptied (v11), deportation (v12), and even then, a further process of wasting (v13a). [Motyer]

Out of love for and concern over his people Isaiah raises the question. It is really a prayer uttered on behalf of his people. Will there be no end to this hardness of the people? How long will they continue to be hard of heart? When will the period of grace begin? Will God always chide? Will He keep His anger forever? How great will the wrath be? It is a question that the prophet must ask. He cannot defend his people. God’s judgment upon them is true; that Isaiah knows. Nor does he even dare sugest that God modify His judgment. That he cannot do. God’s pronouncement is true, it cannot be modified. But Isaiah is concerned for the nation, and his concern is prompted from his own affection toward the people.

Thus, he is placed in a twofold position. With eager desire and true faithfulness he must proclaim the message of God, wven when that message imvolves the announcement of the nation’s hardening. On the other hand, in no disloyalty to his message and with the utmost concern that it be declared in its fullness, he must manifest anxiety and love toward those to whom he is called to preach.

“These two feelings,” says Calvin, “though they appear inconsistent, are in full harmony.” They must supplement one another. On the one hand, natural affection toward those to whom one must preach will prevent a cold and harsh, or even cruel presentation of the truth. On the other hand, natural feelings and affections must not prevent the minister from declaring the entire truth. 

Here is the problem that must be face by all true ministers of God. And the deepest, the truest, the most sincere and earnest love for the people to whom we minister will be shown only when we declare to them in loving, yet firm, fashion the whole counsel of God. Anything less than full proclamation of the truth is a manifestation of a spirit of self-interest, not of true love. Genuine love to our people demands that we tell them the truth. [Edward J. Young] 

That the consequence of this would be their utter ruin (v11-12). The prophet had nothing to object against the justice of this sentence, nor does he refuse to go upon such an errand, but asks, “Lord, how long?” (an abrupt question): “Shall it always be thus? Must I and other prophets always labour in vain among them, and will things never be better?” Or, (as should seem by the answer) “Lord, what will it come to at last? What will be in the end hereof?” 

In answer to this he is told that it should issue in the final destruction of the Jewish church and nation. “When the word of God, especially the word of the gospel, had been thus abused by them, they shall be unchurched, and consequently undone. Their cities shall be uninhabited, and their country houses too; the land shall be untilled, desolate with desolation (as it is in the margin), the people who should replenish the houses and cultivate the ground being all cut off by sword, famine, or pestilence, and those who escape with their lives being removed far away into captivity, so that there shall be a great and general forsaking in the midst of the land; that populous country shall become desert, and that glory of all lands shall be abandoned.” 

Spiritual judgments often bring temporal judgments along with them upon persons and places. This was in part fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, when the land, being left desolate, enjoyed her sabbaths seventy years; but the foregoing predictions being so expressly applied in the New Testament to the Jews in our Saviour’s time, doubtless this points at the final destruction of that people by the Romans, in which it had a complete accomplishment, and the effects of it that people and that land remain under to this day. [Matthew Henry]

The judgment will be carred out in that men will be brought to exile. This is the specific example of the process of purification. The LORD, who chose Israel and gave her the land of promise, will now remove her from that land. Indeed He will remove her far, to a great distance, and thus we have a general description of exile. 

Joel 3:6 (KJV) The children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye might remove them far from their border. 

When God removes men far from their own land, there will be a great forsaking: either that the land itself will be unoccupied, forsaken land, or a forsaking as such will take place.

(4) Alive (v13)

 13 But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.

That yet a remnant should be reserved to be the monuments of mercy (v13). There was a remnant reserved in the last destruction of the Jewish nation (Romans 11:5 – At this present time there is a remnant); for so it was written here: But in it shall be a tenth, a certain number, but a very small number in comparison with the multitude that shall perish in their unbelief. It is that which, under the law, was God’s proportion; they shall be consecrated to God as the tithes were, and shall be for his service and honour. Concerning this tithe, this saved remnant, we are here told, that they shall return (v13; Isaiah 10:21), shall return from sin to God and duty, shall return out of captivity to their own land. God will turn them, and they shall be turned. 

Isaiah 10:21 (KJV) The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God.

That they shall be eaten, that is, shall be accepted of God as the tithe was, which was meat in God’s house (Malachi 3:10). 

Malachi 3:10 (KJV) Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

The saving of this remnant shall be meat to the faith and hope of those that wish well to God’s kingdom. That they shall be like a timber-tree in winter, which has life, though it has no leaves: As a teil-tree and as an oak, whose substance is in them even when they cast their leaves, so this remnant, though they may be stripped of their outward prosperity and share with others in common calamities, shall yet recover themselves, as a tree in the spring, and flourish again; though they fall, they shall not be utterly cast down. There is hope of a tree, though it be cut down, that it will sprout again, (Job 14:7).

That this distinguished remnant shall be the stay and support of the public interests. The holy seed in the soul is the substance of the man; a principle of grace reigning in the heart will keep life there; he that is born of God has his seed remaining in him.

1 John 3:9 (KJV) Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.

So, the holy seed in the land is the substance of the land, keeps it from being quite dissolved, and bears up the pillars of it (Psalm 75:3). 

Psalm 75:3 (KJV) The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved: I bear up the pillars of it. Selah.

Isaiah 1:9 (KJV) Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, andwe should have been like unto Gomorrah.

Some read the foregoing clause with this, thus: As the support at Shallecheth is in the elms and the oaks, so the holy seed is the substance thereof; as the trees that grow on either side of the causeway (the raised way, or terrace-walk, that leads from the king’s palace to the temple, (1 Kings 10:5), at the gate of Shallecheth (1 Chronicles 26:16) support the causeway by keeping up the earth, which would otherwise be crumbling away, so the small residue of religious, serious, praying people, are the support of the state, and help to keep things together and save them from going to decay. 

1 Kings 10:5 (KJV) And the meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and their apparel, and his cupbearers, and his ascent by which he went up unto the house of the LORD; there was no more spirit in her.

1 Chronicles 26:16 (KJV) To Shuppim and Hosah the lot came forth westward, with the gate Shallecheth, by the causeway of the going up, ward against ward.

Some make the holy seed to be Christ. The Jewish nation was therefore saved from utter ruin because out of it, as concerning the flesh, Christ was to come (Romans 9:5).

Romans 9:5 (KJV) Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.

Destroy it not, for that blessing is in it (Isaiah 65:8); and when that blessing had come, it was soon destroyed. Now the consideration of this is designed for the support of the prophet in his work. Though far the greater part should perish in their unbelief, yet to some his word should be a savour of life unto life. Ministers do not wholly lose their labour if they be but instrumental to save one poor soul.

Isaiah 65:8 (KJV) Thus saith the LORD, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it: so will I do for my servants’ sakes, that I may not destroy them all.

CONCLUSION

For the people of God, there is hope and solace in the midst of destruction and sorrow – Psalm 33:18-22 (KJV) Behold, the eye of the LORD is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy; To deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine. Our soul waiteth for the LORD: he is our help and our shield. For our heart shall rejoice in him, because we have trusted in his holy name. Let thy mercy, O LORD, be upon us, according as we hope in thee. Amen.