A Note on Isaiah 6:8

"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." (Isa.6:8).

There is something fresh and enthusiastic in the youthful Isaiah’s response to the Lord’s appeal. Consideration of the chronology of this period—his ministry extended into the reigns of four successive kings of Judah—makes it evident that he must have been quite young at this time, probably in his late teens. The impulse which led him to offer himself for service in response to the Divine invitation never left him; he was a faithful minister to God and the king, outstanding before the people as a champion for God’s righteousness and a stern reprover of their shortcomings, and before the king as a straightforward and fearless adviser, in later life an "elder statesman" whose advice was always sought in times of national crisis. A man of deep spiritual insight and flowing pen; the literary masterpiece he left behind him which is the Book of Isaiah has earned him the title of "Isaiah of the golden tongue."

There comes a time in the life of every young Christian when the same call is laid upon the heart; "Who will go for us?" The Lord has no use for conscripts. He wants only volunteers, men and women upon whose consciousness comes the realisation that the Lord has a work for them to do. Not the same kind of work to each; He has no use for uniformity. "God hath set the members...in the body, as it hath pleased him" (1 Cor.12:18) and to each his own particular brand of service. Evangelists, preachers, pastors, teachers; students, theologians; all for the work of the ministry, the spiritual growth of the saints, the edifying of the body of Christ, as said Paul to the Ephesians. Whether it be the ministry of oratory in the presence of a large audience or the ministry of prayer in the solitude of one’s own room, it is all the same to God, part of the great work He is doing in this world and in this present Age preparing those who will be his "ministers of reconciliation" in the next. All the youthful enthusiasm, all the active service of maturity, all the quiet endeavour of old age, all has its place in the outworking of the Divine Plan. Happy we if we can hold fast to the impulse which first possessed us, perhaps a few years, perhaps a lifetime, ago, to say to the Lord "Here am I, send me," steadfast to the end of our days. We shall find that our labours have not been in vain; there will have been a harvest now, in this day and Age, and another, by far more abundant, in the coming Age when our Lord is manifest in the power of his Millennial kingdom.

May/June 1987