In trying to explain preaching to someone recently, my mind settled on Isaiah 6:1-8 as a very relevant passage for every preacher to hold in mind about the nature of what we do when we speak for God. I will quote the passage below and I ask you to read it now and not skip over it in this post, even if you have read it before many times. Please approach this text with a fresh mind today, for the moment setting aside any prior lessons or applications you have heard from this text. Let's simply approach this passage learning what we can from it about the nature of "Speaking For the Lord."
In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. 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. - Isaiah 6:1-8.Here we find the prophet Isaiah commissioned by God (again, 1:1, 2:1) to go and preach. Verse 9, which I did not quote above, begins "And he said, Go, and tell...." So Isaiah was sent by God to go and proclaim God's message. This is what every preacher who believes he is called of God would say about himself, so this passage is relevant to that preacher. Let's see what we can learn here.
I. First of all, WHO IS THIS GOD THAT SENT THE PREACHER?
A. HIS TITLES: The God who sent the preacher is described by three titles in this passage. They are, "the Lord" (twice), "the LORD of hosts" (twice, notice all capital letters), and "the King" (once).
1. ADONAI: The first mention of God in this passage is "the Lord" or "Adonai" in the Hebrew. This is a name for God that simply means "the Lord", as in "the Master." THE Master, not simply A master. The only one. The Hebrew Adonai is analagous to "Kurios" in the Greek, which is the New Testament word for "Lord" or "Master." The name Adonai emphasizes God's sovereignty and absolute rulership over all things.
a) SOVEREIGN OVER THE PREACHER: In applying this, the preacher must realize that the One Who sent him is his sovereign Master. It is easy to call God your Lord or Master without realizing the implications of that. "And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" Luke 6:46. The implications are that the preacher is to do and to say what his Master bids him do and say. He has no permission to do or to say anything less or anything more than what his Master has given him to do and to say. He has no license or liberty in the matter. The preacher is not simply getting up to say what he wants to say, what he feels like saying, what sounds good to say or what "makes for good preaching." He is getting up to say ONLY what his Master and Owner has told him to say. He is also not at liberty to adopt methods he hasn't been explicitly told to adopt. He is not to speak his opinion in the pulpit. He is to stick strictly to the program his sovereign Master has laid out for him.
b) SOVEREIGN OVER THE OUTCOME: Secondly here, the one sent to preach by Adonai also realizes that the Master is sovereign over the listener, over the results of preaching and over the results of His chosen methods. The preacher cannot be results oriented or pragmatic, tailoring his message or method to achieve the desired outcome. Might it make for more interesting preaching to spend some time in speculation over what is not clear in the Bible? That draws a crowd every time. Prophecy teachers make a regular habit of it and they are some of the most widely popular preachers. But ask yourself why does it draw such crowds? Because that crowd craves speculation, not because they crave the word of God. (Just look at the movement where these kinds of prophecy teachers are most popular: the Charismatic movement that has departed from the word of God in favor of "new revelation" week after week). Might it reach more people with the Gospel to adopt certain methodologies or ways of getting them to listen? Perhaps. But if those methodologies are not given by the word of God then they are not authorized by Him. The point here is that Adonai is sovereign over the outcome of our efforts for Him. We cannot use a particular message or method because of the results WE wish to achieve. We have to simply do what God says and then TRUST HIM for the result that HE wishes to achieve.
I want to illustrate God's sovereignty in the results of our preaching. Early in my preaching "career" I was occasionally tempted to give an example here and there that I thought would target a problem a particular person was having. I mean that in a particular week, as I prepared a sermon from a text and tried to find ways to apply its teaching, a specific individual might come to mind and a specific issue of theirs. I would think, "Wow, that is the person who needs to hear the sermon this coming Sunday." And then what I said from the pulpit would include an application that I intended for that one person to be able to use for their growth. Don't misunderstand, I've never stood up and preached a whole message on one person's sins. What I'm talking about would be a minor portion of the sermon, like one sentence or example given out of a whole 45 minute message. And it would not be something specific and well-known enough or worded in such a way that other people listening would key into it and say, "Now he's preaching to that person." It often wasn't even on a sin exactly, but just something I thought would be beneficial to a certain individual I might have in mind. It wasn't every week, either, it was maybe a half dozen times over the course of my first year preaching.
Now let me get to the "God is sovereign" part of this illustration. I was targeting that tiny portion of the message to a particular outcome that I wanted to see in a particular individual. I was crafting what I said based on what I wanted to see happen in their life. I was doing exactly what I just said above that a preacher who belongs to Adonai, the Sovereign One, must NOT do: results-oriented preaching or methodology.
God showed me He was sovereign over the results because every single time I ever planned to do that, something ALWAYS went wrong with my plan. I was explaining the problem I had to a more experienced preacher in Indiana, and he took the words right out of my mouth when he said, "Every time I ever used to do that, the person ended up not making it to church that day to hear the message." Before I could even explain to him what happened, Pastor S.W.D. in Indiana knew what I was going to ask him about, because he'd had the same problem early on in his preaching. My "target individual" for one of the things I was going to preach had gotten sick, or was unexpectedly out of town, or their car broke down, or the weather was too bad for them to come to church or some other reason kept them away. Here I went and thought up what they needed to hear and they did not show up to hear it! I am serious; that happened every single time I ever thought of a particular person while preparing a message. I apologize to anyone who's ever had a flat tire right before church. It may have been because my flesh wanted to preach to your flesh and God was not going to honor that.
God really taught me through this that He is the only one in control of specifically applying His word to the individual, Hebrews 4:12. He doesn't need me for that and He would prefer I don't get in the way. I always knew that in theory, but now I know it in practice. I can help people one-on-one apply the Bible to their individual life, yes. But when I stand before a crowd to preach the word, I cannot hold the needs of any one individual over the needs of the entire congregation to hear the word of God. Yes, I will still give example applications when I preach, but I will never again think up my examples while holding a particular individual in mind. After I talked to Pastor S.W.D. about it, I resolved not to ever do it again. My examples come very easily now while I am on my knees. I have since seen God bless by taking the example applications I give now and using them to touch the lives of people I never dreamed it would apply to. God chose the target and applied His word, not me. That is the Adonai, the Sovereign Master Who sent me to preach.
So the first point is that we preach for the Sovereign Master. We speak for the One who is to be in charge - and the only one in charge - of what we say. And we speak for the One who is the only one in charge of the results.
2. THE LORD OF HOSTS: The second title for God in this passage is "the LORD of hosts." Watch for this point to be continued in a later post.
