Speaking For the Lord (Part 6)

This is the sixth in a series of articles I am writing to apply Isaiah 6:1-8 to the preacher. If you have not yet done so, please go back first and read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5. If you are blessed by this article, please feel free to comment and definitely watch for more articles in this series.

BRIEF REVIEW: 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.

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.

I. First of all, WHO IS THIS GOD THAT SENT THE PREACHER? Answered in Parts 1 through 4 and applied to the preaching.

II. Secondly, WHO IS THE PREACHER THAT GOD SENT?

A. He is a man of unclean lips, Isaiah 6:5 - dealt with in Part 5.
B. He dwells in the midst of a people of unclean lips - see Part 5.

C. Thirdly, this God-called preacher is a man that realizes his limitations and disabilities. Notice this in verse 5: "Woe is me! for I am undone...for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts."

1. Upon seeing Who exactly God is, the preacher realizes who himself is.

Preacher, have you been to the altar and realized the holiness and absolute glory of God?  No, of course you haven't.  "No man hath seen God at any time."  You would be undone, as Isaiah was after just a brief glimpse - literally in verse 5 it means "done for" as in "I am done for.  I am over with.  I will cease to exist."

That is the proper attitude for the preacher - No more of ME!  I am DONE!  Now, All of HIM!  John the Baptist said, "He must increase and I must decrease."  If we truly held in mind Who it is that we represent when we preach, we would realize what Paul means when he says, "I am crucified with Christ" and "I die daily."  We would never let our ego get in the way of speaking for the Lord.

Preacher, please realize you have nothing to offer anybody personally.  God did not call you because you are special or anything like that.  Remember that He "hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began" - II Timothy 1:9.  He has His reasons, and it is not because of anything you bring into the picture.

Are you undone?  Does your preaching show it?  Does the rest of your ministry show it?  How much of YOU is present in your preaching, ministry, philosophy, etc?

Get to the point of Isaiah, "Woe is me, for I am undone."  Are you undone or is "ME" still holding on tightly when you stand up to speak for the Lord?

Here are some concrete applications of this principle:

a) Do your sermon illustrations tend to regularly cast you in the best light, make you the hero of the story, etc?  Get rid of it.  There's no room for it.

b) How much do your favorite doctrines, hobby horses, pet peeves, etc, drive your sermons or influence how you approach a topic?  Be careful!  Is that God's hobby horse, pet peeve or favorite doctrine?  Probably not, but you claim to be speaking for Him.

c) In your prayer during study and preparation time and before preaching, ask God to give you this attitude, "Woe is me, for I am undone."  Ask God to humble you before Him and before the people and remove you completely out of the way so that only Christ can be seen.

2. Upon being properly humbled, this preacher is then enabled to properly speak on the Lord's behalf, vv. 6-7.  Watch for this in Part 7, coming soon.

VM

Speaking For the Lord (Part 3)

This is the third in a series of articles I am writing to apply Isaiah 6:1-8 to the preacher. If you have not yet done so, please go back first and read Part 1 and Part 2. If you are blessed by this article, please feel free to comment and definitely watch for more articles in this series.


BRIEF REVIEW: 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.

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.

I. First of all, WHO IS THIS GOD THAT SENT THE PREACHER?
A. HIS TITLES

B. HIS ATTRIBUTES: We move now from the titles of the God Who called the preacher in Isaiah 6 to the attributes of that God as revealed in the passage.

1.  HE IS MAJESTIC: Verse 1: "I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple."

a) WE MUST PRESENT GOD IN HIS MAJESTY: In our preaching, we must present God in all His majesty.

i) WE EXERCISE CARE IN WHAT WE SAY ABOUT GOD.  To present God in His majesty, we always hold Him, His name and His word in reverence.  He is not, "the Man upstairs" or "the Big Guy."

ii) WE EXERCISE CARE IN PRESENTING ANY MAN.  To present God in His majesty, no man, including our own self, can receive any glory.  Do not become an idol to the people.  Do not allow the people to believe anything because "Preacher said so."  Do not do anything that points the people to yourself rather than to Jesus Christ.  Look at this statue memorial of a church's deceased pastor and tell me if this is giving God the glory:

b) WE MUST REFLECT THE MAJESTY OF GOD:  Our worship services are to be majestic.  Few fundamental preachers would argue with that when it comes to our music.  It also applies to our preaching.  Preacher, the pulpit is not the place for a lot of what takes place in fundamental pulpits.  Theatrics belong at the circus.  Jumping up and down, turning red-faced, spitting and snorting, handstands, you name it.  What makes you think God needs any of that to get His message across?  The power is in His word, not in your presentation of it.

2.  HE IS AWE-INSPIRING:  Not only is God majestic, but the God Who called the preacher is awe-inspiring.  Verse 2: "Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face..."  I have a note in my Bible margin at this verse - "Even a holy angel must cover his face in the presence of a thrice holy God."

Remember that God meets with us when the church meets.  Many preachers act as if they have forgotten this by the way they behave, the things they say, the way they abuse the word of God.  We ought to "cover our face" in the presence of God.  We come into His special presence each time we preach.

If you have lost your absolute AWE for God, please get out of the pulpit.

3.  HE IS THRICE-HOLY:  Verse 3: "And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts...."  What connection do those off-color jokes some preachers tell in the pulpit have with the thrice-holy God they claim to represent?  What preaching illustrations do not properly illustrate the word of a thrice-holy God?  What was the preacher doing all week long and on Saturday night before he stood up to speak for the One Who is "Holy, holy, holy?"  You better watch yourself, Preacher.

4.  HE IS GLORIOUS:  Verse 3: "...the whole earth is full of his glory."  Watch for this point in Part 4.

Speaking For the Lord (Part 2)

This is the second in a series of articles I am writing to apply Isaiah 6:1-8 to the preacher.  If you have not yet done so, please go back first and read Part 1.  If you are blessed by this article, please feel free to comment and definitely watch for more articles in this series.

BRIEF REVIEW: 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.

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.

I. First of all, WHO IS THIS GOD THAT SENT THE PREACHER?

A. HIS TITLES:
1. ADONAI
2. THE LORD OF HOSTS:  This title is used twice for God in this passage.  Of course when we see LORD in all capital letters in the Old Testament, we know that is a translation of the Hebrew unpronounced name for God.  It is often pronounced in English as Jehovah or Yahweh.  Let's examine this title for the God Who called the preacher.

a) THE SELF-EXISTENT ONE: The most basic translation for Jehovah would be "I AM."  He has always existed and will always exist.  No other thing or other person brought Him into existence or can take Him out of existence.  And He is the ONLY one that is self-existent this way.  In Creation, He is the "First Cause" to which all other things owe their existence.  In the Universe today, He is the Great Sustainer holding all things together, for "He is before all things and by Him all things consist" - Colossians 1:17.  He needs nobody else and nothing else.  He can do whatever He wishes whenever He wishes.  He is the "blessed and only Potentate, King of kings and Lord of lords" - I Timothy 6:15.

Let us apply this to the preacher.  Preacher, I say unto you as I must say to myself, God does NOT need you!  God can do whatever He wants to do without you.  If God so chooses, God can strike you eternally silent today and still save whomever He wishes to save and strengthen whomever He wishes to strengthen and build up whatever church He wishes to build up.  He can even choose to do more good without you than with you.  Therefore, notice:

i) YOU PREACH SOLELY BY THE GRACE OF GOD: Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ - Ephesians 3:8.  GRACE.  Unmerited favor.  You have not earned the right to preach.  You do not deserve the privilege to preach.  You are not entitled to preach because of your ability, your study, your intellect.  You are allowed by God to preach simply because Self-Existent God said so.

This should be an amazing thing to you and me.  This should put us in mind to never take this grace for granted.  We should have the attitude of David: "Who am I, O LORD God, and what is mine house, that thou hast brought me hitherto?" - I Chronicles 17:16.

A preacher with this attitude will never abuse his pulpit for his own purposes.  He will be extremely careful what he says and does not say.  He will be on his guard as to how he conducts himself.  He will realize that God can take him out of preaching more easily and quickly than He put him in.

Jim Bakker, a former false teacher of the "prosperity doctrines" finally read the Bible all the way through for the first time while in prison.  He sat down in his cell and for the first time carefully studied the verses that he'd previously abused to teach prosperity.  He came to the conclusion that he was disastrously wrong and even titled his book, "I Was Wrong."  In his book, he says that he is amazed that God did not strike him dead as a false prophet.  If he had been concerned about that previously, he would have avoided a lot of problems.  If we preachers will concern ourselves with that possibility, it will make serious Bible students of us before we stand up and preach.

ii) THE SELF-EXISTENT ONE HAS GIFTED YOU:  Our first real introduction in the Bible to what the name Jehovah, "I AM" truly entails is when Moses talked to God in the burning bush.

And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?  And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.  Exodus 3:13-14.

Notice next what this I AM did for Moses when he balked at preaching.  After giving Moses the signs to prove that "I AM" had appeared unto him, we see the following:

And Moses said unto the LORD, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.  And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD?  Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.  Exodus 4:10-12.

Not only does the Self-Existent One NOT need us, but He can use whomever He chooses.  The key is that whomever He chooses, He will gift for His mission and they must speak the words that He gives.  We should not reject this grace of preaching, as Moses tried to, nor should we take upon ourselves more than God has given us.

iii) THE SELF-EXISTENT ONE CAN GET THE JOB DONE:  We don't need to come up with novelties.  We don't need to stick to formulas for preaching.  We don't need to stick to time limits.  We don't need our ideas of "cute" or "funny" or "ironic" or "interesting."  Outline alliteration is not necessary.  In short, preachers need to abandon their man-centered or self-centered approach to sermons and simply communicate what God has said.

b) ...OF HOSTS?  A common title for God in the Old Testament is "The LORD of Hosts."  Hosts of course refers to armies, such as armies of angels.  Preacher, do you realize that you are not only preaching to people, you are also preaching to angels?  Angels are apparently gathered with us when the local church meets, I Corinthians 11:10.  They are students of the word of God and anxious to understand it, I Peter 1:12.  God forbid that you should preach your opinion in front of an angel that has come to hear the word of God.

3.  THE KING: The third title for God in this passage is "the King."  You, preacher, are an ambassador for the King of kings.  You are an emissary.

Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.  II Corinthians 5:20.

Did you catch that, Preacher?  "As though God did beseech you by us."  Everything you say in your preaching is to come through as though God were speaking directly through you.  And, "We pray you in Christ's stead."  Everything you urge anyone to believe or to do is to be as though Jesus Christ Himself were urging them to believe or to do the same.

There is no room for your opinion, for conjecture, for speculation, for anything more than what God is beseeching the people, what Christ is urging the people.

You speak for the King.

B.  HIS ATTRIBUTES.  We move now from the titles of the God Who called the preacher in Isaiah 6 to the attributes of that God as revealed in the passage.  Watch for this on Part 3.

Speaking For the Lord (Part 1)

This is the first in a series of articles I plan on writing to apply Isaiah 6:1-8 to the preacher.  If you are blessed by this article, please feel free to comment and definitely watch for more articles in this series.

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.