Isaiah's Call
Read God's commission to Isaiah (Isa. 6:9, 10). How are we to understand what God was telling Isaiah here?
Most translations of the Bible, including the King James Version, makes these verses sound as if God is purposely aiming to dull the people's hearts and minds. Yet, if you read the texts carefully, you could see a bit of sarcasm, a bit of irony, in them. Why would God—who otherwise is constantly pleading with His people to listen to Him, to understand Him, to open their hearts to Him, to know Him, to look to Him, to return to Him, and to be healed by Him—say what He was saying unless He meant something else?
Read the following texts. How are we to understand them in light of the texts we have just seen?
All through the Bible, God was calling His people to listen, to obey, to return to Him, to be healed by Him. And yet, as we know, many did not listen. Thus, what seems to be happening here is that God is simply stating how the people will respond to Isaiah; He is not saying what He wants to happen or what He will cause to happen. As the people continually reject Isaiah's warnings, their hearts naturally harden. But this does not mean that Isaiah or God wanted this result. On the contrary, the whole Bible is a call of God to people to do all the things Isaiah said to do; as we know, however, many did not.
| What about us today? How different are we from the folks in Isaiah's time? And though, perhaps, there is not much we can do about others, what about ourselves, individually? How can we make sure we do not fall into the same spiritual trap as those depicted in Isaiah? |
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