Isaiah 6:5 Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the middle of a people of unclean lips… Mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. What a scene is presented in this chapter for our imaginations to reproduce! The throng of worshippers had left the courts of the sacred temple; the chanting, in alternate parts, of the choir of singers, clothed in white linen, had died into silence. Other devout Israelites were praying apart, and white-robed priests silently presented their prayers in the fragrant cloud of incense which rose from the golden altar of the holy place; "then the veil of the temple seemed to be withdrawn, and the holy of holies discovered to the prophet's eye. He saw the Lord, sitting as a King upon his throne, actually governing and judging. His train, the symbol of dignity and glory, filled the holy place, while around him hovered the attendant seraphim, spirits of purity, zeal, and love, chanting in alternate choirs the holiness of their Lord. The threshold vibrated with the sound, and the white cloud of the Divine presence, as if descending to mingle itself with the ascending incense of prayer, filled the house. The eternal archetypes of the Hebrew symbolic worship were revealed to Isaiah; and, as the center of them all, his eyes saw the King, the Lord of hosts, of whom the actual rulers, from David to Uzziah, had been but the temporary and subordinate viceroys. In that presence, even the spirits of the fire, which consumes all impurity while none can mix with it, cover their faces and their feet, conscious that they are not pure in God's sight, but justly chargeable with imperfection; and much more does Isaiah shrink from the aspiring thoughts he had hitherto entertained of his fitness to be the preacher of that God to his countrymen; he, a man of unclean lips, sharing the uncleanness of the people among whom he dwells. In utter self-abasement he realizes the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and the separation it makes between man and the holy God" (Sir E. Strachey). This was a vision of God granted to a worker, a man actively engaged in God's service, and about to enter on more serious and more arduous duties. Visions have seldom, if ever, been granted to individuals merely as helps to their private religious life. They are gracious aids to workers; and God's willing servants can only reach adequate convictions, feel worthy impulses, or gain a suitable and inspiring impression of the dignity of their work, through some direct manifestation of God himself to their souls. No man can do great things save as he is sustained by the conviction that God has sent him to do them, and is with him in the doing. The smallness of our aims, our endeavors, and our attainments, reveal how small and how unworthy are our views of God. It is evident that we cannot yet be said to have seen him. He has not yet overawed us with his glory and his claims, and swelled our souls with great thoughts, great resolves, and a great consecration. Those only who have seen" the King in his beauty" can give their very noblest powers, can lay down their lives, in his service. I. CAN THERE BE PERSONAL REVELATIONS OF GOD TO HIS WORKERS IN OUR DAY? We have sadly lost in spiritual power, in self-abnegation, and in holy enthusiasm for the glory of the Lord, because we have so easily settled this question by answering, "Certainly not. God does not now give visions. Christian workers now need not expect such. We are left now to the ordinary illuminations of the Holy Spirit." But will this answer bear looking at and thinking about, and testing by the light of actual experience? God's forms of Divine dealing do indeed differ in different ages, but the essential features of God's relationship with men do not change. He can reveal himself still to individual souls; and he is not limited to the particular forms of vision which he has used in ancient times. He may adapt his visions to the altered circumstances of each age; and if once he appeared in human form to meet the sight of bodily eyes, he may now reveal his glory in the spheres that lie open to the vision of the loving and believing soul. It he be the living God, ruling, guiding, choosing out his instruments, fashioning them for his purposes, and sending them upon his commissions, he must still have visions for his servants. They will take less of outward symbolic shape, they will relate more to thought and less to dreams; but that only makes them more immediate and direct Divine communications - contacts of the Divine Spirit with the human spirit without the intervention of any earthly symbols. God spoke to the boy Samuel with an audible voice, he spoke afterwards to the man Samuel in a spirit-voice; but both were his voice. The New Testament promise is, "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God," II. WHEN IN OUR LIFE MAY WE LOOK FOR SUCH DIVINE VISIONS TO WORKERS? Is there any special time or occasion at which they may be expected? They will net necessarily come at the beginnings of our special labors, though that might seem to be the most fitting time. They do often come at the outset, but sometimes we are permitted for a while to" go the warfare at our own charges;" we have a period of trial and of comparative failure, as Isaiah appears to have had, and then we are renewed in our consecration by some holy scenes of communion and revelation. Among the visions of the Old Testament we find several that were granted in the very midst of life's work: e.g. Abraham's, Moses', Joshua's, this of Isaiah; compare our Lord's transfiguration, and Paul's ascent to glory. The times for God's personal disclosures of himself to a man can never be fixed 'rod anticipated. Like other workings of grace, they are divinely, sovereignly free; the fitting occasion for them the unsearchable Wisdom alone can decide. This only may we say - No Christian man has ever become truly great and noble and enthusiastic, no man has become utterly self-denying in the Lord's work, until he has been called and solemnized and prepared by some soul-vision of God. He may be a Christian worker before, but he is not inspired and spiritually powerful until then. Life takes on its highest nobility only after we are able to say, "Mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." We may not say that such visions come only once in a man's life. They will be given as often as there is need for them, and openness to receive them. Christ, our Lord, had visions at his baptism, at the mount, in the wilderness, and in the garden. The Apostle Paul had visions on the road to Damascus, of the man from Macedonia, of the third heaven, and amid the dangers of shipwreck. We often hear of our dying friends seeing something of which those around their beds cannot catch the faintest glimpse. And this is true of Christian souls in life. They have times of insight, times of seeing truth and seeing God; times when, apart from study and thought, they seem to be plunged in all the glory of Divine and eternal things; moments in which they could not tell whether they were "in the body or out of the body." Two or three instances may be given in illustration. While Luther was laboriously climbing up Pilate's staircase at Rome, seeking to win a righteousness out of his own works, he heard a voice thundering in his soul and saying, "The just shall live by faith." That was a New Testament vision el the truth, and from that vision Luther's power began. The following is a testimony rendered concerning a godly man: "About a year after his conversion, returning from a meeting greatly distressed with a sense of his unworthiness, he turned aside into a lonely barn to wrestle with God, and while kneeling on the threshing-floor he gained a little light. Shortly after his eyes were opened to see all clearly. He felt that he was nothing, and Christ was all in all; and from that time commenced a life of most devoted and successful labor for Christ." "The holy John Flavel, being alone in a journey on horseback, and willing to make the best improvement of the day's solitude, set himself to a close examination of the state of his soul, and then of the life to come, and the manner of its being and living in heaven, Going on his way, his thoughts began to swell, and rise higher and higher, like the waters in Ezekiel's vision, till at last they became an overflowing flood. Such was the intention of his mind, such the ravishing taste of heavenly joys, and such the full assurance of his interest therein, that he utterly lost the sight and sense of this world, and all the concerns thereof; and for some hours knew no more where he was than if he had been in a deep sleep in his bed." The following passage is taken from the margin of John Howe's study Bible. It is the only record of his personal experience preserved for us. "After I had, in my course of preaching, been largely insisting on 2 Corinthians 1:12, this very morning I awoke out of a most ravishing and delightful dream, that a wonderful and copious stream of celestial rays, from the lofty throne of the Divine Majesty, seemed to dart into my expanded breast. I have often since, with great complacency, reflected on that very signal pledge of special Divine favor vouchsafed to me on that memorable day, and have, with repeated fresh pleasure, tasted the delights thereof. But what, on Oct. 22, 1704, of the same kind I sensibly felt... far surpassed the most expressive words my thoughts can suggest. I then experienced an inexpressibly pleasant melting of hearts; tears gushing out of mine eyes, for joy that God should shed abroad his love abundantly through the hearts of men, and that for this very purpose my own should be so signally possessed of and by' his blessed Spirit." Dr. Bushnell says, "We have vast crowds of witnesses, rising up in every age, who testify, out of their own consciousness, to the work of the Spirit, and the new-creating power of Jesus, who, by his Spirit, is revealed in their hearts. In nothing do they consent with a more hymn-like harmony than in the testimony that their inward transformation is a Divine work - a new revelation of God, by the Spirit, in their human consciousness. So do they all testify with one voice - Paul, Clement, Origen, St. Bernard, Hass, Gerson, Luther, Fenelon, Baxter, Flavel, Doddridge, Wesley, Edwards, Brainerd, Taylor, all the innumerable host of believers that have entered into rest, whether it be the persecuted saint of the first age, driven home in his chariot of blood, or the saint who died but yesterday in the arms of his family." We do well to guard against any fanatical and superstitious watching for sensible appearances, symbolical manifestations, or the guidance of our dreams. But this we should better understand - there are delectable mountains in our Christian pilgrimage nowadays, and we may climb the heights, and get visions of the far-away celestial city. We are Christians of the plains and the low country; we should oftener be breathing the fresh air of the mountain-side. If we would open our hearts; if we would have a well-trodden path to the place of prayer; if we would yearn for it, - God would come nearer to us, and oftener show us his glory. He is a new man, and a new worker, who can say, "Mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
    |