Title When the Lord Calls
76 When the Lord Calls 2005-05-04
<Calling Isaiah to be a Prophet> In the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and exalted, and the hem of his robe filled the temple (Isaiah 6:1)
In other words, by emphasizing the disposition of God's love, he unraveled all of God's work of creation and redemption with the theological composition of that love. By looking at God's work of salvation from different perspectives like this, we come across the diversity of God's salvation revelation that approaches us dazzlingly and splendidly.
When the Apostle Paul was Saul, he was shocked to learn that he was the Christ who met Jesus in Damascus.
The greatest shock to him was the fact that Jesus is the Christ and that only those who believe in him can attain salvation.
So, throughout his life, the emphasis was placed on preaching the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, the Saviour.
It was the same with Hosea in the Old Testament. Continuing to bring a fallen woman to the point of giving is connected with his calling.
Feeling God's desperate love for fallen Israel with a burning heart, he cried out to return to the Lord for the rest of his life.
In this way, Isaiah is also related to the experience of calling. He experienced the wonderful presence of God among the angels.
An infinitely lowly and dusty man sees Almighty God. His presence, which he had never experienced before, was an honor. Receiving that light full of full glory, the Prophet sees himself as he really is. In front of the splendid glory of God's presence, any human being has the following two undeniable effects.
The first is to realize that one's existence is nothing.
In size and greatness, God is infinitely infinite, eternal, great and vast, and he confirms himself to be like dust blown by the wind before God. This is the experience that glory teaches the believer. A person who realizes this can never be proud. In other words, once you meet God, you cannot become arrogant. Even in front of a great mountain, I feel that human beings are nothing, and I can't even say anything in front of the infinite God. What could be better for you than a single insect whose name is unknown? A finite before infinity does not matter whether it is a large finite or a small finite. Relative means nothing. It makes you realize that everything is nothing.
Second, you realize how miserable you are.
If the former has to do with being, the second has to do with morality. Just as it is confirmed when the dirt on your clothes goes out into the light, you realize how miserable you are as a sinner in the face of splendid glory. You don't know what your flaws are until the effect of glory shines through. I thought it was okay, but then when the light of warning light shines on me, I remember God's holy disposition and realize that I am a very filthy sinner in front of that light.
In this way, they realize how poor and dirty sinners are, and become humble.
The prophet Isaiah experienced both in the light of that glory.
He came to experience deeply that he was, above all else, a trivial and filthy existence.
In fact, the experience of deep glory is a wonderful blessing, but the prophet enters a state of trembling in fear, saying that he is too dirty to endure before the pure and great Lord.
We absolutely need this condition.
This is the mark of those who have met the Lord.
When Saul met the Lord who appeared as the light, he experienced the same two things in the presence of that splendid glory. Realizing ourselves as garbage in front of that excellence, and entering a broken and crumbling state, we do not know what to do. This is the state that should happen first.
Today we make plans for the Lord one way or another, and we work for Him in one way or another. But the really important problem is that doing God's work and wanting to serve the Lord doesn't match up with trying to glorify the true God. It is because there is no self-awareness that they have a vision, but have never fallen before Him, that is, that they are filthy beings that are not humble before Him.
Have you ever collapsed! Before Isaiah was ordained as a prophet, he was a completely broken man.
?쏻oe to me, I am destroyed; for I am a man of unclean lips, and in the midst of a people of unclean lips I have seen the King, the LORD of hosts??(Isaiah 6:5). And this terrifying existential gap between the wretched beings, the moral gap, made me mourn and mourn.
At that time, an angel came and touched his lips with the charcoal fire of the altar, and his lips were charred. It was lips because he was a prophet. It means two things in one allegorical expression. One signifies a burning judgment, and the second signifies cleansing by doing so. Through such a work of judgment and cleansing, a wonderful change takes place in Isaiah.
A wonderful voice was heard from heaven saying that you are now forgiven and cleansed, and the voice you hear is the word of today's text.
?쏻hom shall I send, and who will go for us???This is where the wonderful calling of devotion was given.
A calling is already included in the experience of grace.
All of us Christians believed in the Lord and became Christians in our respective places of life, but the moment we became Christians, we were sent back to that place. In other words, we were sent to the place where we stayed the moment we spiritually believed in the Lord, and were sent back to the place where we were at the moment we received grace, not to the old home, workplace, or church.
Regardless of God's heart, those who lived, worked, and then died in this world have never served the Lord.
Therefore, a solemn vocation is necessarily expressed in this grace.
Take a look at your place in life. There is no place that does not need the fragrance of the Lord, no matter where it is. There is no broken world anywhere, and there are areas that do not need to be fixed.
So God sends them all.
It was there that the Lord made me see the glory of the Lord and made me realize his misery before him, and gave the grace of redemption for forgiveness to send me here.
If so, how are those sent to live?
While the prophet Isaiah boldly proclaimed the word of God with all his heart and all his will until the moment of martyrdom with a bitter heart, his central prayer is that God, who shines with his radiant glory, will be treated worthy of his name. It was heartbreaking that he was not receiving it, and he wanted the world to acknowledge it just as he fell at the feet of that glorious One.
The life of those who have been called in this way must be devoted.
Otherwise, it crumbles, breaks, begins to break down, and is destroyed.
Jesus best showed this greatest example.
In particular, the road of Jesus' calling was a thorny road of suffering.
To think that a life of obedience will be painless is a speculative piety.
Even if you depend on the Lord, there are times when you will suffer.
Still, God gives us the strength to overcome.
If the comfort is greater than the pain, then you can live.
Therefore, we must always obey God and remember that there will be hardships along the way.
Don't think it's weird. Just as Jesus lived his life as a faithful servant, saying ?쁀men??no matter what his Father said.
Where is the place you have been called by God? where was it
If I am not present at the place to be sent, the place is empty.
Also, as the place we returned to after giving our heart was empty, the enemy took over the place.
There, the Lord died in the place where I do not want to die now.
The Lord bled from the person who supported my body and mind and came back.
I have to go back to the place where I first met the Lord and cried and confessed that the Lord had raised me here, where there was service, and where there was suffering on the cross.
Whether you do well or not is nothing greater than what the Lord has established. When we repent, go back to the place where the Lord has established us, where He has given us the grace to bear it, and give back the body and mind that we had stolen and abandoned, the Lord sees us lovingly and is truly pleased. 2005-05-04