Verse of the Day Devotion: Isaiah 6:8

“Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, whom shall I send, and who will go for Us? Then I said, here am I. Send me!” – Isaiah 6:8 

In the year King Uzziah died, around 754 B.C., Isaiah is outside near the alter and he had a vision, one of the more well-known visions in the Old Testament.  “In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple.  Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.  And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.”  Isaiah 6:1-3.  What an incredible vision.  Very explicit vision of the Lord God on His throne, the seraphim above Him crying out ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’.  Further, “And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke.”  Isaiah 6:4.

Isaiah upon seeing this vision called out saying, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.” Isaiah 6:5. He had seen the God of all creation, the eternal one, and was filled with immense conviction of his sin and cried out of his unworthiness.  Then one of the seraphim came to him with a burning coal (also could be translated stone), touched his lips and declared his iniquity gone and his sin forgiven.

Then, as we reach our focus verse, God is asking the question, “whom shall we send?”.  This is not to say that God did not know, for He knows everything.  I tend to see this as an invitation shrouded in a question.  Then Isaiah calls out, with hardly any delay based on how this scripture is worded, “Here I am, send me.”

If we look in Matthew, we see we are called to go out and deliver God’s message to our world, in the same way Isaiah was to the Jews in his time.  “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20.  This is of course known as the Great Commission where Jesus called His disciples to go out and spread the news.  Who will tell Jesus, “Here I am, send me.”

This is why we are here.  Jesus told His discipled to go out and share the gospel, help them understand what it is, give them the opportunity to accept Christ as Savior, and then train them to live this Christian life as it should be lived.  And we who are Christians are a part of ‘the called’ who are to go out.  There are many people who have never heard the gospel, or have not understood it, or have been told a false gospel.  It is our job to go out there and let everyone know of the love of God, how Jesus, the Son of God, came and died who never sinned, to make a way for us who have to be forgiven and declared righteous.

God has already answered the question of “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” to this present generation.  It is now up to us to say, with the full intention of, “Here am I. Send me!”

William Funkhouser MDiv, ThD, Founder and President of True Devotion Ministries, Inc.