Adventist founder James White wrote some of the early (1850s) Sabbath School lessons while his horse grazed by the roadside, before reharnessing the animal and hastening to his next appointment. White’s readers numbered three thousand by 1863. They expected lots of Bible texts presenting and supporting "present truth."

Hebrew scholar Roy Gane devotes his life to understanding and teaching (orally and in writing) Old Testament at Andrews University. His Sabbath School lessons this quarter reach out to some thirteen million people living in more than two hundred nations. Many of us believe that truth is, in essence, the message of the Bible.

So we ask a host of questions James White was too rushed to articulate, let alone contemplate. What a privilege to be part of a worldwide family focused for thirteen weeks on Isaiah’s prophetic masterpiece. It is worth asking if Isaiah wrote down what he saw and said, and how others may have treasured his messages, edited, extended, and applied them over many years; along with a host of other illuminating queries.

This week Gane invites us to explore chapter six, thirteen verses that legitimize the "messages" (the term used in the Good News Bible) that Isaiah delivered during the reigns of four Jewish kings: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah (1:1). The vision he received during the year Uzziah died (probably somewhere between 742 and 736 B.C.E.) prepared him for the awesome task of being God’s messenger to a largely unheeding nation (6:9–10).

"I saw the Lord," Isaiah tells us (6:1). Not only was the throne of God "high and exalted," the hem of his robe seemed to fill the whole temple. (There is a long debate whether the prophet was at the time worshipping in the Jerusalem temple or envisioning the heavenly dwelling place of God.) Flaming, six-winged creatures (seraphim) hovered near God, chorusing "Holy, holy, holy! The Lord Almighty is holy! His glory fills the world" (6:3).

Commentators typically remind us of rather similar visions given to Moses, Ezekiel, Daniel, John, and others. On this sin-darkened earth we humans desperately need a vision of God, whose glory is his character wherein "righteousness and peace" kiss each other (Ps. 85:10). Biblical seers with eyes of faith see "Him who is invisible" (Heb. 11:27). Jesus, God’s unique Son, makes the Father known to us, definitively (1 John 5: 20).

It is unlikely that any of the biblical authors expected us to literalize their descriptions of God and his heavenly attendants. They employ the depth language of metaphor and poetry in their valiant attempts to describe scenes that transcend human understanding. Moses perceived the manifestations of Sinai as lightning and thunder; Daniel saw the Ancient of Days seated on a throne with fiery wheels. Isaiah and John heard antiphonal voices proclaiming the holiness of God.

The effect on Isaiah was as immediate as it was dramatic. "There is no hope for me! I am doomed," he agonized (1:5). "And yet, with my own eyes I have seen the King, the Lord Almighty!"

To symbolize God’s forgiveness and the removal of the prophet’s guilt, a flaming seraph touched his lips with a burning coal from the altar (of incense?). With an intensified awareness Isaiah heard the Lord asking, "Whom shall I send? Who will be our messenger?" Without hesitation he answered, "I will go! Send me!"

Much contemporary preaching is unaware of God’s holiness, which Isaiah perceived so powerfully. We avoid the sense of sinfulness Isaiah realized, even more fully portrayed by Paul in Romans 1–3. We wince even at the term total depravity, which impelled Protestant reformers to seek the grace of God. Decades ago Roy Allan Anderson warned (in Shepherd Evangelist, 187) that preaching may soften the reality of Scripture to "Repent, as it were, and believe in a measure, or you will be lost to some extent." Century 21 Christians in Western nations are more attuned to Isaiah’s "comfort" than to his uncivilized descriptions of what we are apart from God.

Like Isaiah, as we "see the Lord" we discern our need and become receptive to the overwhelming goodness of God that cleanses from sin and equips for service. His book is weighted with judgment for a people in rebellion against Yahweh, of whom (he declares) only a remnant will be saved. The spiritual condition of Judah is strikingly similar to that of contemporary Christian culture, and Isaiah’s task is a telling example of the challenge God’s people face in sharing his message with a world that often seems both blind and deaf.

There is another level of significance we can discern in the ancient prophet’s message. As John Donne contemplates his final sickness, he says to God:

Since I am coming to that holy room,
Where, with thy choir of saints for evermore,
I shall be made Thy music; as I come
I tune the instrument here at the door,
And what I must do then, think here before.

Isaiah can help us see the Lord, experience renewal of spiritual life, and participate in service: three steps in tuning the life instrument for the oratorio to be rendered on a sea of glass that is mingled with fire (Rev. 15:2). Old Testament worthies like Isaiah of Jerusalem and his colleagues may well carry some of the high notes. The lighting will be awesome: "wise leaders" will shine with the brightness of the sky; teachers will shine like the stars; and the face of Jesus will be "as bright as the midday sun" (Dan. 12:3; Rev. 1:16). Our myopias will be cured; our eyes will discern the meaning of The Song of Moses and the Lamb. Let’s practice, this week. Now!

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