Isaiah 6:5-8

Isaiah 6:5

These verses teach us the essentials of true worship and of acceptable approach to God. And they seem to indicate these essentials as threefold, involving:

I. A sense of personal wretchedness. To worship truly, there must be a sense of our own nothingness and need. The sense of wretchedness is first induced by the contemplation of the holiness and majesty of God. It is relieved by the condescension and mercy of the King. He is not onlyholy. "Mercy and truth meet together; righteousness and peace embrace each other;" and in that embrace the man who is undone is folded, and invited to bring forth his offering.

II. A sense of pardon. "Our God is a consuming fire," and our first contemplation of Him thus is one which appals and overcomes us. But a little further prostration before the Holy One shows that the fire is a purging fire, not to consume the man, but only to erase the confessed uncleanness from his lips. With the anointing of the holy fire on the lip, there comes the new life into the heart, and now the mortal may mingle his praises with the seraphim themselves.

III. But worship is not complete without service. To the ascription of the heart and lip there must be added the alacrity and obedience of the life. There was service for the seraphim: to fly with the live coal. And there is service for the seer: to fly with the living message. "Here am I; send me." Here is the alacrity of obedience. There is no curious inquiry about the nature of the service. The man becomes as winged as the seraph.

A. Mursell, Lights and Landmarks,p. 72.

References: Isaiah 6:5. H. T. Edwards, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxi., p. 353.Isaiah 6:6. J. M. Neale, Sermons on Passages from the Prophets,vol. i., p. 17.