BEING SENT

A.J.EWelch

Isaiah 6: 1-9 (to 'Go')

The desire of every heart true to Christ would be that this wonderful dispensation should have a fitting finish. In one sense we are assured that it will, but we would be concerned to fit into that finish in some sense of real contribution to it, to be in the closing up of things, not as distant spectators but as actively usable of God, to fill out in substance what His thought is. I have been impressed with the thought that we reach in this passage as to one being sent, a great active principle with God, one which is peculiarly to appear in this time of the Spirit, that men are available to be sent of God. It is an active and an operative idea, that something is afoot which relates to the divine glory in the great extent of it and God delights to disclose to us that He has His means of bringing men into what He is doing as being, according to His thought and His wise way, necessary to the filling out of what is for His satisfaction.

We see how this whole idea of sending is brought out remarkably in the way the divine economy Itself is at work. The Son was sent: wonderful indication of the glory of Christ in filling, speaking with reverence, His own distinctive, operative place in this great economy of love and power. He was sent, as He Himself says, "the Father who has sent me", John 8: 16. And the Spirit is here in our time as being sent, sent of the Father in Christ's name, sent by the Son from with the Father; a touch of the distinctive glory of the Spirit, filling out this wonderful time, which is peculiarly His time, as in a subject relation to both the Father and the Son. It lends great attractiveness to this whole evidence of what is rightly submissive and subject to the will of God. Think of the way that the Spirit is here, sent in relation both to the Father and to the Son, His service in that sense expressive in an active sense of the oneness of the Godhead. What a touch we get as we see this wonderful matter gloriously filled out in the Son and the Spirit!

But then the Lord sent out the twelve, as we find it, for example, in Luke 9; He directed their service and imparted to them the manner of it. In the following chapter He sent seventy, showing how the Lord is enlarging things by using this particularly active and attractive principle of sending. Then "There was a man sent from God, his name John" (John 1: 6) - a remarkable appearance of what was of God at the time when God was signally intervening, that He sent a man to go before, in that sense to open the way for Jesus. And as we come into the Acts we yet many an evidence of the same thing: the way in which Peter was sent, the way in which the Lord, in the very first touch that He gave to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, could say as to the nations, "to whom I send thee" (Acts 26: 17), the authority of Christ entering into that, but the availability of the servant, only newly converted, the Lord imparting to Saul of Tarsus that he is to come into this great matter of divine sending, to be a signally usable vessel in the hand of the Lord.

Well now, in this prophecy of Isaiah we get this remarkable array of glory disclosed to the prophet. The detail of it is not in mind at the present time but rather the extent of it. "Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!" What a sense the prophet is given of divine supremacy in the midst of what was so testing for him. He sees a display of divine glory: "the whole earth is full of his glory!" The question would be whether we have any such view as this of the divine glory. Have we seized the whole scene in our hearts and minds in relation to Christ, the glorious King? Is our outlook the full extent of the divine outlook in these things? Are we narrow in our thoughts of what God is able for? Are we restricted in what we conceive in our prayers and our thoughts as we have the testimony in view? "The whole earth is full of his glory!".

But then there is something to be done. A prophet is needful to be used of God at this critical time. When he is sent, the message with which he is sent is in one sense a discouraging one; it intimated that his voice would not be heard. But nonetheless he is sent, as if to show us that God is proceeding on His way in gracious appeal and distinctive and definite testimony as to what His mind is. The end of the dispensation is to be marked by that, that there is the clear and distinctive testimony to God and what His mind is. There may seem to be very little response; there may, in fact, be very little response, but the testimony is to go out and the prophet is drawn into this by this remarkable vision. Then the word is "And one of the seraphim flew unto me" with "a glowing coal, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar". What a purifying touch this is! If this man is to speak, if any one of us is to speak, how shall we speak? As having lips that have been touched by the glowing coal from off the altar, meaning that divine judgment has had to fall upon Christ. A necessity for the divine judgment to come into expression in this definite way is brought, so to say, to hear upon us that we may rightly speak, not to make anything of the man that has been brought under judgment at the cross vicariously in Jesus, not to bring forward any mere human principle or anything which man as such, away from God, calls great, but to speak with this touch which has the holiness of God in view.

So, beloved brethren, how do we serve and how shall we serve? Will it be in any sense in human ways or human methods, or with words which derive merely from what is commonplace? We would speak under God's hand with words taught by the Spirit, "communicating spiritual things by spiritual means", 1 Cor 2: 13. How much is wrought by speaking! It is, so to say, the main way in which God causes His mind to be opened out in the circle of His saints, that something is said and the truth is set forth, prophetic impressions are set forth, by speaking. So, how shall we speak? There comes a time to speak, a time to present what is of God, a time to go forward, not to hold back, despite the glory of what we stand related to and the essentially holy character of it at every point. It is not a time to hold back; there is the coal from off the altar to be applied to the lips that we may speak in holy ways of holy things, that the touch of power may not be diminished through any intrusion of that which has had to be judged and set aside in the sacrifice of Christ. "Behold", the word is, "this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin expiated". And he goes on to say, "And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" What an appealing word that is, what an appeal there is when there is something needful to be done, and there are many things needful to be done. "Who will go for us?". The prophet, faithful man as he was, prepared man as he was, says "Here am I; send me". The emphasis, as we have often been reminded, is on the word 'send'. He is not going without divine sending. Great as the need may seem, much as he may have appreciated what the need was, he is not going forth without the sending. And, dear brethren, I believe we need to fit in, as remarked earlier, to the conclusion of this remarkable time, understanding that everything is to be under divine regulation and control, that God has much that is to be done. And He loves to use men, not exactly angels - He has the angels, myriads of them, and in certain respects He uses them constantly - but think of what man is in the thought of God, as able to serve and able to speak with purified lips, and able to set afoot what is of God in its own distinctive character. So the word would be "Send me". It brings home to us, dear brethren, the need in our time of being under the authority of Christ, moving fully in the will of God, moving in the control and regulation of the Spirit, that we may be available to God in respect of His greatest things and greatest thoughts, fully available as being in the gain of the divine sending in respect of whatever matter may yet be afoot. May there be something for God out of this, as we attend to His word and see what may yet need to be done in view of the closing up of His interests here. For His Name's sake.

LONDON

17 February 1976