Send Me

It was under circumstances of difficulty and discouragement that Isaiah, while yet a young man, was called to the prophetic mission. Disaster was threatening his country. By their transgression of God’s law the people of Judah had forfeited His protection, and the Assyrian forces were about to come against the kingdom of Judah. But the danger from their enemies was not the greatest trouble. It was the perversity of the people that brought upon the Lord’s servant the deepest depression. By their apostasy and rebellion they were inviting the judgments of God. The youthful prophet had been called to bear to them a message of warning, and he knew that he would meet with obstinate resistance…. His task seemed to him almost hopeless….

Such thoughts as these were crowding upon his mind as he stood under the portico of the holy temple. Suddenly the gate and the inner veil of the temple seemed to be uplifted or withdrawn, and he was permitted to gaze within, upon the holy of holies, where even the prophet’s feet might not enter. There rose up before him a vision of Jehovah sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, while His train filled the temple. On each side of the throne hovered the seraphim, two wings bearing them up, two veiling their faces in adoration, and two covering their feet….

Never before had Isaiah realized so fully the greatness of Jehovah or His perfect holiness; and he felt that in his human frailty and unworthiness he must perish in that divine presence. “Woe is me!” he cried; “for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” But a seraph came to him to fit him for his great mission. A living coal from the altar was laid upon his lips with the words: “Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.” And when the voice of God was heard saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Isaiah with holy confidence responded, “Here am I; send me.” … The prophet was nerved for the work before him.
Conflict and Courage p. 232
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Prayer Requests
—–I need prayer for work to keep my current full time job until God opens up another better job. Ann
—–I’m asking for prayer for my husband Steve this time. He is a type 1 diabetic. His labs came back with a flag for his kidney. He’s had an ultrasound and we get results tomorrow. Please pray for us and him. He’s been diabetic for 40 years now. I’m scared and I know I shouldn’t be, I need to have faith and trust in Christ. So pray I will do that as well. Heather
—–Please pray for another Adventist Prayer member. Her name is Josie. She has a brain tumor. . . . She gets severe headaches and dizziness. . . . it is getting worse. Roberta
—–A friend of mine his dad is dying from cancer.asking y’all to pray for him and his family. Kadia
—–please pray that my home will be filled with Gods spirit of love. joy and peace and that I will quit having wierd dreams that scare me and make me so I cant sleep. Almeta
—–Please place my nephew Gerardo in prayer he will be having eye surgery today at 8:30 -11:30 am he has a TUMOR in his pituitary gland which has caused him blindness in that one eye. Becky
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Dear Friends,
“Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness. Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King. God is known in her palaces for a refuge. For, lo, the kings were assembled, they passed by together. They saw it, and so they marvelled, they were troubled, and hasted away. Fear took hold upon them there, and pain, as of a woman in travail. Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind. As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the LORD of hosts, in the city of our God: God will establish it for ever. We have thought of thy lovingkindness, O God, in the midst of thy temple. According to thy name, O God, so is thy praise unto the ends of the earth: thy right hand is full of righteousness. Let mount Zion rejoice, let the daughters of Judah be glad, because of thy judgments. Walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces, that ye may tell it to the generation following. For this God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death.” Psalm 48
As the psalmist looked upon Jerusalem, he was filled with joy. God had blessed that city because of his faithfulness. It seemed to him that Jerusalem would continue being God’s special dwelling place for ever. He saw what it could have continued to be had they stayed faithful to their True King.
Sad to say its inhabitants did not continue to be faithful. Indeed, in trying to be like all the heathen nations around them, they sinned more than they all, for they knew the true way, but refused to follow it. God sent many prophets to warn them of their danger, but they mocked them and scourged them, and stopped their ears from hearing them. Some they imprisoned: others were stoned. Isaiah was sawn asunder by Manassah. Those who told the kingdoms of Israel and Judah the truth and tried to bring them back to their Redeemer, were hated, destitute, afflicted, and tormented. The people rejected their only Helper and the messengers that He sent. They trusted in their city for safety, but rejected the One Who had blessed them and their fathers.
Jeremiah was told, “pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee. Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. Do they provoke me to anger? saith the LORD: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces? Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground, and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched. Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel….this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you. But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward. Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day I have even sent unto you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them: Yet they hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck: they did worse than their fathers. Therefore thou shalt speak all these words unto them, but they will not hearken to thee: thou shalt also call unto them, but they will not answer thee. But thou shalt say unto them, This is a nation that obeyeth not the voice of the LORD their God, nor receiveth correction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth…the LORD hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath. For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith the LORD: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it. And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter: for they shall bury in Tophet, till there be no place. And the carcases of this people shall be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth, and none shall fray them away.” Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride: for the land shall be desolate.” Jer 7:17-34
Ezekiel was given a vision of some of the abominations that even the leaders were doing. “And he brought me to the door of the court, and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall. Then said he unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall: and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door. And he said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here. So I went in and saw, and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed upon the wall round about. And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand, and a thick cloud of incense went up. Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The LORD seeth us not, the LORD hath forsaken the earth. He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD’S house which was toward the north, and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these. And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD’S house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east, and they worshipped the sun toward the east. Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and, lo, they put the branch to their nose. Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.” Ezek 8:7-18
“Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen, and polluted the house of the LORD which he had hallowed in Jerusalem. And the LORD God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending, because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place: But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against his people, till there was no remedy.” “Until there was no remedy” what chilling words. Their sins had reached their limit. “Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age: he gave them all into his hand. And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king, and of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon. And they burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof. And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon, where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia.” 2 Chr 36:14-20
Even more than all of this, their final rejection was their refusal to recognize and follow the Messiah that they professed to be looking for. When they shouted, “His blood be on us, and on our children.” Matt 27:25, they were in a dangerous position indeed. Their cup of iniquity was almost full. Even so, God in His mercy gave them time to repent. But again they rejected His messengers and in AD 70, Jerusalem was destroyed, many millions were slain.
Although the earthly Jerusalem and its people were removed from being God’s special dwelling place because of their wickedness, yet our Great Creator still has a people, He still has a dwelling place. Paul assures us, “And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Gal 3:29 “For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God.” Rom 2:28,29 God has a true people who will receive of His blessings, dwell in His holy mountain.
John looked forward to that time. “And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.” Rev 21:2-5
May that time come soon. May we turn away from those idols in our life and be filled with love and worship for our soon-coming King. May we dwell in the Heavenly Jerusalem is my prayer.

Rose