After Isaiah had an encounter with God and got a right view of God and a right view of himself, God cleansed away his iniquity and purged his sin. This prepared Isaiah to be a vessel meet for the Master’s use. Once Isaiah was prepared, God extended the call to service, “Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.” (Isaiah 6:8) God called, and Isaiah was willing to go.
God did not give Isaiah an easy task. He sent him to warn the people of Israel about coming judgment and plead with them to return unto the Lord. However, God told Isaiah ahead of time that the people to whom he preached would not listen. “9) And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. 10) Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.” (Isaiah 6:9,10) The people of Israel had rejected God for so long that God would shut their eyes and make their ears heavy and close their understanding so they would not be converted. They had chosen to reject the truth for so long that now they would believe a lie.
Isaiah was given a hard and heavy task. This grieved Isaiah’s heart, “Then said I, Lord, how long?” The Lord gave this heartbreaking answer, “And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, And the LORD have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.” (Isaiah 6:11,12)
What a warning to us as a nation. How long can we forget God? How long can we reject the truth? How long before God shuts our eyes, makes our ears heavy, and closes our understanding so that we cannot believe the truth? God has sent His workers into the harvest fields to warn the wayward, but will we listen? Or will we as a nation be like Israel? Will we get to the point that we turned our back on truth and refused it for so long that we can only believe a lie? How long before we get our last warning and we refuse to heed one warning too many? How long before it is too late?