Isaiah 6:8 is a verse often misused by many churches. It is used from everything from encouraging people to sign up to become missionaries, to asking people to dedicate their lives to God.
Isaiah 6:8 (ESV)
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”
What is the context of this passage?
Answer: God is sending Isaiah to preach the word of God to a Nation that will not listen. He is being sent to preach God’s word to a people in order that God might harden their hearts and in so doing, bring judgment to the nation–Until everyone is killed: leaving behind only the “stump”.
“The holy seed is its stump.”
The ministry of Isaiah was primarily one where as a preacher of God’s word, he was commissioned to preach the word of God in order that God might bring about the hardening of hearts. Through that, God would judge the nation and bring about destruction. Isaiah 6:8 is indeed a missionary passage. It is a verse about God commissioning Isaiah as a preacher/prophet; but it is not to be understood in the way most churches use it.
Let us not forget that the preaching of the word serves a dual purpose. Both conviction of Sin as well as the hardening of hearts are part of God’s purposes in the proclamation of the Word. God’s word that goes forth, never returns to him void. It always does what it is meant to do.
Yet if the proclamation of the word serves both the purpose of hardening of hearts as well as the conviction of sinners from sin (since Isaiah’s call was primarily one of hardening hearts through preaching), we must conclude that Isaiah was bearing fruit in his ministry even through the process of hardening hearts.
This tells us that a preacher/missionary/pastor should not be judged by the size of his congregation, nor by the number of decisions he gets people to make, but by his faithfulness in proclaiming the full counsel of God. A missionary to an unreach people group who faithfully proclaims the full counsel of the word of God his entire life, yet see nobody coming to faith, is a still successful preacher. Like Isaiah, we must conclude that he has bore much fruit in his ministry if he is faithful in proclaiming the full counsel of God. When Christ returns, he will receive the full wages for his faithful labor. (c.f. 1 Cor 3:8 ESV)
So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. . . Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. (1 Cor 3:7, 12-13 ESV)
Indeed, Isaiah’s labor in proclaiming a message to harden hearts, bore much spiritual fruit.
In light of this, what do we make of the church growth movement? It demonstrates that the entire church growth movement is based upon an unbiblical motivation, as well as on an inadequate understanding of what it means to be successful and bear fruit.
The implications of understanding God’s purposes in both election and reprobation are many. One of the main reasons why churches nowadays are swarmed with KPIs, Church growth techniques, entertainment to attract unbelievers, and the reason why they are always setting numerical targets for the church, is because they do not have a biblical understanding of what constitutes success and “fruit” in Christian ministry. They have no place for an Isaiah, nor do they understand that God’s purposes go beyond the salvation of individuals, to God’s own self-glorification. But that is another discussion for another day.
For a start, let us begin by first correcting our misuse of Isaiah 6:8.
A man after God's own heart 