Isaiah 6:9-13

⁹ And he said, “Go and say to this people, ‘Keep on listening and do not comprehend! And keep on looking and do not understand!’ ¹⁰ Make the heart of this people insensitive, and make its ears unresponsive, and shut its eyes so that it may not look with its eyes and listen with its ears and its mind comprehend and turn back, so it may be restored to him.” ¹¹ Then I asked, “Until when, Lord?” And he said, “Until cities lie ruined without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a destroyed wasteland, ¹² and Yahveh sends the people far away, and the desertion is great in the midst of the land. ¹³ And when a tenth is still in her, then she will leave again and she will be to burn like terebinth or like oak, which although felled, a tree stump is left among them. Her stump is a holy seed.

a futile mission

When we were first ordained as missionaries with Advent Christian General Conference, Penny and I were sent to teach at Oro Bible College in the Philippines. We knew about the school, and we had every reason to believe that we could make a difference in that context. Thirteen years later, we left with the realization that we did make a difference, and that now there are hundreds of believers who are established in their Christian lives and ministries as a result of our following the call.

Isaiah would have a tremendous impact on the world. His written words would reverberate throughout history, proclaiming God’s truth, and calling on the world to see God’s holiness as he did, and accept his coming Messiah. But Isaiah’s mission was a bust from the beginning. God did not just warn Isaiah that he would have setbacks. God told him up front, during his mission orientation, that the whole mission would be a failure. Judah and Jerusalem would not listen to him.

Naturally, Isaiah wanted to know how long he would have to wait until he started seeing results. The Lord responded with predictions of disaster, exile, and the land being reduced to a deserted wasteland. He told Isaiah that the whole tree would be chopped down, and that he was going to bring new holy life out of the stump. It would be the words of Isaiah and the other writing prophets which would sustain the new life of that stump.

LORD, we accept your call, and agree to your terms. We leave the results to you. We trust that what we do for you will make a difference in the lives of others. But we choose to trust your call instead of seeking evidence of our own fruitfulness.