“Whom Shall I Send, And Who Will Go For Us?” – Isaiah 6:8

by Chris Simmons

Jesus said in Matthew 9:37-38, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.” God has much work to be done, but few to do the work. In the days of Isaiah the prophet, God had work to be done in reproving, rebuking and exhorting the nation of Israel and asked the question in Isaiah 6:8, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Indeed, who can God send to do the work He needs done?

Isaiah chapter six teaches us an important lesson regarding who can be sent to do God’s work. Earlier in Isaiah chapter six, we read of Isaiah’s vision of the grandeur and glory of the throne room of God in heaven. Such an awesome scene of the divine glory of God caused Isaiah to reflect on his own spiritual condition (cf., Luke 5:8) and come to the conclusion in verse 5, “Woe is me, for I am ruined (“undone”, ASV)!, Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.” In his spiritually “undone” condition, Isaiah was not ready to be sent to do God’s work. We then read in verses 6 and 7 that one of the seraphim took a burning coal from the altar and touched his mouth with it and pronounced, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is forgiven.” With his sins forgiven, Isaiah was then able to respond to God’s question of “whom shall I send?” with a confident reply of “here am I. Send me!” The lesson for us today, is that we must first deal with the sin in our lives and seek the forgiveness of God before we can be of any use to Him, just as Saul had to have his sins “washed away” in baptism before he could be sent by God to preach to the Gentiles (Acts 22:16; 26:16-18).

God can only send to do His work those who finally stop making excuses for why they shouldn’t be the one. For example, God needed to send someone to deliver His people from captivity in Egypt. God sent Moses (Exodus 3:10). Moses then reacted as many do today and came up with excuses as to why he should not be the one to do the work. We read in Exodus 4:10-13, “Then Moses said to the LORD, ‘Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since Thou hast spoken to Thy servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.’ And the LORD said to him, ‘Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes him dumb or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now then go, and I, even I, will be with your mouth, and teach you what you are to say.’ But he said, ‘Please, Lord, now send the message by whomever Thou wilt.’” Later in Exodus 5:22, Moses sums up his excuses by saying, “why didst Thou ever send me?” It was Jeremiah who was told (Jeremiah 1:7) not to use youth and lack of experience as an excuse for not going and doing all God had commanded him to do. It has oft been said, why me? Why not someone else? Doing the work God needs done is less about talent, ability and experience, and a great deal more about will, commitment and desire. Rather than saying to God “please consider me excused” (Luke 14:19), let us determine to put our hands to the plow (Luke 9:62) and do whatever works of God that we see need to be done.

God can only send those to do His work that fully trust in Him to thoroughly equip us to do the work that needs to be done. Moses had to learn to trust God to supply all of the evidence and motivation that Pharaoh needed in order to bring about the deliverance of His people. In Judges chapter 6, we read of Gideon who was sent by God to deliver the Israelites from the oppression of the Midianites. Gideon also needed to learn that if God sent him, God would supply him with all he needed. We read in Judges 6:14, “And the LORD looked at him and said, ‘Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you?’” Gideon, like Moses, questioned God as to how he would be able to get the job done (verse 15). To this God succinctly replied in verse 16, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man.” Gideon not only had to learn to do all that was within his ability to complete the work, but to trust in God to give him success in that for which he had been sent. We likewise need to trust that God has fully equipped us to do His work through His word. “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped (“complete, furnished completely”, ASV) for every good work” (II Timothy 3:16-17). If Moses had never picked up his rod (Exodus 4:2; 7:9) and if Gideon had never picked up the trumpet, empty pitcher and torch (Judges 7:16), God’s work would have never been accomplished. In like manner, if we never pick up the “sword” (i.e., the word of God, Ephesians 6:17), and apply our heart to know it, then we also will never be able to be useful workers in God’s kingdom (II Timothy 2:15).

Of all the work God has needed to be done, the most important work of all was to send someone to redeem man from his sin’s. At the appropriate time, God sent forth His Son, “in order that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4-5; cf., John 3:17). Jesus came because God sent Him (John 8:42). Jesus came to do the work His Father sent Him to do (John 4:34) and Jesus accomplished and finished the work God sent Him to do (John 17:4). What if Jesus used the same excuses that we use today for not doing the work which God needs done? What if Jesus had been unwilling to give up the glory and joy of being with His Father in heaven and take “the form of a bond-servant” (Philippians 2:7)? What if Jesus had not overcome all the temptations He faced (Hebrews 4:15) in order that He might be a perfect sacrifice (cf., Hebrews 10:11-12)? But Jesus did go and He accomplished the work God sent for Him to do. The question is will we? Will we do the “work of service” (Ephesians 4:12) that is required of all Christians?

What is our answer to God’s question “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?”