here i am – send me
We know the fields are ripe for harvest, but as we cry out in prayer to God to send out laborers into the field – we are each really pressing in for amazingly intense experiences like this:
Isaiah 6.1-8 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!†And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. So I said: “Woe is me, 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 my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts.†Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth with it, and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged.†Also 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.â€
of course now we understand that it is the blood of Jesus cleanses our hearts and our lips. in the Old Testament, the altar was the focus of cleansing for sin. the altar in the temple at Jerusalem was where all the sacrifices for sin were to be made in Isaiah’s day. yet the altar & the temple in Jerusalem were just figures of the true altar and the true temple that stood in heaven, which Isaiah got to see in this vision. this was the altar that Jesus (as our great high priest) would eventually sprinkle with his own blood, cleansing all things in both the heavens and the earth.
so we look totally to the blood of Jesus to cleanse us and make us pure. yet even so, we need our lips touched with the fire of God to be able to speak as those sent out from the very presence of God. God made that absolutely clear when he poured the Holy Ghost and fire on the church on the day of Pentecost >>
It’s the Holy Spirit that filled Peter and gave him the power to see all of those souls brought into the kingdom. Of Lord, touch me with that holy fire.