Undone

Isaiah 6:5 states, “Then said I, 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 mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.

What exactly does it mean to be undone? Adam Clarke says to be undone is to be “struck dumb” – dumbfounded, unable to speak.

It was a hot day in the harvest field. We shut down the combines and the four or five of us gathered to go to lunch. Someone spotted a weasel standing upright in the short stubble. For fun we made a circle around it and kept stepping in closer to it. The weasel looked this way and that and could see no way to escape. Finally, it put its little paws over its heart, made a squeal, and fell over dead. We did not intend to scare it to death.

Have you ever really been undone? Isaiah was looking at his sinful state. What caused him to do this? He had a vision of the Lord sitting upon a throne in the Temple, perhaps in the Holy of Holies. The seraphim were above Him. One cried out to another, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory.” His voice caused the doorposts to move. Then the house was filled with smoke.

“This powerful vision of God caused Isaiah to look at his own sin. This was the best thing that could have happened to Isaiah. To actually see our sin as God sees it is the beginning of revival. Strong preaching by a Spirit-filled evangelist has been used by the Holy Spirit over and over to help people see sin in their lives and repent and turn to God. Notice the seraphim said “Holy, holy, holy.” Holiness is the message we are lacking today! We may wonder why Isaiah needed to look at his sin. In the prior five chapters he had been eloquently preaching the words of God. Some scholars believe that this chapter should have been placed at the first of the book of Isaiah. It wasn’t! Life isn’t that way. In the midst of our walk with the Lord, sin can arise and needs to be dealt with – big time. “This powerful vision of God caused Isaiah to look at his own sin. This was the best thing that could have happened to Isaiah. To actually see our sin as God sees it is the beginning of revival. Strong preaching by a Spirit-filled evangelist has been used by the Holy Spirit over and over to help people see sin in their lives and repent and turn to God. Notice the seraphim said “Holy, holy, holy.” Holiness is the message we are lacking today! We may wonder why Isaiah needed to look at his sin. In the prior five chapters he had been eloquently preaching the words of God. Some scholars believe that this chapter should have been placed at the first of the book of Isaiah. It wasn’t! Life isn’t that way. In the midst of our walk with the Lord, sin can arise and needs to be dealt with – “big time. “

No one told Isaiah that he had unclean lips. He knew that he could not say, “Holy, holy, holy,”— he could not preach holiness because of his unclean lips. Upon his recognition of his sin before God, the double cure was immediately applied to Isaiah in the form of a live coal from the altar. The fire at the altar is still available to those who are undone. Past sin is burned away. Present sin is purged.

The next thing Isaiah heard was the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Isaiah was no longer undone. His lips were clean. He was able to preach holiness. He answered the Lord: “Here am I, send me.” God did send him. He gave him a message to speak to the heart of the people. Man will not receive it (Isaiah 6:10). He was to preach it anyway. 

“Lord, how long?” Isaiah asked. God’s answer was, “Until the cities be wasted…” (v. 11). In the end (vs. 13), there will be a holy seed, a remnant, a tenth that shall return.

Today holiness is still to be lived and preached. It begins by placing our hands on our heart, crying out to God, and dying out to self. Don’t weasel out. The words are simply, “Woe is me! for I am undone!”