A Devotional Thought From Isaiah

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. Isaiah 6:5

“Woe is me!”

What brought on this lamentable exclamation from the prophet Isaiah? What terrible thing had occurred in his life that caused him to see himself this way? What circumstance had brought him to this revelation? Was he just diagnosed with some dread disease? Had he lost a lawsuit and the payout would bankrupt him? Had his son decided to marry outside the faith? Had any one of a myriad of awful or tragic things happened to him?

No.

Isaiah had experienced something so spectacular that it had shown him how pitiful and sinful he was. Isaiah had been at the Temple, and there he had a vision of the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up.

When Isaiah saw the glory of God, in that moment he saw himself and his people for the unclean, sinful, unglorious beings he, and they, were.

When that happens to anyone, he/she sees the LORD, it is the beginning of moral and spiritual reformation. A modern word, still in vogue, is renewal.

The people of this country, much less the world, need this! They need to see God as He has revealed Himself. That revelation of Himself, as we know, is in the Bible. Real improvement, personal and national, begins with this experience.