The Holy Seed in the Burnt-Over Stump Text: Isaiah 6:8-13
Introduction: A Commission for Hard Times
The modern evangelical church is besotted with a lust for quantifiable results. We want to see the graph line trending up and to the right. We want ministry that is successful, palatable, and attractive. We measure our faithfulness by the size of the crowd, the budget, and the building. We have taken the principles of corporate marketing and have tried to apply them to the kingdom of God, which is a bit like trying to measure the ocean with a thimble. We want a commission that comes with a guarantee of revival, and we want it now.
Into this pragmatic and man-centered confusion, Isaiah 6 lands like a meteor. After the prophet is undone by the vision of God's holiness in the temple, after he is purged by the burning coal of grace, he is given his marching orders. And these orders are a direct assault on every principle of our church growth seminars. He is not being sent to launch a successful ministry campaign. He is being sent to announce a final, judicial sentence. He is commissioned to a ministry of hardening, a ministry that will result not in a filled temple, but in an empty land. His success will be measured by the thoroughness of the desolation.
This is a hard word, but it is a necessary one. If we do not understand God's sovereignty in judgment, we will never understand His sovereignty in salvation. If we do not understand the nature of the stump, we will never understand the glory of the Seed. This passage forces us to ask a fundamental question: Are we willing to be faithful to God, even when that faithfulness looks like abject failure in the eyes of the world, and even in the eyes of the church?
The Text
Then 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!” He said, “Go, and tell this people: ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; Keep on seeing, but do not know.’ Render the hearts of this people insensitive, Their ears dull, And their eyes dim, Lest they see with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their hearts, And return and be healed.” Then I said, “Lord, how long?” And He said, “Until cities are devastated and without inhabitant, Houses are without people, And the land is devastated to desolation, And Yahweh has removed men far away, And the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. Yet there will be a tenth portion in it, And it will again be subject to burning, Like a terebinth or like an oak Whose stump remains when it is felled. The holy seed is its stump.”
(Isaiah 6:8-13 LSB)
The Willing Messenger (v. 8)
We begin with the call itself.
"Then 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!'" (Isaiah 6:8)
Isaiah's response is immediate and uncoerced. This is not the response of a man trying to earn God's favor. It is the response of a man who has just been overwhelmed by it. In the preceding verses, Isaiah saw the thrice-holy God, cried out, "Woe is me, for I am ruined!" and was then touched by a coal from the altar, hearing the words, "your iniquity is taken away and your sin is atoned for." Grace always precedes the call to service. Forgiveness comes before mission. You cannot truly volunteer for God's army until you have been gloriously drafted by His sovereign grace. A man who knows he is a debtor to grace is the only man qualified to carry God's message.
Notice also the speaker. The Lord (Adonai) asks the question, but the question is, "who will go for Us?" Here again, on the threshold of this great prophetic work, we have the Trinity. The one God speaks in the plural. The Father seeks a messenger, the Son is the ultimate Sent One, and the Spirit is the one who empowers the prophet. Isaiah's mission is a participation in the eternal mission of the Godhead. This is not a human enterprise; it is a divine one.
The Terrible Commission (vv. 9-10)
What follows is one of the most staggering commissions in all of Scripture.
"Go, and tell this people: 'Keep on hearing, but do not understand; Keep on seeing, but do not know.' Render the hearts of this people insensitive, Their ears dull, And their eyes dim, Lest they see with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their hearts, And return and be healed." (Isaiah 6:9-10 LSB)
Let us be very clear about what is being said. God is not telling Isaiah to preach in a confusing or unclear way. He is to preach the truth. But the effect of that truth on a hardened and rebellious people will be to harden them further. This is the doctrine of judicial hardening. When a people has sinned away its day of grace, when they have refused the light for so long that they have come to love the darkness, God in His righteous judgment gives them over to what they want. He commands the prophet to preach in such a way that it confirms them in their rebellion. The very Word that brings life to the elect brings death to the reprobate. As Paul says, the gospel is an aroma of life to life for some, and an aroma of death to death for others (2 Cor. 2:16).
This is a direct assault on all man-centered views of salvation. The ultimate issue is not the sinner's free will, but God's sovereign purpose. The preaching of the Word is the instrument God uses not only to save, but also to judge. Notice the terrifying purpose clause: "Lest they see... and hear... and understand... and return and be healed." God is actively preventing their repentance. Why? Because the time for repentance is over. The time for judgment has come. This is a truth that makes our modern, sentimental therapeutic deism utterly wither. God is not a cosmic butler, waiting around, hoping we might choose Him. He is the sovereign King who accomplishes all His holy will.
From Agony to Desolation (vv. 11-12)
Isaiah's response is born of a pastor's heart. He does not question God's justice, but he grieves over the consequences.
"Then I said, 'Lord, how long?' And He said, 'Until cities are devastated and without inhabitant, Houses are without people, And the land is devastated to desolation, And Yahweh has removed men far away...'" (Isaiah 6:11-12 LSB)
"How long?" This is the cry of every faithful minister who has poured out his life preaching the truth to a people with dull ears and dim eyes. It is the cry of love. A man with a hard commission must have a soft heart. If you can preach the doctrine of judgment with a cold and clinical detachment, you are not qualified to preach it at all.
God's answer is unflinching and absolute. The judgment will continue until the covenant curses promised in Deuteronomy are fully realized. The land will be emptied. This is not a partial judgment, not a slap on the wrist. It is a complete and total dismantling of the nation. Yahweh Himself will do the removing. The judgment is not an accident of history or the result of bad geopolitical luck. It is the direct, personal intervention of the God they have spurned.
The Indestructible Stump (v. 13)
Just when the darkness seems absolute, God provides a pinprick of light that contains the hope of the entire world.
"Yet there will be a tenth portion in it, And it will again be subject to burning, Like a terebinth or like an oak Whose stump remains when it is felled. The holy seed is its stump." (Isaiah 6:13 LSB)
The judgment will be severe, but not ultimate. A remnant will be left, a tenth. But even this remnant is not safe. It will "again be subject to burning." God's purification is thorough. He is determined to burn away all the dross. The picture is of a great forest, leveled by loggers and then scorched by fire. To the human eye, all that is left is a field of blackened stumps. It looks like the end. It looks like total death.
But God sees differently. In those stumps, there is life. An oak or terebinth, though felled, can sprout again from its roots. The life is in the stump. And then comes the final, glorious, explosive declaration: "The holy seed is its stump."
This is not just a promise that a few Israelites will survive the exile. This is a direct, Messianic promise. The "holy seed" is the promised line of David, the covenant promise that will ultimately culminate in the Messiah. The entire nation can be chopped down and burned to the ground, but God will preserve that stump. From that stump, the Branch of Jesse will one day grow (Isaiah 11:1). The whole history of Israel was God's great project of forestry, protecting one particular stump from which the Savior of the world would come.
Conclusion: Our Hope is in the Seed
This is our commission as well. We are sent to preach the whole counsel of God to a world that has dull ears and dim eyes. We are not promised worldly success. In fact, in many places and at many times, our faithfulness will look like failure. The Word we preach will harden many in their sin, and this is part of God's righteous judgment.
But we do not labor without hope. Our hope is not in our eloquence or our programs. Our hope is in the stump. The nation of Israel was felled. The Son of David, the holy seed, was Himself "cut off from the land of the living" (Isaiah 53:8). He was felled on the cross. But that stump, buried in a tomb for three days, was indestructible. On the third day, the holy seed sprouted to eternal life.
And now, Jesus Christ is the stump for a new creation. His kingdom is the great tree growing from that resurrected life, and its branches are filling the earth. We preach, we work, we build, and we are not discouraged by the hardness of hearts around us, because we know that the holy seed has conquered death. The stump remains, and the future belongs to Him.