hovered on quivering wing ready to execute the orders
of the Divine King, receiving a command by some unexplained mode of
communication, flew to the altar, and, taking up the tongs, seized
with them a stone from the altar fire. It was neither a coal, as our
rendering gives it, nor a brand, but a heated stone, such as was used,
and is used at the present day, in the East, for conveying heat to a
distance for any purpose for which it might be required. It came from
the altar: it contained God's fire, and God sent it.

The purpose for which it was required on this occasion was cleansing.
Of cleansing there are in Scripture three symbols. The simplest is
water; and water can purify many things; but there are some things
which water cannot cleanse. A stronger agent is required, and this is
found in fire. You must fling the ore, for example, into the fire, if
you wish to extract from it the pure gold. There is a third symbol,
which appears in the New Testament as well as the Old, and it is the
most sacred of all. It is blood. Water, fire, blood--these three mean
the same in Scripture. In this case it was fire.

The seraph flew with the hot stone and laid it on the lips of the
future prophet. Why did he lay it there? Because it was there that
Isaiah felt his sin to be lying. He had said, "I am a man of unclean
lips." The fire burned the sin away. So the seraph said, speaking in
God's name, "Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is
taken away and thy sin purged." It was the assurance of the Divine
forgiveness, which had come swift as a seraph's flight in answer to
Isaiah's confession.[10]

Isaiah's preparation was completed in these three successive phases of
experience; and now the purpose was disclosed for which he had been
prepared. From aloft--from the throne high and lifted up--came the
question, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" The King needed
a messenger to bear a message and represent Himself. He had chosen
Isaiah to bear it; yet He did not thrust the commission on him.[11] He
did not need to do so; for Isaiah had passed through a preparation
which made him not only thoroughly able, but thoroughly willing. He
had been lifted out of time into eternity; and in this one hour of
concentrated experience he had both died and been born again. His life
had been undone and forfeited; but God had given it back to him, and
he felt that now it was not his own. He was thrilling with the power
of forgiven