Way back in 1741, a Prussian musician produced
an oratorio, the like of which has never
been equaled.
It's supposed to be the grandest piece of
music ever heard.
And wherever Handel's Messiah is rendered by a
grand choir, there is a response from the
people.
It was written under the influence of a
vision.
Handel tells us he seemed to be in
a trance as he was writing the Messiah,
and his servant could back that up for
many a time.
He brought his warm or his hot dinner
to his room and let it sit there,
and returned hours later to find it cold
and untouched.
He was in a trance.
He was gripped by a vision.
And when he came to the hallelujah chorus,
I did think, he said, that the heavens
were open and I could see the great
God himself.
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, praise the Lord, that was
what came in then upon his soul.
I have written elsewhere in one of my
books, and it's not a quotation, it's just
something that has been warm to my heart
for years.
Vision is the mainspring of valor, and valor
is the pulse of victory.
And I commend that to my beloved brother,
for to me that vision is the mainspring
of valor, courage, and valor, the pulse of
victory.
And it's your duty, brother, and your responsibility,
to present to the people of your congregation,
wants and dreams, the inspiration of vitalizing vision.
You know as well as I do, brother,
that people can sit beneath the pulpit and
pray.
They can sit and hear the Bible read,
an open Bible, and throw off all the
restraints of the word of God.
And they can come to the porch of
the house of prayer, and rarely support a
prayer meeting.
Where there's no freedom, the people can, they
throw off the restraints of God and his
gospel, and he's almighty, omnipotent command.
Yes, vision's the central thing.
And here in the passage that we read
this morning, we have a fourfold vision.
I'd like you to turn back to that,
the sixth chapter, of Isaiah the prophet, and
you've got there a fourfold vision, capturing the
great notes of the Christian truth.
And I want to introduce each one of
those fourfold glimpses of vision, with a very
small word.
And the first is awe, awe, awe.
Yes.
It's the vision of the splendor, and of
the sovereignty of God, that must be presented
from a true Christian platform or pulpit to
the people.
In the year that King Isaiah died, I
saw the Lord high and lifted up, and
his train filling the temple.
In the year of disappointment, in the year
of death, in the year of loss, when
the great King Isaiah, who was marvelously helpful,
he was strong, was smitten as a leper.
Perhaps that may have been when he died.
I rather fancy it was when he was
cast out as being king.
Because he was a leper, he'd invaded the
prince's office.
He'd grown proud.
His heart was lifted up.
He cast away the strength.
Oh, what a loss, what a sorrow to
Isaiah, the prophet of redemption, that this great
King Isaiah should go down and would become
a leper, unclean, unclean.
Yes, it's in the year of loss that
we often see the vision.
Oh, that vision.
It was in the year that Mrs. Josephine
Butler saw the tragedy of her life.
Her only girl, leaning over the balcony, unbalanced
and cracked to her feet to die.
Mrs. Josephine Butler, stunned and broken as any
mother would be, sat in deadness until she
caught the vision of four unwanted girls in
London and beyond.
And she sprang up to meet the need
and be a mother to the mother then.
And it was in the year that Captain
Alan Gardner of the Royal Navy knelt by
the side of his dead wife.
And he'd lost the companion that he loved.
It was in that year that he saw
the vision of the ends of the earth
and decided that he'd become a pioneer mission
week to the far-flung coast of Patagonia,
the wildest part of the world.
And would lay down his life for Christ
at need's way.
And it was a need's way.
And he laid down his life as a
martyr for Christ.
It's in the year of your loss that
you find suddenly a vision rising.
Oh, that vision.
That vision.
I saw the Lord high and lifted up
and He climbed filling the temple, the smoke
filling the place.
I beheld it and the seraphim, the seraphim,
with their six wings, two covering the feet
and two covering the face and two as
the wind supplies, the guardians of the throne
of God.
I saw them to desire and they said,
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
The whole earth is full of His glory.
And yet to hear His name tossed about
by the riffraff of the day in blasphemy
and curses.
The whole earth full of His glory.
The flowers, the trees, the freshness of the
fragrant breeze.
The song of birds upon the wings.
The joy of summer and of spring.
The earth full of His glory.
Ah, God ruleth over all.
His kingdom is over all.
His hand is on the helm of the
universe.
Though people do not acknowledge it.
And the little letter that Alexander Snelly rescued
for us from one of the early fathers
that came down into his understanding and to
his hand that he could pass it on
to us.
Just a little scrap of a letter.
And now the blessed polygraph suffered martyrdom on
the seventh day before the highlands of May.
Status for greatest being proponsal.
Jesus Christ being king forever.
And the thrill of the heart of dear
Alexander Snelly.
You know it was David Garrick, the great
actor, who said he would give us hundred
guineas if he could only say, Oh, as
Whitfield, George Whitfield, the mighty soul winner, could
say it.
But he couldn't.
Even if he had the hundred guineas in
the hand and given it to George, he
couldn't say, Oh, as that great preacher could
say it.
Why?
Because they'd heard of George Whitfield with no
entertainer except by the prisms of his illustrations.
George Whitfield was a man who walked in
two worlds and had eternity stamped upon his
eyeballs.
What a preacher.
Now have the final sword.
Praise, brethren, praise Christ holy is our Lord
Praise, brethren, praise What more of it fits
the tongue Soon to join the angels' song
While heaven and earth prolong Praise, brethren, praise
That's the vision, isn't it?
Oh, beloved, you have to present constantly to
people who hardly ever meditate on heaven and
eternity that vision of the magic of the
splendor and the sovereignty of God.
And then you come to the second part
of this remarkable vision and it's introduced by
a little word Woe, woe Why?
This is the vision of the sinfulness of
man.
Woe is me, cried out Isaiah Woe is
me I'm a man of unclean lips and
I tell in the midst of a people
of unclean lips and my eyes have seen
the King the Lord of hosts Oh, woe
is me Yes, that brings one low And
he's realized, great prophet of redemption he's realized
that in the previous chapter of his message
from God he's pronounced six woes on the
people of Judah It's been woe to the
rich and woe to the rioters woe to
the poor woe to the vain woe to
the proud woe to the drunk and it's
easy enough for the preacher when the spirit
of God is in the place and filling
his heart it's easy enough for him to
say