How I thank God for this great music
team.
I've been involved with music teams and singing
groups for 40 some years.
I had my own professional musician traveling with
me, Bill Drake, who had the anointing of
Keith Green on him.
I had my own personal musician.
And to see God's hand on him all
these nine years as he ministered all over
the world to thousands of people was a
huge encouragement.
But we also discovered the reality of spiritual
warfare in music ministry.
Because it demands, in our day and age,
it demands professionalism.
We put on big concerts, all the lights,
all the smoke, all the big PowerPoint, you
know, the whole thing, big money.
And we'd see Satan try to bring division
among the team.
Or between the team and the organizer.
It seems that Satan is constantly, constantly trying
to stir up trouble among those committed to
reaching the world with the gospel.
People say, why do you give out all
these free books everywhere you go?
Because I have a heart to see people
helped.
I've seen God's people make so many mistakes.
And I want to help people to keep
on just as others have helped me.
And now that what I'm involved in has
got so large, I don't have the time
that I used to have to just spend
an hour with anybody and everybody wherever I
go.
You only get...
Between the last session and this session, I
was able to have, you know, a few
minutes with different people praying and talking, answering
questions.
But right now I also have a few
hundred emails that I'm supposed to be looking
at.
And the way I stay motivated with all
these emails is I try to pray over
every single email that I receive.
And my flight from Frankfurt to Chicago tomorrow,
that's one long prayer time with emails that
I have with me and my computer as
well.
So, if there's any little...
I can't do much.
But if I can help any of you
in some little way, a prayer, a book,
a link up, then I want to do
that.
Here am I.
Send me.
At the end of this message that I
give right now, if you'll pray that prayer
for the first time, I'm going to ask
you to stand up.
Now, I don't know if there'll be very
many.
Because so many of you are already moving.
But maybe you can just reaffirm this in
your heart.
It's saying, Lord, I'm available.
It's saying, Lord, your will, not my will.
It's tied in with Romans chapter 12, 1
and 2.
Where it says, I beseech you therefore, brethren,
by the mercies of God, to present your
body as a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto
God, which is your reasonable service.
One of the great calls to biblical commitment
and reality.
One of the great calls to biblical commitment
and reality.
It's saying, I beseech you, brethren, to present
your body as a living, holy, and God
-willing sacrifice.
But I believe, in general, before we can
pray that kind of prayer, we need a
greater experience with God.
And that's what we have here.
We have Isaiah.
Seeing the Lord.
It says, I saw the Lord, sitting upon
a throne.
High and lifted up, his train filled the
temple.
This was a vision of God.
Sometimes, sweet, we get a vision for a
nation.
Oh, God's put India on my heart.
Oh, God's put the Muslim world on my
heart.
But the first vision, the more important vision,
is the vision of God himself.
That's what we all need.
That's what I need.
And that's why we want to spend more
time in God's word.
We spend more time in God's word, we'll
get a greater glimpse of his glory, of
his greatness, of the way that he works,
which is not easy.
Above him stood the seraphims.
Each one had six wings.
With twain he covered his face.
With twain he covered his feet.
With twain he did fly.
This, of course, is a mystical experience.
There's nothing wrong with having a vision of
God.
Or having this kind of experience.
As long as we also follow it up
with basic, practical holiness and love and reality.
He saw the greatness of God.
He saw the glory of God.
He then saw the holiness of God.
That is really, really overwhelming.
Please look at that next verse.
Verse three.
One cried unto another.
Just picture this.
One cried to another and said, Holy, holy,
holy is the Lord of hosts.
The whole earth is full of his glory.
One cried to another and said, Holy, holy,
holy is the Lord of hosts.
The holiness of God.
That was a major thing in my young
life.
With my struggle with pornography.
My struggle with impatience and bad temper.
I spent a lot of time in the
word of God.
And I saw his holiness.
And I repented.
Of everything the spirit of God convicted me
of.
And I've never had a day, when I've
not somehow kept, we say, short accounts with
God.
And sometimes the closer we draw to God,
the more quickly we see the ugliness of
the self-life.
For God is not just concerned about our
outward actions.
We don't want you robbing any banks.
We don't want you beating up on any
grandmothers.
We don't want you watching any pornographic movies.
We don't want you punching your little tiny,
weak little brother in the nose with your
big shoe.
These outward things are easy to spot.
But God is also concerned about our disposition
and about our attitudes.
You have two good words in German for
that.
Such a good language, German, you've got everything.
Disposition.
Attitudes.
And I discovered it was so easy.
For me to be smiling on the outside.
Shaking someone's hand.
God bless you.
Good to see you.
But the inside.
Wrong attitude.
What's he doing here?
What's his agenda?
I saw him flirting with that girl over
there.
This guy, he's bad news.
Man, I hope he disappears.
I don't want to see him again.
God bless you.
Good to see you.
Come back soon.
Hypocrisy.
Spiritual schizophrenia.
Two different people.
And God broke me by his Holy Spirit.
Exposed the wickedness of my own heart.
The holiness of God.
Learning how to hate sin.
One of the reasons that I got freedom
from this pornography was because I learned to
hate sin.
This is wrong, what these people are doing.
This whole industry is wrong.
It is abusive of women.
It is wrong.
And as God's people we should speak out
about it.
It's not our major agenda.
But if we love Jesus and we're committed
to holiness we will not tolerate this on
our TV screen.
And in Germany it is an open broken
sewer running through society propelled by the forces
of hell 24 hours a day.
And you can be sure that some of
the suicides are linked with pornography and immorality.
And you can be sure that ultimately Germany
will lose the blessing of God and the
same is true in America if there's not
repentance and revival and turning back to the
word of God.
Now if you think that is a little
bit strong you should go visit David Wilkerson
in New York City.
He makes me sound like a little tiny
tea leaf blowing in the wind.
Wilkerson is high octane full caffeine coffee.
He predicted years ago that this kind of
thing was going to come to New York
City.
I remember seeing it in writing many years
ago.
I thought, David, you've done it again.
Too much coffee.
And now it's happened.
5,000 people are dead.
A lot of people do not like David
Wilkerson.
I tell you, he really upsets me.
Because Wilkerson hates sin.
Because Wilkerson sees the phenomenal degradation and sin
in New York City which has become like
Sodom and Gomorrah.
I'm not saying that was a judgment of
God.
I don't know.
I'm not that smart.
But I am afraid that the judgment of
God is going to come.
Because we see it in the word of
God.
We don't just have a God of love
and a God of patience and a God
of meekness.
We have a holy God.
We have a God of judgment.
And we cannot fool around with this God.
And so we see Isaiah's reaction.
Verse 5.
Then I said, woe is me.
They're very strong words in English.
Woe is me.
I'm undone.
I'm a man of unclean lips.
I dwell in the midst of a people
of unclean lips.
But my eyes have seen the King, the
Lord of hosts.
What a verse.
What a verse this is.
Woe is me.
I'm undone.
I'm a man of unclean lips.
I dwell in the midst of a people
of unclean lips.
But my eyes have seen the King, the
Lord of hosts.
The beautiful thing is that when we're believers,
when we're washed with the blood of Christ,
when God comes upon us like this in
a heavy way, convicting us, we can rejoice.
Because we know He loves us.
God has been very heavy on me in
my pilgrimage.
He's rebuking me, correcting me.
Through books, through the word of God, through
people.
I thank Jesus for that.
He loves me.
Read Hebrews chapter 12.
We won't do it now.
Those whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth.
He correcteth.
So if God is coming to your heart,
He's convicting you about something.
He's pressing you to repent about something.
It's an assurance of His love and His
concern for you.