And time is rapidly running out.
This morning, I want for you and for
me to share together in the measure that
is possible the experience of this great talk
of the world, because the entire pivot, the
focal point of all the 66 chapters of
the book of Isaiah, is centered in these
eight or nine verses of this sixth chapter.
All of Isaiah's life prior to that time
leads up to it, and to all of
the experience following upon that time finds its
spring in the tremendous experience recorded in this
passage.
And as you and I are gathered together
today here in the Billy Sunday Tabernacle, there
can happen to us what happened to Isaiah
as he stood long ago in contemplation in
the temple of God.
I can see Isaiah as he approaches the
temple and now enters within its portals and
perhaps together with other worshipers, is seated there
and the Bible says, I saw also the
Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted
up, and his train filled the temple and
the house was filled with a strange, wonderful
atmosphere that the Holy Spirit describes in the
likeness of smoke.
So that everywhere that Isaiah looked in that
room, and especially as he looked up toward
the Holy of Holies, his eyes were filled
with the strange wonderment of something that appeared
to him in a form like unto smoke.
He saw the Lord in all of his
majesty, all of his power, all of his
glory, and all of the wonder of his
impeccable eternal holiness.
And as he looked upon God, he saw
also these shining ones whom the scripture calls
seraphim.
And as he looked upon them, they spoke
out and they said, Holy, holy, holy is
the Lord of hosts.
The whole earth is full of his glory.
I was glad for the hymn that we
just sung.
I am likewise reminded as I repeat those
words, holy, holy, holy, how that so often
you and I come to the house of
God on this day of worship that we
sing together with others, holy, holy, holy, Lord
God Almighty, God in three persons, blessed Trinity.
And I am reminded again this morning of
this fact, that there is only one thing,
there is only one thing that you and
I can give to God that he cannot
get in any other way.
The Bible says the silver and gold is
mine, saith the Lord.
The Bible reminds us again that a cattle
on a thousand hills belong to him.
And there isn't any one of all these
other things that God cannot get in some
other way.
But there is one thing that God wants
that he cannot get except from the redeemed
heart.
And you find that mentioned to you in
the words of our Lord himself in John
chapter 24, verse 23, John chapter 4, rather,
verse 23, where Jesus said, The hour cometh,
and now is, when the true worshipers shall
worship God in spirit and in truth, for
the Father seeketh such to worship him.
There's only one thing that you can give
to God that he cannot get entirely apart
from yourself, and that he cannot get unless
you give it to him, and that is
the worship of your heart.
Sometimes people inquire at the close of the
service, what did you get out of the
meeting?
At the close of this hour, I want
you to ask this question, what did I
give to God?
For what happens between 11.30 and 12
o'clock this morning is not so important
in what you get, but it is desperately
important in what God gets.
And God was here before this service began.
And God shall be here when the benediction
is pronounced.
And all during this service, God is looking
for one thing supremely, and that is the
worship of the hearts and lives of men
and women and young people, redeemed by faith
in Jesus' blood, born again, regenerated by the
power of the Holy Ghost, and now lifting
their voices, empowering their hearts in adoration, in
praise, in worship unto God.
As Isaiah entered the temple that day, the
glory of God filled that place.
He looked, and there was God himself upon
the throne, and around the throne was a
seraphim, these shining ones, and they were worshiping
as they sang together, holy, holy, holy.
And as you note in the scripture in
verse number two, you read that each one
had six wings, with twain he covered his
face as he worshiped, and with twain he
covered his feet in self-sacrifice, and with
twain he did fly, ready for the service
of God himself.
Now, as you look at this chapter, the
very first words of the very first verse
are as follows.
In the year that King Isaiah died, here
was God upon the throne.
Here were these shining, perfect ones, worshiping God,
bowing down in self-sacrifice and ready for
service.
Outside the temple was he who had been
king, but now because of leprosy in his
body, which was the result of leprosy in
his soul, he was banished from the temple,
he was separated from others, and he had
no right to stand in the presence of
Almighty God.
As Isaiah came into the temple, he saw
God in his holiness.
He knew that Isaiah could not enter the
temple, he could not stand before the holy
God, but here were the seraphim, the perfect
ones, and they were singing.
While Isaiah contemplated all of that, something tremendous
was happening in his own soul.
A great and deep conviction came over his
own heart.
As you read in verse 5, then said
I, woe is me.
Now, if you turn to chapter 5, verse
8, you read, woe unto them that join
house to house in unholy covetousness.
Verse 11, woe unto them that rise up
early in the morning to follow strong drink.
Verse 18, woe unto them that draw iniquity.
Verse 20, woe unto them that call evil
good.
Verse 21, woe unto them that are wise
in their own eyes.
Verse 22, woe unto them that are mighty
to drink wine.
But now, the second time, Isaiah repeats the
same word, woe.
At this time, he cries, woe is me.
And he identifies himself with all these that
were sinners in the sight of Almighty God.
He stands in the temple.
He sees the holy God.
He witnesses while these bow themselves in the
presence of God.
He thinks of Isaiah, a spiritual and a
physical leper, and he cries out, that's exactly
what I am.
Woe is me, for I am undone, and
I dwell in the midst of a people
of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen
the King, the Lord of hosts.
If you want to see yourself as you
really are, you must see yourself in the
light of a holy God, in the face
of Jesus Christ, revealed on the pages of
this holy book that I now have before
me.
Research the scriptures, for in them ye think
that ye have eternal life, and there they
which testify of me.
And when you see yourself in the light
of the perfect holiness, the perfect righteousness, the
perfect personality of Jesus Christ, you can do
no other than, Isaiah, when he cried out,
woe is me, I am undone, I am
unclean, and I dwell in the midst of
a people of unclean lips.
As Isaiah contemplated this scene, there came conviction
of his sin, of his moral and spiritual
depravity, and of his desperate need of a
touch from Almighty God.
And so you have not only his conviction,
but you also have his compassion.
And it's a wonderful thing to bow yourself
like Peter did on another occasion, in the
presence of my Lord, when he said, depart
from me, for I am a sinful man.
And as John did in the first chapter
of the book of the revelation, when he
turned to hear the voice that spake concerning,
he saw one like unto the Son of
Man, and he fell at the feet of
Jesus like one that was dead.
My friends, the holiest people on earth are
the people who realize that they're the deepest
sinners, at most greatly in need of redemption
in Christ Jesus.
Those that walk closest to God know more
perfectly than any others how far away even
at best they are from God.
And Isaiah, under conviction, now cries out this
desperate compassion, and he says, I'm unclean, I'm
undone, and he knows the truth of the
Bible, where the scripture says, all have sinned
in Adam, and all are continually coming short
of the glory of God, apart from Jesus
Christ, our Savior and our God.
And he knows, for he wrote also in
Isaiah 64, verse 6, we are all as
an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are
as filthy rags, and we do all fade
as a leaf, and our iniquities like the
wind have taken us away.
He knew he was unclean.
He knew that he had nothing to commend
himself to God.
He knew that he had no right to
the temple.
He knew that he was not prepared like
the ashamed seraphim to worship, to sacrifice, and
to serve Almighty God.
Something had to be done.
And when you turn to the sixth verse,
you read, then flew one of the seraphim
unto me.
I want you to note that first word,
then.
When was it the seraphim flew unto him?
After he had seen the Lord, after he
had bought and brought under conviction of his
sin and of his need, after he had
confessed his need, it was then that one
of the seraphim flew unto him, having a
live coal in his hand, which he had
taken with the tongs from off the altar
of sacrifice, representative of the sacrifice of Christ
on Golgotha's hill.
And he laid the live coal from off
the altar upon my mouth, and he said,
Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine
iniquity is taken away, and thy sin is
purged.
When Isaiah had confessed his sin, then there
was cleansing for his sin.
And I want you to notice three things
in verse number seven.
First of all, it says, Thy sin is
purged.
When you turn in your Bible to Isaiah
118, God says to his servant, Come now
and let us reason together.
Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall
be as white as snow.
Though they be red like crimson, they shall
be as wool.
How did Isaiah write that?
How did Isaiah understand that?
He knew that by personal experience.
He knew in his own heart that though
a man was deep-tied like crimson, and
though his man's sin had deeply stained his
soul, all of that could be cleansed through
faith in the promise of God in the
coming of the Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Again, in that same verse, and thine iniquity
is taken away.
When you turn to Isaiah 53, six, you
read, All we like sheep have gone astray,
we have turned every one to his own
way, and the Lord hath made upon him,
what?
The iniquity of us all.
And the seraphim came to Isaiah, and it
was just as though he said, Isaiah, what
you are going to write in your first
chapter, what you will repeat in the fifty
-third chapter, and that which will make you
the great gospel prophet of the Old Testament
is the experience that you now will have
when his sin was purged and his iniquity
was taken away.
His sins being purged was subjected.
It was the washing away of the fire
of his heart.
His iniquity being taken away was objected when
he was justified in the presence of the
Holy God, therefore being justified by faith, we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ.
And Isaiah knew what it meant to be
justified from the guilt of his sin before
Holy God, as he knew what it meant
to be cleansed from the detriment of his
sin in his own body and in his
own personality.
And then you notice in the same verse,
Lo, this hath touched thy lips.
Now turn with me, if you will, in
your Bible to the book of Leviticus, chapter
thirteen, verses forty-six and forty-five, where
you read in forty-six, All the days
wherein the plague of leprosy shall be in
him, he shall be defiled, he is unclean,
he shall dwell alone, without the camp shall
his habitation be.
Verse forty-five, the second half, And he
shall put a covering upon his upper lip,
and shall cry, unclean, unclean.
And from that moment the kind that King
Isaiah had disobeyed God, and more leprosy came
into his soul, and physical leprosy came into
his body, and he was separated from his
throne, and separated from his people outlander, all
alone.
Isaiah, as he stands there in the temple,
hears that cry in his lips from the
leprous king, unclean, unclean, unclean.
I cannot go into the temple, I cannot
stand in presence of the Holy God, I
cannot serve the Eternal One, unclean, unclean, unclean.
And through the mind and the soul, those
words echo and they re-echo, as Isaiah
comes into the temple, but he sees the
Shining Ones, and they do not cry out,
unclean, they cry out, holy, holy, holy, is
the Lord God of hosts, the whole earth
is full of His glory.
And as Isaiah contemplates all of that, he
says to himself, how can I be like
the Shining Ones, and how can I escape
being like this unclean one?
As he cries out, I am undone, I
am unclean, I am a mortal, I am
a sinner, I am wretched, I am under
condemnation, I have no rights in the presence
of the Holy God, I am in need
of redemption.
And as he cries out, and he confesses
and he repents, one of these Shining Ones
takes that live toll from off the altar
where the Lamb had shed His precious blood,
and he applies that toll to the lips
that have been shut, and to the life
that has been defiled, and cleansing had come
to him.
Isaiah, if you please, twenty-five hundred years
ago was in the church, and that thing
happened to him in the presence of the
people of God and the God of the
people.
And what happened to Isaiah can happen to
any man, any woman, any person in this
room this morning.
The other day in one of our campaigns
out on the coast, a young woman came
forward at the close of the meeting as
others were gathering at the altar of decision,
but instead of going there, she found a
way up on the platform and came to
me.
I said, what is it, young lady?
Oh, she said, Mr. Dawson, I don't need
to come to make the decision.
I made it while you were preaching, and
I've come to tell you I'm already saved.
I don't need to go to the room
of prayer.
I say to you, my friends, you and
I are in the presence of a holy
God and of His holy Son, Jesus Christ,
and of the blessed Holy Spirit in this
morning hour.
And if you have years to hear Jesus
as behold, I stand at the door and
knock.
If any man open the door, I will
come into him.
And as many as received him, to them
gave him power to become the sons of
God, even to them that believe upon his
name.
I think it was last year during this
convention, a woman came up to me at
the close of the service.
She said, Mr. Johnson, you don't remember me,
but I've got some good news to tell
you.
She said, I was in York, Pennsylvania in
your campaign down there in the state fairgrounds.
And she said, one night when you gave
the invitation, I didn't come forward, but I
gave my heart to Christ right there in
the seat.
And she said, I've come to tell you
this, that when I went home and I
told my husband what had happened, God spoke
to his heart.
We knelt there in our home.
He gave his heart to Jesus Christ.
And now both of us are full time
in county evangelism work down there in York
County, Pennsylvania.
Isaiah was in the temple.
He saw God.
He saw those that stood before God.
He saw the one that could not stand
before God.
He said, neither can I.
I'm a sinner.
I'm guilty.
I'm depiled.
I'm under condemnation.
All my righteousnesses are as guilty rags.
I need to be purged and cleansed.
And while he was crying out and confessing,
this one came and touched him.
Now notice verse number eight.
Oh, so I heard the voice of the
Lord saying, whom shall I send?
And who will go for us?
Then said I, here am I, send me.
My friends, you cannot do anything for God
until, first of all, God has done something
for you.
You cannot serve him until in Christ you
have been willing to let God serve you.
The first thing that any man can do
is to receive Christ as personal Savior and
Lord.
And it wasn't until after his sin was
purged, his iniquity was taken away, and his
lips were once again loosened that Isaiah could
hear the voice of God crying out, whom
shall I send and who will go for
us?
And the reason some of you have never
heard the voice of God is because you've
never had an experience with God.
The reason some of you will never receive
a challenge from the Lord is because you've
never responded to the invitation of the gospel
of Jesus Christ.
But now Isaiah has been cleansed.
Now he can join these shining ones, and
he can sing together with them, holy, holy,
holy.
And as he begs in worship and in
adoration, the voice comes, whom shall I send
and who will go for us?
And then Isaiah responds, here am I, send
me.
What I want you to note this morning
is in that response of Isaiah was a
tremendous decision of faith.
He didn't know where God would send him.
He didn't know what God would require of
him.
He didn't know what the sacrifice might be
that would be exacted.
He only knew that God had done something
wonderful, and now he was ready to respond
to what God has done for him.
And you know when you've been redeemed by
the precious blood of Jesus Christ, and you
know what it means to be made holy
with the holiness of Christ himself.
When you know all of that, then you're
ready for the work of the Lord.
Isaiah said, here am I, Lord, send me.
And as you read the verses that immediately
follow, Isaiah was sent on a rather unfruitful
mission.
He was sent on a rather unresponsive mission.
He was to be sent among people that
would not appreciate him, that would not welcome
him, and if possible they would have liquidated
him.
But that mattered nothing.
All it counted, no, was the perfect will
of God for his life.
Here am I, Lord, send me.
Here we are in the auditorium this morning,
scores, hundreds, thousands of people, and multiplied thousands
of others who are listening in, in their
cottages, in their homes, in their cars, hospital
beds, and elsewhere where people are tuned in
to this great radio station this morning hour.
What God would say to your ear, what
God would speak to your heart, what God
would challenge your soul is this, whom shall
I send?
Who will go for us?
It is waiting for hearts to respond.
Lord, if you're not particularly concerned about talent,
if you're not, Lord, qualifying people by personality,
if, Lord, they do not need to meet
certain high educational requirements, what you're looking for,
a loving heart and a willing spirit and
a responsive person, then, Lord, I am a
candidate.
Here am I.
You can send me anywhere, all over the
world, as long as you want, wherever you
want, exact exploit, anything out of my right,
I am yours to do it as you
please.
And then you come to the last word,
verse number nine, and he said, Go and
tell.
And so you come, finally, not only to
the call and contemplation, but to come now
to the commission that is servant of the
Lord.
As I look out over this multitude of
people today and I visualize that larger crowd
that are listening in and participating in this
service this morning hour, my heart cries out
when I think of the desperate need of
a generation in which we live.
Listen to me.
This service began at 1045 o'clock this
morning.
Every minute that this service was going on,
twelve hundred people were born into this world.
And out of twelve hundred people being born
every minute, eleven hundred and ninety-eight, according
to the present progress of the church, eleven
hundred and ninety-eight are doomed to die
and to go into eternity without Christ and
without hope.
And when I think of that, I could
say, oh God, where are all these people
being born?
Why do we have this tremendous population explosion?
Why is the number of people on earth
multiplying rapidly as never before, when eleven hundred
and ninety-eight out of every twelve hundred
are going into eternity without Christ and without
hope?
Listen to me this morning hour.
Here in these United States, there were born
in 1956, four million one hundred thousand babies,
57, four million three hundred and fifty thousand
babies, 58, more than four million more, and
this year there will be more babies born
in the United States than any other single
year in all the history of our democracy.
And these men who follow these statistics are
revising their figures upward all the time, and
they tell us that between now and 1980,
which is just twenty-one more years of
time, 1980, the next twenty-one years of
time, over one hundred million more babies will
be born in the United States alone, which
means that a hundred million souls in the
United States will have to be raised in
one way or another in these next twenty
-one years of time.
All the Bible schools, all the Christian colleges,
all the theological seminaries combined, all the training
institutes that there are all across our now
fifty states don't begin to meet the challenge
of the USA alone, apart from all the
hundreds of millions of people scattered abroad in
Europe, Latin America, Africa, the Orient, and the
Isles of the Sea.
If you knew the heart of God this
morning, then you would know and you would
hear all over this room these words, Whom
shall I send?
Who will go for us?
But my friend, you'll never hear that voice
until your ears have been unstopped.
You'll never understand that language until your mind
has been made to know.
And there'll be no response in your soul
until, first of all, you receive Christ as
your Savior.
And then like I said, oh, there has
been that dedication when you have responded, Who
am I?
Send me.
I have visited with some of the friends
from India, and there are folk from other
parts of the world here this morning.
And I say the fields are ripe unto
the harvest.
The laborers indeed are few, are few, are
few.
Thank God I settled that in my soul
many years ago.
And I said, oh God, I don't care
how many of my friends and how many
of my associates are going on with God.
I propose to go on, to keep on
going on, to burn and burn and burn
and burn and keep on going on until
there's nothing left of life or until Jesus
comes in the clouds of the air.
I say I had an experience 2,500
years ago in the temple that I could
wish to God that every person within this
house of my voice might have today.
Many of you are saved.
So you don't need that live coal from
off the altar in the sense of iniquity
being taken away and sins being purged and
your lips loosened.
And yet every believer knows that he needs
a new touch from God upon his life
from time to time.
And this is one of the times when
we ought to have it.
And then this morning, those of us who
are here this morning have received Christ and
crowned him Lord, to hear his voice and
to say, Lord, by my prayers I will
go.
Lord, by my teeth and by my lips
and by my life I will go.
And Lord, by faithful stewardship of my substance
I will go.
And I shall go to the ends and
to the last part of the earth shall
have heard.
And the multitude shall have had an opportunity
and souls shall have been saved.
The body of Christ shall be completed and
the head shall come and the body called
up and the job done.
And we shall wait in the presence of
our Lord.
And in a nobler, sweeter song than now,
we shall sing to the Father and we
shall sing to the Son and we shall
sing to the Holy Spirit.
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, God in
three persons, blessed Trinity, my friends, God provided
the salvation.
Jesus Christ made possible the salvation and the
Holy Spirit would bring that salvation to each
individual heart.
In a moment of time, we're going to
bow our heads.
Let us do it now.
While our heads are bowed, if you're here
and you've never received Christ as your Savior,
this is the morning hour when the Bible
says, whoever shall call upon the name of
the Lord shall be saved.
And you can know the joy of his
salvation.
This is the moment of time when if
you've drifted far away and wandered astray, and
you're no longer in touch with God, but
you can remember the Bible says, if we
confess our sins, he is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins and to cleanse
us from all unrighteousness.
And you can know restoration and renewal of
fellowship with him.
This morning hour, as we hear the call
and we consecrate our lives, the commission comes,
go and tell, and we respond, Lord, as
long as my heart beats within my breast,
as long as there's breath within my lungs,
as long as I have energy to keep
on, I'll keep on going till Jesus comes,
spreading the seed, bearing the good news, witnessing
the gospel of the grace of God.
May the Lord bless our hearts to that
end, that every life in this holy moment,
as we stand before a holy God, may
be holy years, shall we continue with our
heads bowed.
This has not been only the voice of
Torrey Johnson this morning, but it has been
the voice of God to our hearts.
Go and tell.
This is God speaking.
He says to you, teenager, to you, young
adult, to you, mother and father, to all
of us together, go, go and tell.
And I believe there are those this morning
who would say, yes, Lord, here I am,
here am I, send me.
We're going to close this service in just
a moment, in a closing prayer, but I
believe there are those who would like to
tell God in your own heart, first of
all, and then by standing to your feet
to say what God wants for me, I
want.
When God tells me to go, I want
to go.
In all of my life I want to
honor and glorify the Lord Jesus Christ and
have him have his way in my life.
This, you say, is a cry way down
deep in my soul.
And God has spoken this morning.
If this is what God has said to
you, teenager or adult, I wish right now,
just before we go our way, you'd stand
to your feet and by so doing say,
this is what I want.
God will see your light.
He will take your light.
And you'll say, here am I, Lord.
Send me across the street or across the
world, I don't care.
But my life this morning will be laid
anew on the altar.
And if this is what God has said
right now, stand to your feet, all over
the tavern.
I go back in the choir.
Yes, God bless you.
All over the building, God speaking to hearts.
Remain standing a moment.
All over the building, God is speaking.
Now obey him.
Take the step of faith.
Say, here I'm ready, I'm willing.
Here am I, Lord.
Here am I.
Send me.
As the invitation continues this morning in the
Billy Sunday Tabernacle, under the direction of Ted
Engstrom, President of Youth for Christ International, we
take our leave of this morning Bible Hour,
this worship service on Sunday morning, held in
the beautiful Billy Sunday Tabernacle.
Thanks for being with us.
We give you a special invitation to join
us this afternoon at three o'clock for
the great Sunday Afternoon Musical.
This is Ted Seeley along with engineer Bob
Kathimer returning you to our Chicago studios.