Let's pray.
Father, we're so grateful that you have brought
us to that place of putting our trust
and hope in you.
And Lord, as we're living in a day
of uncertainty and men's hearts are failing them
for fear of the things that are coming
upon the earth, we thank you, Lord, for
the stabilizing power of the faith that we
have in Jesus Christ that keeps us, Lord,
and sustains us through the dark hours.
And we ask now, Lord, your blessing upon
the study of your word, upon your people,
Lord, as we've gathered in your name, looking
to you, Lord, for guidance and direction from
your word as we, Lord, seek to obey
your voice and to follow your will for
our lives.
Speak to our hearts.
Call us, Lord, we pray, into the work
that you would have us to perform for
your glory.
In Jesus' name, amen.
You may be seated.
Tonight, we will be continuing our journey through
the Bible in Isaiah chapters four through seven,
and we encourage you to read them over.
Read through the Bible.
Study the Bible.
Find out what God has to say about
himself and about his love for you and
about how you can know the power of
that love in your life.
This morning, we'd like to draw your attention
to the sixth chapter of Isaiah.
There in verse eight, Isaiah said, 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.
I think that often God does cry, who
can I send?
Who will go for me?
Here in chapter six, we find the call
of God and the response of Isaiah to
that call of God.
What is important is to notice not just
the call, but the things that preceded the
call of God upon his life.
God has chosen to use human instruments to
accomplish his work here on earth.
But God does not always choose those that
we might think, oh, how wonderful it would
be if they would commit themselves to serve
the Lord.
They have such great talents, such great ability,
and they could do so much for the
Lord.
But those are the persons that the Lord
often passes over, and he chooses just the
simple people to accomplish his work.
Here with Isaiah, in verse one of chapter
six, we read, in the year that King
Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting
upon a throne, high and lifted up, and
his glory filled the temple.
Uzziah was the king over Judah.
He reigned for 52 years.
He was just 16 years old when his
father Amaziah died, and he was brought to
the throne.
He had a very successful reign.
Under his leadership, the nation became powerful.
They were able to conquer their enemies.
We are told that as long as he
sought the Lord, God made his ways to
prosper.
We are told he did that which was
right in the eyes of the Lord.
He had defeated many of the major cities
of the Philistines, and he had broken down
their walls, their defenses.
He had fortified the city of Jerusalem, building
towers for defense, as well as fortifying several
of the cities of Judah.
He had a well-equipped army of over
300,000 men.
He was popular.
He was a very strong leader, and the
nation prospered under his reign.
We are told twice that his name spread
abroad throughout all of the land.
Everybody was talking about Uzziah.
Everywhere, people are saying, oh, isn't he just
a wonderful king, and oh, Uzziah is this,
and oh, Uzziah has done that, and oh,
and his name was just on the lips
of all the people.
Under him, people had a great sense of
security.
We don't have to worry.
We've got a sharp, powerful king.
He'll take care of it, and they felt
very secure under the reign of Uzziah.
They looked up to him and felt as
long as he's on the throne, we've got
nothing to worry about.
But when he died, it had a very
debilitating effect upon the minds of the people,
the sense of apprehension of the future.
What are we going to do?
Uzziah is dead.
The throne is empty.
What's going to happen to us now?
How often, when there is a strong leader,
do people begin to put their confidence and
trust in that leader?
Uzziah was such a man.
He was strong.
He was wise.
He was powerful.
But that can be a stumbling block because
people get their eyes upon the leader rather
than upon the Lord.
And when that leader is taken from them,
then there is that apprehension and that fear
that arises in their hearts.
God wants us to look always to him
for our security and for our strength and
comfort.
And oftentimes, God will remove the idols so
that we can see that God still reigns.
Such was the case.
Isaiah had idolized Uzziah.
He was looking as did the other people
unto Uzziah and feeling that strength and that
comfort and security knowing that Uzziah was on
the throne.
Now that the throne is empty, there is
that emptiness.
What are we going to do?
And it causes us really to begin to
seek the Lord.
And so Isaiah said, in the year that
King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high
and lifted up and sitting upon the throne
and his glory filled the temple.
God had to vacate Uzziah from the throne
in order that Isaiah might discover that the
throne is not empty.
God still reigns.
And how important it is for us to
know and to understand that God reigns.
Not man, but God who reigns.
And to put our confidence and our trust
in the fact that God does reign.
He will often use human instruments in the
accomplishing of his work.
But behind that instrument is God who does
reign.
He wants you to know that.
The human instrument can fail.
And surely, in his later years, Uzziah had
a great failure.
Uzziah had entered into the temple to offer
incense.
That was not the job of the king.
That was the appointed job of the priest.
And when Azariah, the priest, came in and
saw him, he rebuked him and said, you
don't belong in here.
That isn't your task, offering incense.
And Uzziah became upset and began to rebuke
the priest.
But his body was covered with leprosy and
he remained a leper the rest of his
life.
He died as a leper and thus great
failure in the end of his life.
And so often we get our eyes upon
man, an instrument God has used mightily, but
then that man fails and we become all
just upset and just don't know what to
do.
The one that we've been trusting in has
let us down and he has failed.
But God reigns.
We need to know that.
It is God's work and God does reign.
Years ago, I was pastoring in Huntington Beach.
There was a little old lady in the
church in her 90s who had a tremendous
gift of exhortation.
And whenever I would get discouraged, I would
go over and visit her because she was
always such an encouragement to me.
And her encouragement was always the same.
When I would go and I would just
pour out my problems and the things that
were going on and all, she would say,
well, Charles, God still reigns.
He's on the throne and God will take
care of it.
And I would go with a renewed vision
that it's God's problem.
God reigns.
He's going to take care of it.
Human instruments will come and go.
Human instruments will pass from the scene, but
it's important that we realize God rules and
God reigns.
In seeing the Lord getting the idol out
of the way, Uzziah is now dead.
He now sees the Lord high and lifted
up sitting on the throne, the glory of
God filling the temple.
And in seeing the glory of the Lord,
the seraphim around the throne of God, as
they are worshiping, saying, holy, holy, holy, Lord
God almighty, the earth is filled with the
glory of the Lord.
He suddenly sees himself in a new light.
He sees himself in the light of God's
glory.
And it is a total shock unto him.
We often are comparing ourselves with others.
And that's a great mistake.
If I compare myself with you, I think,
well, I'm not too bad.
If I compare myself to some of you,
I say, hey, I'm pretty good.
But that's a mistake.
You are not the standard, nor am I
the standard for righteousness that God will accept.
And so often we feel as we look
around, well, I'm pretty good.
I haven't done too bad.
And you know, I'm surely better than that
fellow over there.
And we have that tendency of comparing ourselves
with others.
Paul wrote about that.
He said, we do not dare make ourselves
like those who compare themselves with others that
are like themselves.
For they measuring themselves by themselves and comparing
themselves among themselves are not wise.
In the days of Jesus, the scribes and
the Pharisees were looked upon by the people
as the most righteous men on the face
of the earth.
These men spent their entire life trying to
do the righteous things, seeking to keep the
law to perfection.
They devoted themselves to that.
And one day Jesus said to those that
were there, unless you are more righteous than
the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never
enter the kingdom of heaven.
I'm certain that that came as a tremendous
shock to those people.
I'm sure that Peter thought, oh no, I'll
never make it.
How can I be more righteous than those
men who spend their lives in seeking to
do the right thing according to the law?
But it is true.
Your righteousness, no matter how good you are,
your righteousness will never gain you an entry
in to the kingdom of heaven.
I'm not the standard.
Jesus is the standard for righteousness.
And unless your righteousness meets that standard, you'll
never make it into heaven.
You say, well, then I can never make
it.
Well, no.
The gospel tells us that by your faith
in Jesus Christ, God will account to your
account the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
For God made him to be sin for
us, who knew no sin, that we might
be made the righteousness of Christ through him,
through faith in him.
So that righteousness of Jesus is imputed to
me, is accounted to my account because of
my faith.
And that's the glorious gospel.
My righteousness, no.
I could never make it into heaven with
my righteous deeds.
But it is the righteousness of Christ.
You remember in John 16, Jesus said that
when the Holy Spirit came, he would testify
to the world of righteousness.
He said of righteousness, because I ascend unto
my father.
Now, what does the ascension of Jesus unto
the father have to do with righteousness?
Just this.
The ascension of Jesus into heaven was God's
declaration to the world that this is the
righteous standard that will be accepted into the
heavenly realm.
Anything less will never make it.
So unless you, in comparing yourself to Jesus
Christ and say, well, I'm as righteous as
he ever was, you can never make it.
Now, we need to see ourselves not in
the standard of those around us, but we
need to see ourselves in the standard of
God's holiness and God's righteousness.
And when we do, then we will begin
to realize the truth about ourselves.
As Isaiah saw the glory of the Lord,
he said, woe is me, for I am
undone.
I am a man of unclean lips, and
I dwell among a people of unclean lips.
Seeing God's holiness and seeing yourself in the
light of God's holiness, it just is a
very humbling experience because suddenly you realize how
unrighteous, how vile you actually are.
Daniel was a man of God, probably as
close to perfection as a man can get.
And yet, when Daniel had the vision of
the Lord, he said, there remained no strength
in me, for my comeliness was turned into
corruption.
That which was valuable or worthy or worthwhile
in me, I saw it as just corrupt
in the light of the vision of God.
When St. Peter saw the miracle of Jesus,
he fell on his knees before the Lord
and said, depart from me, O Lord, I'm
a sinful man.
We need to realize that there is nothing
in us that is acceptable or could be
acceptable by God.
It is only through the work of God's
grace transforming me and imputing the righteousness of
Christ to me that makes me at all
qualified to serve the Lord.
Isaiah, when he saw himself and the truth
about himself, I'm a man of unclean lips.
He saw one of the seraphim, an angelic
being, take a coal from off of the
altar, a live coal.
And he flew down to Isaiah, and he
touched his lips with that live coal.
And the seraphim said unto him, your sin
is taken away, your lips are purged.
It was at this point that Isaiah heard
the Lord saying, whom shall I send?
And who will go for us?
And Isaiah responded, here am I, Lord, send
me.
Here is where he heard the call of
God into the ministry.
Of course, we'll read the prophecies of Isaiah
and we'll read how God used him in
very special ways.
But this is the call into the ministry.
We notice the preparation for the call, the
stripping.
God had to strip away his idol, King
Uzziah.
His trusting in the king kept him from
seeing his need of the Lord.
He felt secure as long as Uzziah was
on the throne.
God had to remove his security.
We often find security in things.
We find security in a good job, a
solid career, a healthy bank account.
And sometimes God removes those things in which
we are looking for security so that we
will realize that nothing of this world is
truly secure.
There is only one thing that will guarantee
security for you, and that's a trust in
the Lord, putting your trust and confidence in
him.
God had to strip him of his own
self-righteousness.
And this was accomplished by his vision of
God and the holiness of God.
As the Seraphim were declaring, holy, holy, holy
is the Lord of hosts.
The whole earth is filled with his glory.
He needed to see himself in the light
of God's holiness.
If you can ever figure out why God
should use you to do his work, then
you'll probably never be used by God.
He uses those who recognize and realize their
own inadequacies, those who are always surprised at
the fact that God would use them.
Here he is saying, oh, I am a
man of unclean lips.
I dwell amongst a people of unclean lips.
He was recognizing his own unworthiness, but then
came the cleansing, and then came the call,
and then came the response to the call.
It's interesting that those men in the scriptures
who were mightily used by God were men
who felt that they were not qualified for
the task to which God was calling them.
When God called Moses to lead the children
of Israel out of the bondage of Egypt,
Moses kept offering one excuse after another to
the Lord of why God couldn't use him.
When God called Jeremiah to the ministry of
a prophet to Israel, Jeremiah began to offer
his excuses as to why God couldn't use
him.
Paul the apostle, talking about the people that
God has called and God has used, said,
brothers, think of what you were when God
called you.
Not many of you were wise or mighty
or noble, for God has chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise.
God has chosen the weak things of the
world to confound the things which are mighty,
and the base things of the world and
the things which are despised has God chosen,
and the things which are not to bring
to naught things that are that no flesh
should glory in his presence.
Things that often we think disqualify us from
being used by God are actually the things
that do qualify us.
When we realize, well, I'm not very smart.
I really don't have a great education.
I'm afraid to stand in front of people
that God can wipe out those excuses in
a hurry.
In fact, you're sort of qualifying yourself.
God is saying, that's exactly why I'm calling
you, because you're not very smart and because
you're not very well-educated and you aren't
very talented.
You're pretty dull and run-of-the-mill,
but that's why I want you, because you
have enough sense to know that when I
work, it isn't you that's doing it, but
it is my work and I will receive
the glory for the work that I want
to do.
You see, God is desiring and is always
desiring to do a special work, but he
uses human instruments to accomplish his work.
But when he uses that human instrument, the
last thing that God wants is for that
human instrument to be lifted up and to
begin to take glory for the work that
God has done through their lives.
To God be the glory for the great
things he has done.
And so that's why God uses the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise.
Rarely will you see a PhD being used
mightily by God.
They have too much confidence in themselves and
in their own education.
And they would soon be writing books about
the keys to success and so forth and
what I discovered and what I have found
and what I have learned and so forth
and beginning to take the glory for the
work that God does.
So God sort of bypasses them and he
speaks to plain, ordinary, common individuals and he'll
say, who shall I send?
Who will go for me?
And here is Isaiah stripped now of the
sense of greatness or whatever, conscious of his
own sin.
Woe is me.
I'm undone.
I'm a man of unclean lips.
But now that work of God's spirit in
the cleansing and when he hears the call,
he says, well, Lord, here am I.
Send me.
And the Lord then began to tell him
of the ministry.
He was going to have a difficult ministry,
not really successful ministry.
He was going to just be an instrument
of God to harden the hearts of the
people so that no one would question the
judgment of God when he brought their enemies
to destroy them.
Today, there is a great need for servants,
for the king.
There's a great work that needs to be
done in these last days.
And even as God in the time of
Isaiah said, who shall I send?
Who will go for me?
God is looking for people that will say,
Lord, here am I.
Send me.
Recognizing your own inadequacies.
Just offering to God what you are.
That God might do his work in you
and then do his work through you.
It is well been said that God is
not looking for ability.
He's looking for availability.
Those who will say, here am I.
Send me.
Father, we thank you for the privilege of
serving you.
Lord, we thank you for the work that
you have desired to do and do desire
to do.
We thank you, Lord, for the call.
Who will go?
Who will I send?
Lord, we again respond.
Here am I, Lord.
Send me.
Use me, Lord, if you see fit.
I'm available, Lord.
I will serve you because I love you.
And Lord, we ask that you would use
us in the accomplishing of your work here
on earth.
In Jesus name.
Amen.
Shall we stand?
Many years ago, I heard the voice of
the Lord saying, who will go for us?
Who shall I send?
And I respond, well, here am I, Lord.
Send me.
It's been a thrill to see what God
had in mind.
The work that he wanted to do.
Surely I wasn't qualified for it, nor am
I qualified for it.
But here I am now over the hill,
not nearly as strong and all as I
once was, but yet it's still the same.
When God says, who shall we send?
Who will go for me?
My response today is the same as ever,
Lord.
I don't have what I once had.
I'm not the man I used to be.
But if you can use an over the
hill, decrepit old man, here am I, Lord.
Send me.
And God can use every one of us
in the accomplishing of his work.
As I said, he's just looking for availability.
And I would encourage you to avail yourself
to him.
It may be that God is speaking specifically
to some of you today.
The message hit home.
Maybe you've been stripped of the things that
you were trusting in, the securities that you
had, and you're sort of in a desperate
situation.
The rug has been pulled out from under
you and you're wondering, oh, Lord.
And the Lord has taken away those things
that you might see him and find him.
And in seeing him, realizing your own unworthiness,
and yet recognizing the cleansing power of God
in your life.
And you're hearing God saying, who will we
send?
Who will go for us?
And maybe God is waiting for you to
respond today.
Lord, I'll go.
Here am I, Lord.
Send me.
If God's been working in your heart, I
would encourage you as soon as we're dismissed.
Come on down.
These men here are here to pray for
you.
They each one have heard the voice of
the Lord saying, who shall we send?
Who will go for us?
And they've each responded.
And God is using them.
And God wants to use you.
If you will just make yourself available.
I can remember the night that God was
speaking to my own heart.
I was standing at a summer camp with
other high school kids.
And I was singing, I'll go where you
want me to go, dear Lord, or mountain
or plain or sea.
I'll say what you want me to say,
dear Lord.
I'll be what you want me to be.
And I meant it from my heart.
God's looking for men and women who will
go, who will say, Lord, here am I.
Send me.