Grace

If you have your Bibles, if you'll take those now and turn to the book of Isaiah, the sixth chapter.

Isaiah chapter 6.

Isaiah 6 · chapter mention

I'm going to be reading to you today from KJV.

If you're following me in a more modern translation, some of them have unfortunately left out an important word out of the first sentence.

And it is that very word upon which I want to hang this message.

So I want to just point that word out to you.

It's a small word, but that word is also, and it's missing in some of the modern translations, and it's important to the text.

In the year that King Uzziah, now you must keep separate in your mind, Uzziah or Uzziah, the king who has just died, and the prophet Isaiah, who is just starting his career.

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also, there's the word, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.

Above it stood the seraphim, each one had six wings, and with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly, and one cried unto another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

The whole earth is full of his glory.

And the posts of the door cried at the voice of him, that is angels, not God.

And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him who cried, and the house was filled with smoke.

Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, I pray that in the next few moments that your spirit will brush aside every obstruction or hindrance to communication, rush in over the threshold of our souls, and enter in by your might into the inner person of every listener, that when we leave here today, we will say one to another, Surely the Lord hath spoken unto us.

In Jesus' name, amen.

It is interesting to note that when Isaiah records his call report, that is that moment where God summons him into the office of a prophet, that he dates it from a political event in the year that King Uzziah died.

Throughout history, there are those signal moments, those intersections of human history that are so huge that they rise up and name the year in which they happened.

Let me give you a few of those.

They may not just trip off your tongue lightly, but here is one, March the 15th, 44 B.C.

You may not recognize the date straight away, but you will if I say it this way, the Ides of March.

The 15th of March is the Ides of March.

And of course, 44 B.C., that's the day on which Julius Caesar was assassinated, murdered by Roman senators in the antechamber of the Roman Senate.

And it launched basically what was a world war.

It was fought on Africa, Europe, and Asia, and brought the end of the Roman Republic and launched Imperial Rome.

It was such a huge moment that it was identified for generations as the year that Caesar died.

Come a wee bit closer, at least into the AD years.

December 25th, apart from being Christmas Day, 800 AD.

It was the day on which the Pope set the crown on Charlemagne's head and proclaimed him Holy Roman Emperor.

It redefined the geopolitical realities of Europe in a way that still touch us today.

Some mystic scholars theorized and wrote that it was the beginning of the end, because Charlemagne was the Antichrist and the Pope was the false prophet, and that Jesus was coming soon.

And it was a it was a huge moment.

800 AD became for generations the year that Charlemagne was crowned.

Come a little bit closer.

I want to hasten to tell you I do not remember this date, but there are people in this room who remember December the 7th, 1941.

My parents can tell you exactly where they were sitting in a restaurant in San Antonio, exactly what they were eating, exactly what they were doing.

When there was noise in the street, confusion, a waiter rushed by them in tears.

My dad reached out and grabbed his arm and said, What in the world has happened?

And he said, Mr.

the Japanese have just bombed Pearl Harbor.

Now Pearl Harbor is a place that we know, but at that time it was just a dot in the Pacific.

And Dad said he'll always remember my mother saying, What in the world is a Pearl Harbor?

Now we know.

It was, as President Roosevelt in his inimitable eloquence said, a day that shall live in infamy.

Now we hardly celebrate, we hardly even commemorate Pearl Harbor Day.

But for a generation, it was a date that defined that year.

1941 was the year that we were launched into the Second World War.

Here's a date that everybody in this city knows.

November the 22nd, 1963.

I know exactly where I was.

I was sitting in Mrs.

Kovac Civics class in Damascus, Maryland High School.

The loudspeaker crackled.

Our principal's somber voice came over the PA system.

Said, Let me have your attention.

I have the very sad responsibility to inform you that President Kennedy has just been shot dead in Dallas, Texas.

Some of us will remember exactly where we were when we heard that Dr.

King had been murdered on a hotel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee, the year that King died, the year that Kennedy died, the year that Charlemagne was crowned, the year that Caesar was murdered.

These are years that were named by events.

Here's one, April the 20th, 1999, when the word Columbine that I had never heard until that moment entered into the American vocabulary.

And we learned that places that we thought were sanctuaries of safety, public high schools could become killing fields in a moment.

Or here's one, except the smallest child in this room, you know right where you were on September the 11th, 2001.

When 9-11 actually became a phrase that people would use.

It was a moment, an intersection of history where we realized our culture, our country, our civilization, our values had a target on it, and that there were people in the world who hated us and all that we stood for, and would do anything that it took to destroy us.

9-11 became a year that was an event that named a year.

We have those things in our own lives.

I see a lot of young people here, and some of you haven't lived long enough to have very many of those, and the ones that you think you have now that commemorate years, they will fade.

They won't seem important to you at all.

You know, right now you're thinking, the year I failed to make cheerleading.

Trust me, it will fade.

But there are those things.

All of us have had them, we'll have them.

Great moments, not so great moments.

The year we got married, the year the first baby was born, the year we launched our business, the year it failed, the year of the IPO, the year the business collapsed, the year we found out grandpa had Alzheimer's, the year he died.

Those years kind of rise up out of our lives and demand to name us and to name our own personal history.

Isaiah was going through a year just like that.

The young king Uzzah had come to the throne with a fanfare.

Israel had experienced a tremendous resurgence.

Geopolitically, uh economically, militarily, Israel began to win battles that it had been losing.

There was a great hope about the country.

Financially, there was a resurgence, there was a building boom.

It just looked like the country was going great.

And then you'll remember at the peak of his career, Uzziah, in the arrogancy of his heart, he decided that being a king wasn't enough.

He wanted to be a priest.

He tried to insinuate himself into the priesthood and offer sacrifice in the temple.

And the legitimate priests resisted him, and in his anger, God struck him with leprosy.

It was a horrible, horrible scandal.

We think of leprosy now as a viral disease, but at that time, remember, it was considered an outward and physical symbol of an inward dis-ease, a spiritual curse upon the life.

And it was a horrible scandal to the country.

I tried to think of something that would correlate in modern American culture.

Certainly, we've had our scandals in the White House, but nothing that would compare to this.

What if the president of the United States went on television and announced that he was dying with AIDS?

Not from a medical mishap or a blood transfusion, but from a perverse lifestyle.

Imagine the horror and the embarrassment and the shame that would grip the country.

That's what happened when Uzziah had leprosy.

Foreign dignitaries, emissaries would come from overseas and say, We want to see the king.

And then people would say, Well, you can't see the king.

He's he's got leprosy.

It was a shame across the face of the country.

Now he has died.

Isaiah is walking up and down in the temple at night, and inside is a riot of conflicting emotions.

On the one hand, he's hopeful of the future.

Maybe things are gonna get better now.

On the other hand, he thinks if the last king died of leprosy, what might the next king die of?

How bad can things get?

Hope is always mixed with apprehension in a situation like that.

On the one hand, he grieves for Uzziah.

He's sorry that he's gone.

He hates to see him gone.

On the other hand, he's almost relieved it's over.

All of us pastors, preachers, and teachers, when we do funerals, we have to deal with that all the time.

Grandpa's been dying with Alzheimer's for five years, and it's drained the family, resources, energy, time, money, everything.

And when he dies, then there's always almost a sense of relief.

And then you feel guilty because you am I glad my grandfather's dead?

And we have to deal with that at funerals because people are dealing with all those conflicting emotions.

That's what Isaiah is feeling.

I'm sorry the king is dead.

I'm almost glad the king is dead.

I'm hopeful of the future, or I'm fearful of the future.

All that is going on inside of him.

And he's walking up and down in the temple, struggling with all of these emotions, at an intersection of history that's going to have the possibility of redefining his country and his culture.

And all of a sudden, God pulls back the curtain and reveals the other side of the bifold universe, and there, suspended in the air above his head, perhaps the greatest revelation of God that anybody's ever had is God the Father Almighty seated upon the throne.

And the whole temple fills with his resplendent glory until it is of the train of his garment, the him, the robe fills, and there are these massive angels.

The only place in scripture where seraphim are mentioned is right here.

Six winged creatures hurling themselves across the wide expanse of the temple and calling out to each other, holy, holy, holy, holy, until the temple fills with smoke and the Shekinah glory and shakes on its foundation, one of the largest buildings in the world at that time, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, shakes on its foundation.

It is no mere accident that at this precise moment in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord.

It is no mere accident that he appears sitting upon a throne.

Do you see what God is saying?

Look, you're concerned because the throne in Israel is empty, but the throne in heaven is occupied.

You think the king is dead.

The king hadn't gone anywhere.

The king is alive.

You see, the word also is critically important.

Denial is not faith.

Denial is not faith.

He says, I see the king is dead.

I see that.

We see what the country in which we live, we see the times in which we live.

I have to tell you, I can I be this transparent?

That sometimes I just get to the place where I don't want to read another newspaper.

Am I the only one?

Sometimes Allison will say, Would you like to turn on the news?

I'll say, No.

How about Sesame Street?

It's more informative and a lot more entertaining.

We see it.

We don't live in a cave.

Evidently Osama bin Laden does, but we don't live in a cave.

We read the newspaper, we see what's happening financially, economically, politically, we're struggling with all these things.

What does it mean?

All this riot of emotions is going on inside of us.

And we're feeling all this.

What is the source of our peace in this?

It's also, people say to us, how can you be calm?

How do you have peace?

How can you have faith in these times?

Can't you see what's going on?

Don't you read the newspaper?

You can answer them.

Yes.

I see it.

I read the same newspapers you do.

I watch the same news broadcast.

Yes, I see it.

But I also see the Lord, and He's high and lifted up.

His glory fills the temple.

My king hasn't died.

The throne in heaven isn't empty.

God rules.

Look, history is not happening to God.

God doesn't wake up in the morning and pick up the New York Times to find out what's going on.

Whoa, boy, I wasn't expecting that.

If he reads a newspaper at all, it's not the New York Times.

He's watching Fox.

No, I'm just kidding.

All right, all right.

No, look, history is happening in the palm of his hand.

Nothing, nothing that's going on is a surprise to God.

Remember, in the book of Revelation, when he weeps over the seven seals that can't be broken, he says, No man can be found.

It is Jesus only that breaks open those seals.

History doesn't move forward from epoch to epoch until God determines by his creed and by his decree that they do.

History moves forward at God's will.

Those seals break as God determines.

Nothing is a surprise to God.

You know, we've got to get back to the glory, to the resplendence, to the greatness of God.

You know what?

You ever hear?

Usually it's arrogant agnostics.

Did you ever hear people say, When I get to heaven, I got some things I'm gonna ask God?

You ever hear that?

I'm gonna ask him about some things.

About famine and war and all that.

I've got some questions.

Like God has to answer to us.

Do you ever hear this?

And I do have questions I'd like answered.

I have some things.

I'd like to understand why.

As men grow older, our hair falls out of our head and grows in our ears.

I'd like to understand that, you know.

But you know, you hear people say, When I get to heaven, I'm gonna ask some questions.

No, you're not.

When you're brought in before God Almighty, the emerald rainbow over his head, the throne of glory, the streets of gold, the angelic chorus, the sunless sky so brilliant that even the eyes in your glorified body can hardly take it in, and the voice of God that seems to split the heavens from pole to pole.

Any questions?

Nope, I'm good.

I'm just happy to be here.

Look, we we we need to we need to rest ourselves in the controlling magnificence and glory of a God who will never die, never change, never alter his course, never leave his throne, never fall asleep.

Our God is in control.

Our God is in control.

Dates, historical moments, even events in your own life do not have the right to name your years.

God Himself.

In fact, the classical way to talk about the numerical delineation of the passage of time is the year of our Lord.

The year of our Lord.

It's not the year that this person died, it's not the year of this financial collapse, it's not the year that Wall Street got sick, it's it's the year of our Lord.

And this year is the year of our Lord.

I I believe that sometimes Christians are addicted to fear.

I sense it.

I get I hear this almost longing for another crisis.

Sometimes I'm in an airport somewhere, usually after you're on Christian television.

That that brings them out.

And they rush up to me with this deer.

Do you get these people, Pastor?

They rush up to me with this deer in the headlights.

Look, Dr.

Rutland, Dr.

Rutland, they said, have you seen this book?

Some guy came to me the other day with a book and said, Look, this is a book about a computer that's in Brussels, Belgium.

You gotta read this book?

He said, It's got all of our data, all of our numbers, everything is in this.

And if you take the serial number that's on this computer and you assign an alphabetical number to every digit, and if you multiply by 666 and divide by your IQ, it spells the beast.

He said, Do you believe there's a computer in Brussels called the Beast?

I said, I I don't know.

How would I know that?

I don't know.

Here's the second verse to that hymn.

I don't care.

Do you honest to God believe that Antichrist is a computer geek in Belgium?

Sitting up at his keyboard, I run the world, I run the world.

Fools, I will destroy them all.

This lady came to me the other day, she had a pamphlet.

Well, where do people get this stuff?

That the federal government is building concentration camps in Montana, and they're gonna take all the Christians up there and lock us up in concentration camps.

Come on, answer the phone.

In the first place, how many of you have ever flown over Montana as I have?

There are huge portions of Montana where you couldn't hide a concentration camp.

You can't hide a cow.

There are places in Montana where you can stand and see Indiana.

In the second place, what if they're there?

What if they're there?

What if they're planning some massive trail of tears where all the Christians bundle up our belongings like the Cherokees and march to Montana?

And will we live are we gonna live in fear of the year they open the concentration camps?

God forbid.

Look, I think sometimes it's like we want Satan himself to tell us ghost stories.

Come on, scare the liver out of me.

Here's one.

Here's one.

How many of you remember 1988?

This boy wrote this book.

88 Reasons Jesus is coming in 1988.

He sold hundreds of thousands of copies.

Christians, spirit-filled, Holy Ghost, Bible-believing Christians went loony.

They went nuts.

This is what shakes you about your ministry.

People in my own church to whom I preached, you know, that just went crazy.

You think, have I been with you so long?

One lady came to me, she said, I've been reading that book.

Jesus is coming next week.

I'm keeping my kids home from school.

I said, You're keeping your kids home from school.

She said, Jesus is coming.

I don't want Jesus to come and the kids be at school.

I said, He can find them.

Jesus knows where your kids go to school.

You know that, right?

Jesus didn't come in 88, did he?

What do you think that nitwit did?

He wrote another one.

89 reasons Jesus is coming in 89.

He didn't sell quite as many, but he sold a lot.

Or here's one.

Y2K.

Christians went crazy burying gold in the backyard.

Stockpiling green beans and buying guns, and I'm gonna get my beans unless somebody prize my cold dead fingers off.

Listen, I wanna ask you something.

Were you really gonna shoot anybody for those beans?

And here's another question nobody seemed to ask themselves.

It didn't seem to occur to anybody to like share the beans.

Look, are you just waiting for the next crisis?

Are you just waiting for the next thing to make you afraid?

Are you waiting for the next person or politician or king or tyrant that some mystic labels as the Antichrist?

We have got to get our eyes lifted to a different plane.

I've got a great friend.

He was a missionary for a long time, many, many years ago in Southeast Asia.

He had harbored a fantasy in his life to see Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world.

It's just a dream of his life.

Finally, he got the opportunity to go to that region of the world, and he flew up there, and his heart was just pounding to finally see Mount Everest.

As it would have it, on that precise day, the entire subcontinental region was engulfed in a massive fog bank.

He said by the time his plane landed, he could hardly see the terminal.

He thought, this is stupid.

I'm just going to get back on the plane.

The guide that met him said, it's bigger than you think.

Let's go on.

They got on a train and went about two hours.

He said, by the time the train stopped, he couldn't see the locomotive.

He said, This is stupid.

The guide said, Please come on.

They went in a Land Rover, then they got out and walked.

And he said they're walking up this mountain trail to this specific promontory, place where they're supposed to have this perfect view of Everest.

And he said he's holding the guide's coattail and walking in this impenetrable pea soup and griping the whole way.

He said, Let's go back.

I can't even see my hand.

And the guide just kept saying the same thing, it's bigger than you think.

Finally, he engineered him out onto this promontory and he said, Now, look.

And he said he gazed through the fog.

And there, etched against the distant side, he thought he saw one mountain that looked just a little bigger than the others.

And he said, There, I think I see it.

He said that guide laughed, came around behind him and took hold of his head and said, Not down there.

He said, Look up there.

I believe that when we are struggling through life, what Satan wants to do is block out the light.

He wants to drag your eyes downward and destroy your depth perception.

I didn't grow up in a warm and loving church like this.

I grew up in a very, I'm trying to think of a nice dead.

Yeah, dead.

That's the only word I can come up with.

Dead church.

And boring, oh my goodness.

And as a child in a boring church, you learn things.

We didn't have children's church either.

You know, we just had to go and sit there.

And my mother, uh, I never understood the physics of this.

My mother was five feet tall and had a six-foot reach.

I never understood how that worked.

My mother could slap you on the end of a six-foot pew, and she had a right cross that make Joe Lewis jealous.

And uh, and so you learned to sit there and be quiet in church.

And you learn to amuse yourself.

And I learned that given certain circumstances, I could make my own thumb bigger than the chandelier that hung in the top of that church.

Now, you won't ever need this lesson in this church, but you may visit some church someday where you need to know how to entertain yourself.

And I'm gonna help you this morning.

If everybody will extend your right arm like this and raise your thumb and look at one of these huge screens.

You see, your thumb is not near the size of that screen, is it?

Now close one eye and just gradually draw that thumb in, slowly, slowly against your open eye, now right against your eye.

It's a miracle.

That's what Satan does.

He takes that moment, whether it's good or bad.

He takes a good moment and pushes it up against your face and he says, now, clutch this, hold on to this, don't lose this, and no more's coming.

He takes a bad moment and he pushes it up against your eyes until it blocks out the light and steals your joy.

And then we hear the warm and tender chuckle of our God as he comes behind us and the fingertips of the Holy Ghost against our temples.

And he says softly in our ear, not down there.

Look up there.

Now look up here for a moment.

I am neither a prophet nor the child of a prophet.

I don't know what 2009 holds.

I just know who holds 2009.

Fear nothing.

Fear nothing but God Himself.

Lift up your eyes.

Our redemption draweth nigh.

What have we to fear?

Neither Satan nor all his works, nor the unfolding of human history.

It's happening in the palm of God's hands.

Be of good cheer.

Our God is still on the throne.

God bless you, and God bless this great church.