God of hosts, on high adored, we adore you too,
and we lift up our praise in these songs,
grateful that you do lead us as we have sung,
wanting to be faithful followers, wanting
to be like you, praying and begging for your
fullness and your sweetness to dwell richly
in us by your Spirit and by your Son. Father,
we praise you for the Son of your love. We
shout hallelujahs by our lives and by our lips.
We want to lift up and exalt your name
this evening, Father. You are majestic, you are
powerful, you are holy, beyond our comprehension,
and you are loving, and your love touches our
hearts this night. We thank you. We thank
you for the love that put your Son on that
cross to save us. And Father, we pray that
you would deliver us from any sense of
self-righteousness, from any sense of thinking
that we are a prize
before you, knowing instead that we are
beggars, we are sinners, we are given your gift of
grace, though undeserving, and we respond with
gratitude and praise. Father, we thank
you for this gathering of thousands of
Christians, and we thank you for every class
and every
teacher, for every lecturer, and we pray this
evening that you will bless Jimmy, that you
bless his words to touch hearts, to move us and
motivate us to serve you better, and to
express our gratitude and to understand your
holiness in a greater measure because of having
been here. Each of us is aware in our own
congregations, in our own homes and families
of special needs. And just now, Father, we pray
quietly. We pause to name these situations
and these individuals. We lift them to you just now.
And now, Father, will you please make our
hearts sensitive, our minds alert. May we
hear clearly you speaking through Jimmy. And
will you touch us, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.
I'd like to ask you to mark your books at
number 69. We'll sing that immediately following
the message tonight. I arrived late last night
and came over to attend chapel this morning
and saw the banner behind me and was reminded
of the impact this lectureship has had upon
God's people for 76 years. It is a wonderful
thing that Christians can come together as
you do, so many of you each year, to share in a
focus on God's Word and a focus on things
that we as God's people need. I can't begin
tonight without also expressing appreciation
to this school for some personal things in my
own life. In 1989, I began the Doctorate
of Ministry program here, which I have not yet
finished. It came at a very critical time
in my life, I think, helping me to deal with a
number of personal issues, preparing me
to continue in a ministry that I had already
begun some 11 years earlier. Those who worked
with me and helped me and taught those classes
genuinely ministered to me and helped equip
me in ways that are still benefiting me
tremendously, and I want to thank them very
much. That's
the first thought that comes to my mind when I
think of this school. Maybe for those two
reasons I have had feelings about speaking
tonight that I can seldom remember having
in a long time, a kind of paranoia about
tonight. As I was preparing my sermon notes, deciding
what to include, what to leave out, from my
text in Isaiah 6:1-8, all kinds
of questions went through my mind. One of them
was, what if Lanny Hinegar preaches my
sermon on Sunday night? Since I wasn't here
last night, I rushed down to get a paper to
get a summary of his message. It says, Hinegar,
a 1956 ACU graduate who has preached for the
Austin congregation for nearly 23 years, spoke
on Worthy is the Lord, taking his text from
Isaiah 6:1-8. And then, Lo and behold, not only
did he take my text, but on the front
page it says, a near capacity crowd in
refurbished Moody Coliseum listened intently as Hinegar
delivered his lecture without notes. I knew my
paranoia had gotten away from me when I
walked in tonight and picked up the late news
bulletin. It says, late news bulletin Tuesday.
I thought, oh no, I've missed it. I do usually
preach with notes. I have trouble remembering
things. I thought today, if the time ever comes
that I develop Alzheimer's, my wife
will never know it. I did hear a story about a
fellow one time who had trouble remembering
things. And so he carried a little book around
in his pocket and he would write down people
he had met and places he had been and things he
had done because he knew if anyone asked
him, he wouldn't be able to remember. And so
one day he met a man who asked him, have
you ever been to Dayton, Ohio? He couldn't
remember, so he pulled out his little book
and said let's see, places I've been. Denver,
Dallas, Dayton, Ohio,
yes Sir, I've been to Dayton, Ohio. He said,
well did you ever meet a lady in Dayton,
Ohio named Mary Weatherby? He said, well let me
think. He couldn't remember, pulled his
book back out, let's see, ladies I've known,
Walton, Williams, Weatherby,
Mary Weatherby, Dayton, Ohio. Yes sir, I met a
lady in Dayton, Ohio named Mary Weatherby.
He said, well did you ever kiss a lady in
Dayton, Ohio named Mary Weatherby? Couldn't
remember pulled his book back out said let's
see ladies I've kissed ladies
I've kissed yes sir I kissed a lady in Dayton
Ohio named Mary Weatherby the
other fellow said well I'm her husband and I
don't like it he pulled his little
book out said let's see likes and dislikes he
said nope
I didn't like it either there may be things
this week you'll like and things
you won't like but I'm confident that you're
going to find a lot more things
that you do like and that this week will be a
blessing to your life what do you
think of when you think of God recently in a
Bible class someone asked me the
question what do you envision in your mind when
you pray to God my answer
wasn't nearly as interesting as others because
something within me avoids doing
that I don't really know why but what do you
think of when you think of God for
some people God is a kind of faceless force
some of you remember the old Star
Wars movies may the force be with you an
impersonal source of power that exists
in the world but very far removed from our
lives some people think of God as a
kind of Mr. fix it when something goes wrong
much as we do when the washer
breaks down at home we pick up the phone we
call for the repairman we want him to
come as quickly as possible we want him to
repair what's wrong we pay him we
send him on his way we don't want to see him
again until something else breaks
down that's how a lot of people respond to God
they want him to rush in put life
back together when it falls apart and then get
on his way we're back in charge
now for some people God is a kind of resident
policeman who walks the beat
with his billy club in his hand ready to let
anybody have it who steps out of
line for some God has a kind of grandfather
image so in love with his
grandchildren that he sits on the porch and
nods approval to whatever it is they
want to do because surely God's grandchildren
could do nothing wrong for
some God is a kind of fictional character much
like Mother Goose or
Santa Claus but there's a lot of good morals
attached to those stories about
God and so to help our own lives we try to live
out some of them but God seems
distant removed perhaps even non-existent and
for some people God is a
kind of cosmic spoilsport the one who sits in
the sky and blocks our path
whenever we pursue something to bring us
pleasure only to end the world after
toying with us throughout our lives by just
destroying us I'm sure there are
many other visions of God that people
throughout our world have the problem
with most of the people in our world is not so
much that they've rejected God it
is that they have not seen God they do not know
God as he really is only as
they have perceived him only as they have
somehow taken him and boiled him
down to their size adapted him to their own
image used him to accomplish their
own purposes as meager as they may be but to
catch a view of a holy God most
of the world out there to whom God is sending
us does not know who God is and
sadly enough sometimes even those of us who are
Christians lose our vision of a
holy God and we take our image of God and mold
it around our own visions and
our own dreams and our own aspirations and our
own traditions and our own
agendas and we use God to further the cause
that's foremost in our mind
without ever really asking the question what is
it that God wants us to do and
be and so it's very easy sometimes to have a
form of godliness while denying
the power of it our profaning of God may leave
us powerless like cut flowers that
have no roots without God we find ourselves
sometimes yet in darkness and
cannot be his light to the nations Isaiah I'm
convinced was a very religious
man before Isaiah 6 but I believe he saw God
and Isaiah 6 in a way that he had
not seen him before and tonight through the
eyes of Isaiah I'd like to ask us
to take a fresh look at a holy God in the year
that King Isaiah died I saw the
Lord seated on a throne high and exalted and
the train of his robe filled the
temple above him were seraphs each with six
wings with two wings they covered
their faces with two they covered their feet
and with two they were flying and
they were calling to one another holy Holy Holy
is the Lord Almighty the whole
earth is full of his glory at the sound of
their voices the doorposts and
thresholds shook and the temple was filled with
smoke Isaiah saw the Lord
seated on a throne high and lifted up the scene
of this vision is evidently at
the temple eight times in the Old Testament God
is said to be enthroned
upon the cherubim cherubs are not exactly what
we might envision them to
be from Renaissance art they're not little
chubby babies with wings in
ancient times they were figures more like a
figure with the body of a man or
the head of the man and the body of a lion and
the outstretched wings of
eagles first King Six tells us that in the
holiest of holies there were two
cherubs and that in a room that was 30 feet
wide and 30 feet deep and 30 feet
high these two cherubs had a combined wingspan
of 30 feet 15 feet each so
that the outstretched wing of one cherub would
touch a wall and spread halfway
across the room the outstretched wing of the
other would touch the other wall and
then span halfway across the room to touch the
wingtip of the other and they
were also 15 feet high so when he had this
vision of God he saw God seated on
a throne likely enthroned upon the cherubim
seated upon the throne high and
lifted up I don't know how 15 feet sounds to
you it may not sound very high
the tallest person I've ever met is a man named
Alan Bannister who played
basketball at Arkansas State University in
Jonesboro he was seven feet five
inches tall and when you would stand in front
of Alan Bannister you'd you'd kind
of lean back and look up he would tower over
you I've always loved to play
basketball but I never could jump very well so
the thought of being able to
dunk a basketball was something beyond my
imagination 10 feet towers above me
but we're talking about cherubs that are some
15 feet high towering above Isaiah
as he saw his vision of God seated and thrown
upon the cherubim and these
awesome creatures and then the text says his
train filled the temple I don't know
a whole lot about that but I heard Jim Roberts
say several years ago that the
train of a garment in ancient times was not
like the long train of a wedding
gown which we envision today as the bride comes
down the center aisle and
usually the longer the train the greater the
wedding but in ancient times I'm
told the train had more to do with just the
garment that fell around the feet
and the ankles and if that's true when it says
that his train filled the temple
it would be more like the outskirts of his
garment filling the
entirety of the room where Isaiah saw this
vision of God or as Jim Roberts
said on that same occasion if you could imagine
a large foot coming down in this
Coliseum tonight so large that the pant cuff
filled the entirety of the room
you'd have something of the overwhelming sense
that Isaiah must have felt Isaiah
saw the Lord seated on a throne high and lifted
up the train of the robe filled
the temple above him were seraphs each with six
wings these seraphs which
represented angelic beings were sometimes
depicted in ancient times as
being snake-like creatures with the head of a
cobra sometimes extending out over
a royal throne to give protection to the king
God of course did not need
protection upon his throne but the seraphs as
they flew cried out to one
another holy Holy Holy is the Lord Almighty the
whole earth is full of his
glory there's something about that phrase the
whole earth is full of his
glory it's almost as if suddenly the imagery
has changed when the imagery was
in the temple the glory of God was so grand and
so wonderful that it
overflowed the temple imagery the temple could
not contain the glory and
wonder in Majesty of God but if you move the
the imagery from the temple to the
earth neither can it contain the wonder and
grandeur of God the whole earth is full of his
glory and if we were to extend
it even as the Bible does on other occasions we
see the imagery of the
heavens or God's throne and the earth is his
footstool but even when the whole
universe is used as the imagery against which
God's Majesty is displayed even
the universe itself cannot contain God's glory
years ago Gordon McDonald went to
a Boston Red Sox game one night at Fenway Park
when he came home from the
ballgame he sat down and penned these words I
came to cheer one night at a
baseball park the banks of arc lights turning
the darkness into artificial day
in that stadium field a standing room only I
watched the greatest names in
baseball pitch and hit and catch a small round
ball and a crowd of thousands and
thousands rising in enthusiasm absorbed in
expectancy burst with frenzied
feeling at the slightest motion of any famed
athlete so tense was the drama
that it seemed for a moment as if there were no
further perimeter to any real
world except the top row of bleachers where the
cold beer flowed like a small
river and smoke rose like incense in a Pagan
temple to hear the prejudice of
the crowd it seemed as if the greatest human
beings in history stood in the
batter's box or on the pitcher's mound to sense
the tenseness of the tight score
in the ninth inning it seemed as if no other
event in the years of humankind
came near to the significance of this exchange
between a man on a mound and
another with a bat but as I sat faintly
attempting to abandon myself to this
twisted view of reality I caught from the
corner of my eye just beyond the
glare of the left field lights a tiny twinkling
star its small sparkle its
remote position made it seem as if it had
nothing to do or to say about the
pandemonium within that athletic temple but I
strained to listen with the eyes
of my spirit and suddenly heard what apparently
no one else could hear the
stars still small voice whisper had been there
in the sky longer than the oldest
stadium it had burned light years before the
game of baseball had been perceived
and it would burn long after mighty Casey would
strike out even a retire with
pension to oblivion and it would point to the
God whose moves in time and space
are far greater than the foolish efforts of the
fearsome slugger about whom
thousands scream tonight why do men choose to
see and hear the trivial
efforts of something just a game yet miss the
chance to stand in awe of the
star twinkling just beyond the arc lights its
magnitude is ten times
greater than our Sun why do we reverse the
scale of events making the shorter
the longer the greater the smaller the
insignificant the more prominent it is a
mystery but until it is solved the tiny quiet
star will go on sparkling just
beyond the arc lights telling anyone who will
stop to listen that God is there
and the times of history are in his hands the
universe cannot contain God's
glory do you know that if the sky was clear
tonight and you were to step out
and see the star alpha the star closest to us
other than the Sun itself that the
light that would reach your eye tonight would
have left that star some four
years and three months ago traveling at 186,000
miles per second and would just
now have arrived if you were to figure the same
thing with the North Star the
light that would come to your eye tonight would
have left that star some
four hundred and seventy nine years ago
traveling at a hundred and eighty six
thousand miles per second that's just the North
Star there are
millions and billions of stars beyond that and
that's just in our galaxy and
who knows how many galaxies they are beyond our
own the Heavens are God's
throne and the earth is his footstool it's no
wonder that the seraphs cried to
one another holy Holy Holy is the Lord of Hosts
the whole earth is full of his
glory but they also cried holy Holy Holy what
does the idea of holiness mean to
you most often I think we think of purity God's
majestic moral character
and it includes that but it's really a much
broader concept to speak of that
which is holiest to speak of that which is
apart from us beyond us above us we
use the word transcendent God transcends us so
far that he's past finding out we
can never comprehend never understand his ways
are far above our ways his
thoughts are high above our thoughts holy has
to do with everything about God
that makes God God in contradistinction to us
we are but the creature he is the
creator and every characteristic of his nature
that makes him the creator is a
part of his holiness it is the mystery it is
the unknown it is what we cannot
fathom it is what we shall never understand
it's everything God is that
we're not and there's something about the holy
that draws mixed reactions from
within us someone has said that two of the
mixed reactions holiness brings is
that mixture of trembling on the one hand and
yet fascination on the other
it's somewhat like emotions you and I have had
I remember one night I was in a
meeting somewhere and I came back to the motel
room after preaching that night
and I turned on the television and there was a
scary movie on the television now
I'm not into scary movies but I sat and watched
that thing a while I'd always
thought scary movies would never make me be
afraid because you know it's just a
movie this is not reality and it wasn't as I
watched that I was really fearful
of anything except that thing was playing with
my nerves it'd take me to
the pinnacle of wondering what was gonna happen
and then it would shock me to
death now remember that night I sat and watched
and the suspense started to
build and I thought this is ridiculous and I
walked over and turned off the
television came back and sat down on the bed
and thought I wonder what happened
next and I went over and turned it back on and
then the suspense would build and
I turned it off again and then I got up and
turned it back on I don't know how
many times I did that that night fearful on the
one hand and yet fascinated on
the other RC Sproul tells about his wife
enjoying scary movies he said every
once in a while she'll say take me to a movie
tonight and so they'd go and he'd
say the movie would begin and as it would get
started a little bit I'd feel
her hand on my arm and then I'd feel the grip
began to tighten and the
circulation began to leave my hand and then he
said right in the middle of the
movie the suspense would build so much that
she'd jump up out of her seat run
back down the aisle stand out in the lobby with
her back to the wall because
she didn't want anybody to walk up behind her
she'd finally regain her
courage walk back into the movie sit down watch
the rest of it and when it
was over they'd come back out and she'd say boy
that was great I can't wait to
come back and watch another one fear on the one
hand and yet fascination on the
other although that's very different from our
feelings about God isn't there
that mixture of fear on the one hand and yet
fascination on the other we're
fascinated with the idea of God the more you
come to know him the more you want
to know about him you can't get enough of him
you want to know who God is and
what he's like but then when you have the
opportunity to stand in the presence
of God you are so overawed and overcome that
you are almost beside yourself Job
it was that kept crying out I want to see God I
want to talk to God let me
just sit down across the table from him explain
my situation I'm sure God will
see it my way he kept wanting to talk to God
until finally God spoke to him out
of the whirlwind and Job was silent he could
not speak it was that way with
Jesus whatever there was that was holy about
Jesus always fascinated people on
the one hand but made them fearful on the other
do you remember in Luke 5 when
he had gotten in the boat a little bit out from
the shore and preached the
multitude and then he said to the disciples
take the boats out and drop
your nets down for a catch and they said Lord
we've already tried that it
didn't work but because you've said it we'll do
it and you remember they had so
many in the net the nets began to break and
they filled up two boats till they
were about to sink when Peter sensed the other
worldliness of Jesus he cried out
depart from me for I am a sinful man Oh Lord he
was terrified at the holiness
of Jesus the same thing happened in Luke 8
they're out on the sea the
storm comes up the tiny boat is tossed about
they're afraid it's going to sink
Jesus says peace be still there's calm and the
disciples cry out what manner of
man is this that even the winds and the waves
obey him he goes into the coast of
the garrisons and a madman comes charging down
the mountainside everyone
is terrified about him he can break the metal
chains he lives in the caves Jesus
speaks the words the demons go into a herd of
swine off the cliff and into the
sea and the next scene has the man clothed and
in his right mind and the
people in the city began to hear about it and
they come out to see and they see
the man and they witnessed what's gone on and
you'd think what they'd want more
than anything is for Jesus to just stay there a
man like this who has power over
life's problems like Jesus does they didn't ask
him to stay they begged him
to leave they were terrified at the holy Isaiah
was too when all of this had
happened he cried out I am undone woe to me I'm
ruined I'm a man of unclean lips
I live among the people of unclean lips my eyes
have seen the king the Lord of
hosts I believe Isaiah thought he was going to
die he knew he was a man whose
life was unraveled there was no ground for
boasting when you stand in the
presence of a holy God he knew he deserved
justice and he deserved it
rightly when he saw God's holiness the first
thing he saw was God's justice he
felt self-condemned a lot of people today are
offended by God's justice I
guess you've noticed that we read the Bible
stories about Nadab and Abihu
two young men offering fire on the altar didn't
go about it exactly the way God
said fire came down from Heaven and consumed
them and our generation says
how could God do that a loving gracious God how
could he destroy two young men
they meant no harm just a careless prank
perhaps just a little boredom how could
God let that happen we think it even more when
we look at Uzzah and the Ark
they're carrying the ox the the Ark on an ox
cart they hit a bump the Ark starts
to fall Uzzah reaches up with his hand on the
Ark to steady it immediately he's
stricken dead and we have the audacity to
wonder how a just God could let
something like that happen our problem is that
we have presumed upon God's
grace so long that we think we deserve it our
gracious God has poured out
blessing after blessing after blessing after
blessing we've become like the
little boy whose uncle frequently comes to see
him and every time the uncle
comes he comes with a piece of candy and the
little boy runs and jumps in his
arms and he gives him the candy and runs off
and enjoys his treat one day the
uncle comes and forgets the candy and the
little boy stomps in the floor and
kicks and screams and cries it's not fair
where's my candy he
thought the gift was his he thought he deserved
it it was unfair that he
hadn't received it and we're that way with God
sometimes we presume so much
upon his grace that we become angry when we see
his justice our question should
not be so much why did God allow justice to
come on Nadab and Abihu why did he
allow justice to come on us why why did he
allow this justice to be seen Isaiah
our question should rather be why has God's
justice not destroyed us all for
the wages of sin is death the amazing thing is
that we have such a gracious
God that he continues to bear with us and that
he has given the greatest gift
of all the gift of his son to atone for our
sins you see we can respond to God's
justice in one of two ways we can respond with
anger almost with an
attitude of how dare God to treat us this way
or we can respond in humility
in tears
justice was going to be brought upon the nation
of Judah and Isaiah would
proclaim it and the whole reason was that they
had spent lives spurning a
holy God when Isaiah saw God's holiness he saw
God's justice but he also
experienced God's grace then one of the seraphs
flew to me with a live coal in
his hand which he had taken with tongs from the
altar with it he touched my
mouth and said see this has touched your lips
your guilt is taken away and your
sin atoned for at the very moment when Isaiah
thought he was going to die when
he was brought to his knees before a holy God
in complete dependency upon the
creator God of the universe God's grace went
forth to cleanse his sin it wasn't
without pain sin is so woven into the character
of our being that to rip sin
out of our lives is extremely painful but so
worth the pain Isaiah knew what
it was like to know to receive from God what he
needed God's grace rather than
what he deserved which is God's righteous
judgment he had the spirit of
heart that the nation of Judah needed to know
later on in Isaiah 66 the
Lord said this heaven is my throne and the
earth is my footstool where is the
house you will build for me where will my
resting place be has not my hand made
all these things and so they came into being
declares the Lord you think you
can earn your way into my presence by building
great buildings or going
through great ritual or doing marvelous things
or picking yourself up by your
own bootstraps if that's what you think God
says you've got it all wrong let me
tell you God says whom I esteem he who is
humble and contrite in spirit and
trembles at my word Isaiah saw God's justice
experienced God's grace and
gained a vision for God's ministry I heard the
voice of the Lord saying whom
shall I send and who will go for us and I said
here am I send me only when Isaiah
had had this experience of God's holiness been
brought to his knees
before God's greatness and experienced the
cleansing of God's forgiveness could
he be a man to go to the nation of Judah that
they might catch a glimpse of the
light of God so that one remnant might be
preserved to be a light to the
nations Isaiah no longer had a reason to say
I'm unclean I can't be your servant
God had cleansed him he no longer had the right
to say I'm not able I don't
have the talent or ability he had seen God's
power God could empower him he was
just an instrument in God's hand and so when
the invitation came forth it said
whom shall I send who will go for us Isaiah
stepped forward boldly knowing he
was cleansed by God and ready to be empowered
by God and he cried here am I
send me and with boldness he offered himself to
God there's a world out there
that doesn't know God and God wants a people
who have caught a vision of him
so deeply that they've been brought to their
knees in complete dependence who
have experienced his grace so deeply and so
transformingly that they're ready to
be used by him in marvelous ways you see it's
only when that happens that God
begins to do his work in us and for God to do
his work in us we must be open to
him we must not depend on ourselves we must
depend entirely upon him and
through Jesus Christ God has continued his work
in us it is to transform us
into the image of Christ it is that we might
become partakers of the divine
nature so that we might share in God's very
glory bit by bit we're being
transformed into that likeness now ultimately
we anticipate being glorified
with him forever then but the light to the
nations that God places in us is
his likeness it is his presence it is his work
in our lives and it is real we
may be cracked in broken vessels but God's
placed a treasure in us so the
excellency of the power may be seen to be of
God and not of us in Isaiah
chapter 60 there come these words arise shine
for your light has come and the
glory of the Lord rises upon you see darkness
covers the earth and thick
darkness is over the peoples but the Lord rises
upon you and his glory
appears over you nations will come to your
light and kings to the brightness
of your dawn our task is not to do it ourselves
our task is so to open our
lives to a holy God that his light may be seen
in us and the nations will be
drawn to the light I can't think of a better
way for us to conclude tonight
than to worship God from our hearts by
proclaiming his holiness so I invite you
to stand right now while we sing this song