I am very glad to be able to be with you once again.
If you will turn with me to the prophecy of Isaiah, chapter 6.
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and His train filled the temple.
Above Him stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; 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.
Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.
Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:
And he touched my mouth with it, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin forgiven.
And 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.
And He said, Go.
If you will turn to the New Covenant, to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 4, from verse 8.
Again, the devil taketh Him unto an exceeding high mountain, and showeth Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
And he said unto Him, All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me.
Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.
And then, in the same Gospel, chapter 6 and verse 24:
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
Could we just have a further word of prayer?
Beloved Lord, we want to thank You that we are gathered here in Your presence this evening. We want to thank You especially that, in Your love, You make a provision for such a time as this.
Altogether apart from the ministry of Your Word, we need Your quickening, because many of us have been travelling. Renew, quicken, and revive, Lord, all of us, that this time may not, in any part of it, be lost.
Lord, we thank You for the anointing that You have given for the ministry of Your Word, for the translating of it, and also for the hearing of it. Into that anointing, grace, and power, we stand now by faith.
Fill this time with Yourself, Lord, with Your speaking and with Your working. And we will give You all the praise for answering this. We ask this in the name of our Messiah, the Lord Jesus. Amen.
I believe all of you will know that the theme of this time is vision, worship, and service. I believe these three matters are intimately and vitally related.
My responsibility is service. What begins with vision must end in service.
When God is so gracious as to reveal Himself to us, by that very revelation we become accountable. When we are granted such vision, we see the Lord; we hear the Lord. By that very grace of God, we are made responsible.
Vision is not for self-centred glory or aggrandisement. Worship is not that we may just have a form of escapism from this world. Vision and worship must end in service.
Every true child of God is a servant of the Lord. I do not know why, but we human beings always like to make distinctions. We say, “He is a servant of the Lord,” as if you are not a servant of the Lord.
But we are all priests and kings. By our very spiritual birth, we have been constituted servants of God.
We may not be able to serve fully as babies, but all the instruction of the Lord, all the education of the Lord, all the discipline of the Lord, and all the training of the Lord are to bring us to the place where we can serve Him.
Isaiah had an extraordinary experience. When he saw the Lord, one of the most significant, powerful, and vital ministries was born.
It was a time of unparalleled uncertainty in the land. King Uzziah had been a good man and had sought to serve the Lord. But he apparently did not study the Word of God too deeply, for the Word of God said that the king should never act as a priest.
It is a very strange thing with us human beings: we all want to be what the next person often is. You would have thought that being a king was quite sufficient. But he wanted to be a priest.
He took the sacred incense, which only the priest could offer, and went into the holiest place of all with the incense. The priests all tried to stop him. According to the Talmud, he lost his temper with them, and immediately leprosy broke out on his forehead.
From that moment, he was segregated from his family, his people, and from everything. He died under the hand of God.
It was in the year that King Uzziah died, with all the instability it brought, with all the uncertainty, all the weight and turmoil, that God gave to Isaiah an incredible vision.
He saw the Lord high and lifted up. For Isaiah, the temple was the most important thing. The life of the whole nation was centred in that temple. The fact that God had judged the king for trying to be a priest only made that even more emphasised.
But when he saw the Lord, the Lord was much greater than the temple. The house of God could not contain Him. The old version says, “His train filled the temple.” That is just the back part of His garments. So great was the Lord; the whole temple was swallowed up in the Lord.
It is amazing to me. Listen to the words:
Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?
It is an extraordinary cry from the heart of God.
Would you not have thought that the high priest already had some understanding of what the Lord wanted? Or that the priests would have had some understanding?
But here was the temple, with all its services, all its rites, all its sacrifices, all its priests, all its Levites, and the thousands upon thousands of people coming into it and out of it.
And no one heard the heart of God:
Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?
It is almost as if the people of God were blind and deaf, as if the very service of the temple had become a substitute for really hearing what was in the heart and mind of God.
If I had said to the high priest, “Are you serving the Lord?” he would have said, “Of course. What do you think?” If I had asked one of the priests or Levites, “Are you serving the Lord?” they would have said, “What do you think? Of course. We all have our times of duty.”
But no one heard the cry of God’s heart.
What is service? Service is to hear the Lord’s heart and mind, and obey. As far as God is concerned, there is no other service.
Servants who are blind to Him, deaf to Him—what good are they?
If you want to be a professor in a university, you need to have some knowledge. If you want to be a teacher in a college or a school, you must have some knowledge. I have known some teachers who were blind—actually physically blind—but good teachers.
But can a servant be blind? Can a servant be deaf? A servant does not need degrees after his name or titles before his name. He does not need a pedigree.
A servant needs eyes to see his Master and ears to hear his Master. That is the essential necessity.
Otherwise, if the Lord says, “Go,” they do not go. If the Lord says, “Come,” they do not come. If the Lord says, “Do this,” they do not do this. If He says, “Do that,” they do not do that. They do not hear. They do not hear.
Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?
Here we are at the heart of God. When Isaiah saw the Lord—when he saw Him high and lifted up, in a vision so great, so powerful, that everything was swallowed up in Him—he heard the Lord.
And he said, “Here am I. Send me.” And the Lord said, “Go.”
Isaiah lived, according to Jewish tradition, until he was eighty-eight years of age, and was utterly faithful to the Lord through his life. He died a martyr when he hid from the evil King Manasseh in one of the great olive trees, and they sawed it through with him in it.
He ended his ministry as he had lived it: a witness and a martyr.
I do not want to labour the point, but I think it is amazing to me that you can have Christian people, all of whom know their Bible, all of whom meet together, and at the same time be deaf and blind to the heart and mind of their Lord.
How amazing it is—that church in Laodicea. Laodicea was the great medical centre of the ancient world. Their standard of living was high. They were affluent.
The church in Laodicea was not some institutional, traditional, apostate church. It was an assembly of born-again believers.
They had the Lord’s Table, probably at least once a week. They had Bible studies. They had prayer meetings. They had evangelistic outreach. They had everything you would associate with a good evangelical church.
And the Head of the church was outside, knocking on the door. They sang about Him. They studied Him. They prayed in His name. They broke bread to remember Him. And He was outside the door.
One of the most plaintive words of the Lord in the whole New Testament is this:
Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.
I say “plaintive.” He did not say, “If all of you hear My voice.” He said, “If any man.” It is as if there was hardly one single member of the body who knew He was outside.
I am very interested that the Lord revealed Himself to Isaiah. I would have thought, “Was he a little different to the others?” But listen to what he says:
Woe is me! for I am undone.
I do not know how it puts it in Chinese. The old English is very funny: “I am undone.” Too many servants of the Lord are already done. They are not undone; they are too done.
Service begins with a vision of the Lord that undoes us. First, a true theology brings us to the place where we can only say, “What has happened? I am undone.”
We have got an idea that servants of the Lord must be sent for three years, four years, five years, to a theological seminary. Then we pour everything into them, and we send them out fully cooked, beautifully done, finished.
Then they can stand in a pulpit and pour out what they have taken in for five years, or three years, or two years.
I do not have any problem with training, and I certainly have no problem with study. Sound theology we cannot do without.
But a servant of the Lord has to be first undone. What student normally goes out from such a course saying, “Woe is me, I am undone”?
No, no. “I think I am ready for the job. Now I have had these years, now I am ready. The meal is cooked. It is all completed. Now I can give it. I can serve.”
But real service begins with a vision of the Lord that undoes us. We are lost. We are finished.
Isaiah cries out:
I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.
You know, we have a tradition that Isaiah came from the royal family. Certainly, his language, as we have it in this prophecy, is the most beautiful language in the Old Covenant. Whatever happened to him that he felt he had unclean lips?
He had an overwhelming sense of inability and uncleanness.
Dear brother, dear sister, sometimes we think vision will elate us. But, my dear, it will always humble us.
The greater we see the Lord to be, the smaller we realise we are. The more powerful we see Him to be, the more incapable we come to see ourselves. The more we see His wisdom, the more we realise how foolish we are.
It is the essential beginning of true service.
An angel came and took one of the hot stones from the altar—probably the burnt offering altar—and put it on his lips.
Thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin forgiven.
It is a tremendous thing, when you are a servant of the Lord, to be hidden in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus.
Why lips? What about his heart? What about his head? Well, maybe with Isaiah the Lord was going to use his lips. I do not know. But what I do know is this: the only way you and I can serve the Lord is through the finished work of the Lord Jesus.
The Spirit of God will rest on nothing else. He will not rest on your zeal, or your devotion, even your weeping, all the work of your hands, or all the energy you have. He will rest only upon the finished work of the Lord Jesus.
Is it not interesting what the Lord Jesus said? Satan came to the Lord Jesus and showed Him all the kingdoms of the earth and their glory. He said to Him, “I will give You all of this, if You will only worship me.”
Interesting—the Lord Jesus did not say to him, “It is not yours to give.” He never challenged him on that.
Instead, He said:
Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.
“Him only”—that is our problem. “Him only shalt thou serve.”
We want a little leeway, a little bit of room to squirm. But there is no place for mammon, no place for self, no place for sport, no place for pleasure. Him only.
If we really want to serve the Lord, this little phrase—“and Him only shalt thou serve”—haunts us.
The Lord Jesus said, “You cannot serve two masters.” Oh, you say, “Of course. Of course. I do not serve two masters.” But most of us are trying to.
Sixty per cent for the Lord and forty per cent for self. You businessmen—eighty per cent for the Lord and twenty per cent for mammon. No, I sometimes think it is the other way: twenty per cent for the Lord and eighty per cent for mammon.
What is mammon? Mammon is money. Money. We all understand what money is. I do not have to persuade you as to the kind of longing we all have to make money. Some of you will be out there as soon as this meeting is over, making deals here, there, and everywhere. That is mammon.
Now, the Lord Jesus never said that we should not make friends by means of mammon. But we have to serve the Lord only, and mammon becomes a means of serving the Lord.
What did the Lord say?
He will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to one, and despise the other.
And then He said:
Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
It is the same with self. You cannot serve God and self. But then, I think we have a problem here, because all of us are born self-centred. Even the sweetest people—we are all born self-centred.
Some people do not all the time look at themselves in a little hand mirror, but when nobody else is there, they study themselves very carefully. We are all self-centred.
We all serve self: self-glory, self-fulfilment, self-expression, self-aggrandisement. It is part of our nature. We are fallen human beings.
The deepest instinct in us is to love ourselves. You say, “Oh no, now he is going too far.” No, I am not. This is what the Lord said:
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
In other words, the Lord recognised that every human being loves himself. Some people all the time say, “I am nothing, I am nothing, I am nothing.” Actually, it is a form of self-love. They are waiting for you to say, “No, no, no, you are something.”
You cannot serve two masters. Listen to this. It is in James, chapter 1 and verse 8:
A doubleminded man is unstable in all his ways.
That is someone who has two minds: one for the Lord, one for themselves; one for the Lord, one for mammon. We have a kind of civil war. Unstable.
Listen again. It is in the letter of James, chapter 4 and verse 8:
Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye doubleminded.
Purify your hearts, ye double-minded. That is why I think Isaiah said, “I am a man of unclean lips.” And the Lord took that coal from off the altar and touched his lips. Now your lips are clean.
Well, I think we should finish. Listen again to the Lord:
Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?
True service is being sent. In other words, you may not always go somewhere, but you are under the command of the Lord.
I think real service begins with seeing the Lord and hearing the Lord.
Let me just say, in closing, one final thing. There is a tremendous amount of work done by Christian people that is work done for the Lord, but it is not the work of the Lord.
In other words, I work for the Lord, I speak for the Lord, I go for the Lord, and I ask the Lord, “Now, Lord, stand behind me. Support me. I am doing this for You. Bless me. Support me. Be behind me. I am working for You. Now You get behind me.”
There is a great difference between that and the work of the Lord.
When you are in the work of the Lord, He is the Worker. You are a co-worker. You are under His government, under His command.
What a lesson to learn. Service is not what I do for the Lord; service is what the Lord does through me.
Now let me illustrate. Are you still all alive and kicking? In the Old Covenant, in Exodus, chapter 33 and verse 13, this is what Moses said:
Now therefore, I pray Thee, if I have found favor in Thy sight, show me now Thy ways, that I may know Thee, to the end that I may find favor in Thy sight: and consider that this nation is Thy people.
And then listen to what the Lord said. This is how the Lord answered:
My presence shall go, and I will give thee rest.
And Moses said:
If Thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.
I do not know how the Chinese translation goes, but in the Hebrew we have something quite extraordinary. It is not, “My presence shall go with thee.” “With thee” is not in the original. In the original, it is this: “My presence shall go, and I will give thee rest.”
In other words, when the Lord goes, you go. And when you go in and with the Lord, you find grace. You find power. You find wisdom. You have the anointing.
When you go with Him, when you go in Him, when you go by Him—do you understand what I am saying? No wonder Moses said, “If Your presence does not go, do not take us up.”
Is that not amazing? That is the secret of genuine service. When the Lord says, “Go,” you go with Him. Rest in Him.
I wonder where you stand. What kind of service are we giving?
May the Lord make these words real. We are entering now into a period of unparalleled shaking and disaster in the history of the world. It will not get better.
We are on the very threshold of the appearance of the Antichrist. Now is the time to be done with sham service. Now is the time to seek the Lord.
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord.
And I said, “Woe is me. I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips.” And the Lord said, “Your iniquity is forgiven, and your sin is atoned.”
Then I heard the Lord saying:
Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?
And I said, “Here am I. Send me.” And the Lord said, “Go.”
Beloved Lord, none of us can claim to be perfect servants, or even good servants. I want to thank You for Your grace, Your love, and Your mercy.
Will You make these words a living reality in every one of our hearts?
We do not want to be blind to You. We do not want to be deaf to You. We want to be able, with the eyes of our hearts, to see You, and with that spiritual ear, to hear You.
In these days in which we are living, we want to serve You, Lord, with reverence and awe. Lord, meet us and touch our hearts. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.