Read  Isaiah 6:1-10; Jn. 12:41

Since the fall in the Garden of Eden, the world has always lived in crisis. Until around 150 years ago, the church in the Western world held forth biblical answers to the problems of the world. They rpovided help for the hurting, hope for the despairing, and was either loved or hated by the world system. Today, in the Western World in general, and in America in particular, it is the Church that is in the midst of a monumental crisis. Church is viewed with indifference and growing detestation. For the most part, in most places, the church makes little difference in the communities where it exists. Church attendance is at an all time low in America and Europe. Most Christians live lives of quiet desperation and quaking fear of what they see coming upon the world. They meet, eat and retreat. They slight and fight over the miniscule, while expecting to take the next big flight out of here via the rapture. Church leaders are quitting at the rate of around 1700 every month and people are leaving the churches at the rate of 58,000 per month, and most of these never return.

Is there any hope for the church in America? YES! After all it is not an American church, or our church, but Christ's Church, and He will build it to global immensity and impact. The hope, in my humble opinion, lies in getting an R.S.V.J.! What in the world is and RSVJ? Glad you asked -- it is a Revised Scriptural Vision of Jesus!

David Bryant sums up this "crisis in Christology" as he writes: "Wherever this larger vision of Christ and His supremacy has been diminished and neglected in the Church — wherever Christians struggle with a shortfall of hope about God’s promises in Christ as well as succumb to sagging passion for the advancement of God’s Kingdom in Christ — we face a critical crisis. It is a shortfall in how we see, seek and speak about the person of God’s Son. It impacts every facet of the Church’s life of worship, prayer, discipleship, community, compassion, service and mission. And since the mission of the Gospel is the greatest hope God holds out to the world, any crisis inside the Church that impedes the advance of the Gospel must be regarded as the greatest crisis facing the world at-large!" AMEN!

The scriptures declare that where there is no vision the people perish. In light of the truth of this verse, church leaders speak a lot about vision. However, there is one vision that will concentrate, compel, and consume all the other visions and make it easy to state what you reason for being in this world is. This vision is summed up by David Bryant:  "Therefore, I’m convinced that . . . for the sake of God’s glory within His people and among the nations, this crisis calls for multitudes throughout the Church to be re-awakened, intentionally and thoroughly, to fresh hope and passion focused on Christ. God’s Son must once again become for God’s people the summation, consummation, approximation and consuming passion of all the promises, prophecies and purposes of the Father, for us and for the nations. In one sense, there needs to be a wholesale “re-conversion” of many of God’s people back to God’s Son for ALL that He is. I call this a “Christ-awakening.” I call it and RSVJ! A Revised Scriptural Vision of Jesus!

We find scriptural confirmation of the need for an RSVJ in the experience of Isaiah the prophet and the explanation of John the Apostle. Turn with me in your scriptures to Isaiah 6:1-10 and John 12:41.

I. We Have an Incomprehensibly Glorious God 

Isa. 6:1-4: In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims: 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. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.

A. Isaiah Saw the Glory of God's Son -- John 12:41, "Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him."

Isaiah's vision is dated. It was in the year that King Uzziah died. He had reigned, for the most part, as prosperously and well as any of the kings of Judah, and reigned for 52 years. But Uzziah’s life ended tragically. 2 Chrons 26:16 says, "But when he was strong his heart was lifted up, to his destruction, for he transgressed against the LORD his God by entering the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense." In response, God struck Uzziah with leprosy, and he was an isolated leper until his death.

So, to say in the year King Uzziah died is to say a lot. It is to say, “In the year a great and wise king died.” But it is also to say, “In the year a great and wise king who had a tragic end died.” Isaiah had great reason to be discouraged and disillusioned at the death of King Uzziah, because a great king had passed away, and because his life ended tragically. A crisis of leadership and sovereignty now existed. Where was the LORD in all this?

The vision occurred in the midst of Isaiah’s ministry and in the midst of his mourning. For several years Isaiah had been prophesying and preaching to the hard-hearted, idol-worshipping, rebellious people of God. The main theme of Isaiah, chapters one through five is judgment.  For example, the term, “Woe unto them,” is used six times in chapter five alone (vss. 8, 11, l8, 20, 21, 22).  But once Isaiah has seen the Lord, the theme changes quite obviously.  The next five chapters (7-11) are so full of prophecies of the Person of Jesus Christ that scholars call these chapters “The Book of Immanuel.” Some of the greatest of Old Testament prophecies about Jesus are found in Isaiah chapters seven through eleven (see7:14 and 9:6-7, in particular). Before Isaiah sees the Lord, his message is full of judgment; after he sees the Lord, his message is full of Jesus.  Before, he is pronouncing woes upon others; after, he is proclaiming Christ.

It was while Isaiah was standing beside the grave of a king on earth that he saw the glory of the King of Heaven.  It was when he observed a vacancy on earth that he saw a vision from Heaven.  God likely turned Isaiah’s tears into a telescope so that he could see close-up the real King in His glory.

1. When We Meet God, Our Preconceived Notions of Him are Shattered!

The prophet Isaiah received a vision, first, of  the God who is large and In charge --the sovereign God. The throne of Israel was vacant, but the Throne in Heaven is always occupied by the God who both rules and reigns over all. The word “Lord” occurs four times in our text.  There are two different Hebrew words used, and each adds to our understanding of God.  In verses one and eight, the word translated “Lord” is “Adonai,” which is used for the God who is fully capable of carrying out His plans and purposes.  In verses three and five, the word is “Jehovah,” which is the word for the great “I Am” God, the self-existent, self-contained, self-sufficient God of personality and eternality, the God who enters into covenant with the people of His choice and offers Himself as the Answer to every one of their needs.

Any previous notions about who God was shattered by this vision. Isaiah discovered that this God can never be fully comprehended.  He is “high and lifted up.”  His ways are unsearchable, and His judgments are past finding out (Romans11:33).  His ways are not as our ways, neither are His thoughts as our thoughts.  For as the heaven is high above the earth, so are His ways above our ways, and His thoughts above our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8, 9).

Isaiah realized that God can’t be controlled.  He saw “the Lord sitting upon a throne.”  God is the sovereign of the universe, and He does whatever He pleases. We can’t capture and confine and control God.

Isaiah saw that God can’t be changed or corrupted.  The name, “Jehovah,” is made up of the present tense of the Hebrew verb which means “to be;” it means “I Am.”  God is forever the same.  What He is, He always has been and always will be.  With Him there is no variation, neither any shadow cast by turning (James1:17).  Though King Uzziah had corrupted himself and his throne, the King of Heaven is incorruptible.

But note from John the Apostle, the God Isaiah saw that caused him to cry out in fact and holy fear, "Woe is me," is none other than God the Son, whom we know now as Jesus the Christ! (John 12:41)

The crisis in the average Christian's life individually and corporately as the church, is a flawed vision of who Jesus really is. We tend to pit Him against the God of the Old Testament, who drowned the whole world with the exception of 8 persons; who burned Sodom and Gomorrah to bits; who destroyed and gave the lands of millions of people to His nation of Israel; who then utterly destroyed several million of His chosen people at the hands of a foreign King; who commanded the death of millions of select animals over the years as sacrifices for sins. But John tells us this God of the Old testament is none other than Jesus. It was Jesus who walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden; who met Abraham and announced he would become a father of many nations; who wrestled with Jacob all night, whom Joshua worshipped after meeting Jesus and finding out that he didn't come to take sides, but to take over as the Lord of the armies of heaven. It was Jesus who speaks to Isaiah in the Temple from the Throne room of Heaven. It was Jesus who showed up as the Fourth Man in the fiery furnace with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego!

In the 19th Century, liberalism became the dominant theological force in the Western World. Liberal theology declared there is nothing in God to fear. It replaced the so called hard attributes of God -- omnipotence, omniscience, holiness, judgment with the soft attributes of love and mercy. It feminized God into Mother instead of Father God. It emasculated, feminized, and domesticated Jesus. Artists conceptions of Him were of a long-haired blonde dressed in a white gown and looking very sweet and nice. Pastor Mark Driscoll said, "for many years I did not want anything to do with Jesus, not knowing that I did not know anything about the Jesus of the Bible and was instead rejecting the lobotimized, flannel-graph, NyQuil Jesus of my Sunday School purgatory. Liberalism portrayed Christianity as fit only for women, children, and sissies. Masses of men stopped going to church because they couldn't identify with the meek and mild Jesus who was a pacifist and non-participant in life as a whole.

The Jesus of the Bible is the consuming fire, the raging storm, who seems bent on destroying everything in his path, who either shocks people into stupefaction or frightens them so that they run for their lives.

We had thought this holy Deity was under lock and key and confined to the Old Testament. But to find him roaming the pages of the Testament of love and forgiveness—well! And yet there he swirls, a tornado touching down, lifting homes and businesses off their foundations, leaving only bits and pieces of the former life strewn on his path.

The Jesus of the modern church is too big a sissy and too safe! He is treated as the Lord of the predicament, the Master of the pinch; the one who is always there for us – when we need Him – the spare-tire type god that you use when life is flat. There is no fear of Him!

John Piper defines the fear of the Lord as “that sense of awe that the Lord God is infinitely holy and infinitely powerful and may not be trifled with. He is free to break in with indescribable, heart-stopping suddenness and power whenever and wherever he pleases”

After forty -two years in ministry, it is my persuasion that the single greatest cause of weakness, wickedness, worries and woes – of faint-heartedness, half-heartedness, and fickle-heartedness, in the Christian life, and in the church’s life, is due to the loss of a clear vision of who Jesus is and thus there is a lack of the grace of godly fear of Him!

Mike Yaconelli was right when he said: "We have defanged the tiger of truth. We have tamed the lion... The tragedy of modern faith is that we no longer are capable of being terrified."  He went on to say, "Our world is... longing to see people whose God is big and holy and frightening and gentle and tender... and ours; a God whose love frightens us into His strong and powerful arms where He longs to whisper those terrifying words, 'I love you.”

Mike went on to say, "I would like to suggest that the Church become a place of terror again; a place where God continually has to tell us, "Fear not"; a place where our relationship with God is not a simple belief or a doctrine or theology, it is God's burning presence in our lives. I am suggesting that the tame God of relevance be replaced by the God whose very presence shatters our egos into dust, burns our sin into ashes, and strips us naked to reveal the real person within. The Church needs to become a gloriously dangerous place where nothing is safe in God's presence except us. Nothing--including our plans, our agendas, our priorities, our politics, our money, our security, our comfort, our possessions, our needs." We desperately need an RSVJ! Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. 

B. Isaiah Saw the Humility of God's Seraphim -- 6:2-4

This is the only time in the entire Bible that this order of creatures is mentioned.  The seraphims, literally the "burning or shining ones," are obviously one of the highest orders of created beings, probably similar to archangels.

1. Their Service and Song -- 6:2-3

There service is to orchestrate Heaven’s glorious worship of its great King, the Lord Almighty. The wings used to cover face, feet and to fly with, expresses humility

Notice their song selection -- “And one (seraph) cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory.”  These angelic creatures formed an antiphonal choir and celebrated among them the glorious holiness of God.  The word “holy” is the only word in the Bible that is used three times in succession in describing or defining the Person of God.  It means that God is set apart from anything He created. He is cut out of a different bolt of cloth. He is altogether different. In addition to being absolutely different, He is perfectly pure.

II. We Have a Totally Depraved Heart

A. Isaiah Saw the Gravity of His Sinful State --

Isa 6:5, "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."

It was in the presence of God the Son, whom we know as Jesus, that Isaiah is given another vision -- not of beauty, but of the ugly, unholy, ungodly, horrible, state of his own heart.

This is why Isaiah said, "Woe is me, for I am undone, lost." The word “undone” means to be “cut down, cut off, erased or dissolved.” Psychologically, the term "undone" means to come part; to experience personality fragmentation; to break-up.

Isaiah's deep conviction was followed by a deep confession. “I am a man (that alone is enough for humility) of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.”  One translation says, “I am a foul-mouthed man and I dwell among a foul-mouthed people.” Isaiah knew that it is “out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.”  But he did not confess his sin merely as a matter of the heart.  He knew that the disease of sin concentrates its poison on the lips. He had just heard Heaven’s holiest beings employing their lips in God’s praise. Herb Hodges says, " He was reminded, too, that he was in a “lip life,” in a “mouth ministry,” being a prophet of God."

His lostness is not his own. It is shared by all humanity,  including hundreds of millions of unreached men and women. (They—and we—are sinfully lost apart from Christ. Cut off from God, condemned by God, enemies of God, slaves to sin, dominated by Satan, children of wrath, lovers of darkness, with depraved minds and disordered emotions and defiled bodies, morally evil, spiritually sick, con­tinually perishing, and destined to hell. This is the condition of man before God.

An old preacher used to say, Don't tell me when you were saved, but tell me when you were lost." In other words, many people assume they are converted because of praying the sinner's prayer or inviting Jesus into their heart, but if they do not recall a time when they understood what it meant to be lost in sin, a robber of God's glory, a rebel against His government, a refuser of God's grace, deserving of hell, then they may well question their salvation.

III. We Have a Scandalously Merciful Savior -- Isa. 6:6-7

A. Isaiah Saw the Grace of God's Merciful Salvation

Consider the scandal of the statement of verses 6-7, your guilt is taken away; your sins are covered. How can this be? Isaiah has just confessed that he is guilty before a Thrice Holy God, yet God, upon his confession, has declared him not guilty, and his sins atoned for. How can this be right? How can God be true to His holy nature and hate sin and sinners and yet love them and be in a love relationship with them? How can God look at a wholly rebellious sinner and upon his broken confession of His sinfulness, say you are perfectly righteous?

No wonder Paul talked about the scandal of the cross -- 1Cors 1:23-24, "but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block (The Greek word for "stumbling block is scandalon) to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."

This live coal was taken from off the altar, either the altar of incense or that of burnt-offerings, for they had both of them fire burning on them continually. Nothing is powerful to cleanse and comfort the soul but what is taken from Christ's satisfaction and the intercession he ever lives to make in the virtue of that satisfaction. It must be a coal from his altar that must put life into us and be our peace; it will not be done with strange fire.

The truth of the matter is, Isaiah 6 does not give us the whole story. But if one keeps reading, he learns that there will be one born of a virgin, that will be a Son given and a child born, this One will make the gospel the greatest news ever to fall on sinful ears: In the words of Isaiah in Chapter 53: 4-6, "Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all."

“The gospel of Christ is the good news that at the cost of his Son’s life, God has done everything necessary to enthrall us with what will make us eternally and ever-increasingly happy, namely, himself.” -- John Piper, The Passion of Jesus Christ.

O What a Savior! My sins not in part, but the whole, were nailed to the cross, and I bear them no more. Praise the Lord! It is well with my soul! 

IV. We Have an Inherently Urgent Mission -- 6:8-10

A. Isaiah Saw the Greatness of His Responsibility to Serve and Speak forth the Message of God

“Also I heard the voice of the Lord.”  This is the first time God speaks in the story.  The voice follows the vision. This order doesn’t change.  We must see God before we can properly serve God. God’s plan involves a sending on His part, and a going on ours.  You can’t spell the word “good” without the word “go” in it.  You can’t spell the word “Gospel” without the word “go” in it.  You can’t spell the word “God” without the word “go” in it.  And you can’t be a “good” servant of “God,” faithful to His “Gospel,” unless you are willing to go.

“Then said I, Here as I: send me.”  Before Isaiah even knows what He is going for, or what He is being sent to do, he surrenders himself unconditionally to God.  This is true Christian surrender.  Knowing we can totally trust the all-wise and all-good God, we can commit ourselves to Him and His will — without knowing yet what He wants of us.  “And God said, Go, and tell this people.”  God’s commission has not changed.  We are to penetrate our society and proclaim our Savior.  WHY?

1. The groups without Christ -- over 6500, totaling around 2.5 billion persons -- have only enough knowledge to send them to hell! -- Roms 1:18-20. The knowledge they have is only enough to reveal that God is great and glorious and they are guilty of sins against Him.

2. The gospel of God is powerful enough to save them for Him and Heaven

3. The glory of God is good enough to satisfy them forever!

Rajesh is a pastor in East India. He lives in one of the most spiritually and physically desolate places in India—home to the poorest of the poor and only 0.01 percent evangelical. The death rate in Rajesh’s area is about five thousand people per day, which means that every day 4,950 people are plunged into hell. For generations, the spiritual ground around Rajesh has been hard, and the physical poverty has been harrowing. Rajesh was at the end of his rope in his ministry, but he went to a conference on disciple making and church multiplication where he was encouraged, refreshed, and renewed.

At this conference, Rajesh was challenged to walk into a totally unreached village and say to the first person he met, “I’m here in the name of Jesus, and I would like to pray for you and your village.” Rajesh rolled his eyes, thinking that would never work. But because he was at the end of his rope, he agreed to try it. He went into an unreached village, approached the first man he saw, and said, “I’m here in the name of Jesus, and I’d like to pray for you and your village.”

This man replied, “I’ve never heard about Jesus. Can you tell me more about him?”

Surprised, Rajesh responded, “Sure.”

The man said, “Wait, I want to have my friends here, too.”

So Rajesh followed this guy to a home where in a matter of minutes he found himself surrounded by a group of people wanting him to tell them about Jesus. Within two weeks, twenty-five of them had placed their faith in Christ for salvation. Then those new believers decided, “Why don’t we start doing the same thing that Rajesh did for us?” In the days that have followed, churches have been planted in 115 different villages in that area.

This gospel is powerful. This is why you can go with confidence to the hardest, most difficult places and peoples on the planet. When we send people out from our church, we are sending them out with death-defying conviction that this gospel has the power to save. When we adopt a people group, we know that people group one day will be represented around the throne of Christ in Revelation 7. So no matter how challenging it may seem, we preach the gospel, knowing that someone in every people group is going to respond in faith. Indeed, there is not a people group on the planet that is beyond the power of God to save. And people who believe this cannot sit on this gospel. People who believe this will eagerly leave their comforts and gladly give their lives proclaiming this gospel among the nations.

A missionary traveled to Saudi Arabia where she stayed in some Muslim friends. The lady of the house asked the missionary to come down stairs to see the new room she decorated.

As courtesy, she followed the lady downstairs where there are about 80 people waiting. The lady then asked the missionary to share about Isa, Jesus.

“But isn’t that illegal in Saudi Arabia? Why do you want me to share Jesus to this people?” she said.

The lady responded that they were all close family members and friends and all are interested with the person of Jesus.

“How was this come about?” The missionary ask.

The lady replied: “You know that I have a Filipino housemaid. She sings all the time and looks so joyful. I asked her what she was singing about and she explained she was singing songs of praise and thanksgiving to God for Jesus. I asked her to tell me more about him; through her witness I became a Christian, then my husband. Then we share the gospel with these family members and friends. Some of them have come to faith; others are seeking. That’s why I want you to share with them about Jesus and Bible.”

From Nigeria, one pastor tells of constant death threats from Muslims. He said in a recent email to an American pastor, "I was told to come out of my house because Muslims were coming to attack me in the house where I live. But I stayed and prayed, and this is now morning and I am alive! Praise the Lord!"

In ten years their ministry has seen more than five thousand Islamic scholars turn to Christ. Seventy-eight have become mis­sionaries. An Islamic court judge became a follower of Christ through this ministry. Through this judge alone, more than sixty Islamic clerics now worship Jesus. As we speak, however, the judge is recovering from injuries from being attacked by Muslim fundamentalists.

Question? Have you lost confidence in the power of the gospel to save the hardest, the worst, or the most moral persons? Have you lost sight of the real Jesus, who is large and in charge? Have you seen Him high and lifted up to such an extent that you are compelled to say with the Apostle Paul: "Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men to be reconciled to God?" Would you be classified as a God-fearing person?

Did you need a Recovery of Hope in this "crisis of Christology? Let's begin to cry out expectantly every day: Lord, give me a Revised Scriptural Vision of Jesus. In order for this to happen, I am Recommitting myself to You, Father God -- in order to be Reawakened by the Spirit of God-- to Re-visioned so as to see the Supremacy of the Son of God- for the Recovery of ALL the HOPE Available in this Age of Advantage!”

I long to be, not purpose-driven, or principle-driven, or prosperity driven, or prophecy-driven, but PERSON-DRIVEN – and that PERSON is JESUS! I desire to be reconverted to the centrality and supremacy of Christ in all things for the joy of all peoples.