This morning I want to look with you at a passage that probably is one of the least familiar passages, but yet most significant in the history of modern missions. We can find that passage in the book of Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 54. I'd like for each of you to turn there with me this morning. I want you to watch and see as we go through this passage to get a sense as to why and how God was able to use this book and this passage to ignite what we look at as the current modern missionary movement. Isaiah chapter 54. It was back in May 31st, 1792, that a young, poor, shoe-cobbler, part-time pastor, name was William Carey, who was asked to address the local pastor's fellowship, and he preached a message We know very little about that message. We know that it had little form of homiletic eloquence. But what we do know about the message is what is important. We know the text. We know its theme. And we know more importantly that God used that message to ignite generations to come a gospel witness that would go around the world for over 200 years. This message he preached to these pastors was a message of breaking out of their comfort zones. They had become comfortable with who they were, what they had, what they could maintain, but the message of God to them was, break out of those comfort zones. It is time to look unto the fields that are white unto the harvest, and send the gospel unto the ends of the earth. We know that at first, many of these pastors opposed the idea. Brother William, they said, if God wants to reach the heathen, He'll do it without us. But yet, God used this passage and the life of William Carey and his testimony and his persistence to change the heart of those pastors until one day they sent him and a host others to the heathen in darkness." To better understand this passage, I'm not going to read it right now. We're going to go back to chapter 51. We're going to cover from chapter 51 and then end in chapter 54 and get a sense, again, as how was it that God ignited such a wonderful missions movement I think it's an important time in our age and our generation to revisit these ideas. As we look at this passage, we'll find that in these chapters there are certain calls that God gives to his people to ignite them, to urge them on. The first one is a call to revival. Now look at this. Follow these passages as we go through it. There are two words that God had Isaiah give to his people. One is hearken, the other one is awake. Each of those words is used three times. Therefore, there are six distinct exhortations that God gives His people to revive them. And I want you to mark those as we go down through it this morning. Isaiah chapter 51, we find the first word beginning to be used, the word hearken. Hearken unto Me, we see it used in verse 1, verse 4. Hearken unto Me. Verse 7, hearken unto Me. This phrase is used, I think, about 13 times through the book. But it's his way of saying, listen to God. Let God have your attention. God is saying, hearken unto me. Do you understand that before anything can begin with missions, God needs to speak to us? We are the first hearers that need to listen. This conference, this week of emphasis, ultimately is about other people. But it begins with us. It begins with our listening, our hearkening to Him. The first call here is a call to revival. God prepares His messengers by first of all dealing with them, the condition of their heart. Do you understand it's much easier to maintain correct doctrine than a correct heart? A messenger can have correct doctrine, but yet his heart can be far from God and His purpose. The Lord of the Harvest, first of all, says, you are the one I need to speak to first, the messenger. The revival that God wants requires a deliberate, a conscientious change of heart towards God Himself, towards ourselves, and towards the world. Again, this conference is about others, But it begins with us, right here and now. Let's look at these words, these exhortations. The word hearken, it's used three times, as I said. And I'm not going to take a lot of time to go down through these, very little application, very little explanation. But you'll get the sense of God's desire to revive His people. Verse 1 through 3. Hearken unto Me. Look unto the rock whence you are hewn. and to the hole of the pit which you are digged." Humble yourselves. You see, God's people had become comfortable, had become to the point that they had all that they needed in life, they had their ideas laid out, they had their lives all planned out, and really, you know, it became so self-focused, it was leaving God out. Listen to me. You are nothing without me. Humble yourselves. They were saying, we have need of nothing and are secure and comfortable in life. Why change it? Why stir me up? God's intent is to stir up the heart of the messenger before he can send them out. Hearken unto me. Humble yourselves. See, their lives were wrapped up in themselves. They cared about themselves. They bought for themselves. They played for themselves. All they did was for self. He says, humble yourselves. Go down to verse 4. Hearken unto Me. This is, remember, God's purpose for you. He says, I will make My judgment to rest for a light of the Gentiles. You see, God had intended them to be His witnesses. They were not to live unto themselves. They were to live unto Him. In fact, you go to chapter 49, verse 6. Again, He says this. He says, I will also give thee a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the ends of the earth. Hearken unto me, remember the purpose I have for you. Humble yourselves, remember your purpose. And then verse 7, he just says, trust in God's presence. Fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their reviling. You know why so many people resist? Entering service to Jesus Christ because of fear. Spoke yesterday a bit about that. People look at serving Christ as a great sacrifice. It is the greatest thing this side of heaven. But yet out of fear, fear of danger, fear of what they feel they'd have to give up to do so. He says, commit all that to me. So we see the first three. Remember your humble beginning. Remember God's plan for you, His purpose for you. And hearken unto me, trust my protection. Go and do this. Now we get into that second word of exhortation, awake. By the way, this word awake appears eight times through the book of Isaiah. And seven of those eight times appear in these few verses. Awake, shake off your paralysis. Rise up. Stand tall, shake the dust off. Awake, he says. We find the use of this phrase here in 51 verse 9, 51 verse 17, and 52 verse 1. Let's look at verse 17 of chapter 51 first. Verse 17 says, Awake, awake, O Jerusalem, which has drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury. What does that mean? They had been suffering against the discipline of God against their lives because of rebellion and disobedience to Him. They had disobeyed Him. There was sin in their lives. He had judged them. Back to over in chapter 54, verses 7 and 8. I won't read those, but if you mark those, it talks about that judgment, that God would remove that discipline. Now He's saying, awake from that. Rise up from the judgment. I have a purpose for you. You're done with the discipline. Some of you here have made wrong decisions in your past. There's been sin, there's been rebellion, and you wonder if God can still use you. The word of Isaiah to his people is, you know, rise up now. If you've learned from the discipline, God yet has a plan for you, has a purpose, has a job for you to do. Awake from the loving discipline. Then chapter 52, verse 1, The next exhortation is to clothe yourself in holiness. He says cast off your sin and rebellion and purify yourselves. Look what he says, put on beautiful garments for henceforth there shall no more come unto you the uncircumcised and the unclean. Be pure, be separate unto me. Draw your lives into a state that shows forth my glory, my goodness. Purify yourselves. In the last exhortation, we find here in chapter 51, verse 9, we saw, awake from the discipline, awake, close yourself in righteousness, now awake, and take your place as the arm of God. He says here, awake, awake. Put on strength, awake. I'm a morning person. I like getting up. I don't use an alarm clock. I haven't used an alarm clock in 25 years. 4.35 o'clock, bang, I'm awake. I'm up. My family hates it. I don't understand. It's Saturday morning. Saturday morning, I'm ready to get going. I have projects to do. Remember when my son was home and, I mean, 7 o'clock would come along. Come on, son, you're going to sleep all day? Awake. Awake! I would stir him out of his stupor." Ah, stupor. Good word. Found out he's not in the best humor that hour of the morning. The Lord getting our attention. Rise up, O arm of God. This is actually a messianic reference to the Messiah. But as we look through the book of Isaiah, we can find that Isaiah writes, and he makes reference to God's people, and the Messiah often is one and the same. He calls them His servant, His instrument. I believe that Isaiah here is saying, rise up, O arm of God. Do you understand what that means to us? God looks to us as the instrument that He would desire to use to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. We are His arm, my people. Rise up. Learn from that discipline. Clothe yourself in holiness. Now take your rightful place as the instrument I desire to use in my hand. Wow. By the way, chapter 51, verses 9 and 10, he describes some of the mighty things that God did in the past. And Isaiah's cry was, God, do it again. Do it again. Rise up your great army, this arm that you have that can go against the foes of truth in your kingdom. Awake, O arm of God. So you see, first of all, there's revival. The first call of Isaiah for his people is for revival. The second call is a call to the cause. By the way, missions is about revival. It begins with you. If God was speaking this week to you, have you even been listening to Him? Have you heard His voice? Have you awakened to His purpose and His plan for your life? If you have, you'll hear the call. And the call is the call to the cause We find that in Isaiah chapter 53. By the way, let's back up. I almost passed over this. Chapter 52, verse 7. Here's a verse that's quite familiar with this. Isn't it interesting where God had placed this verse? How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation, that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth. You see, God was preparing His great mighty army that they would be the feet upon the mountains that would take the message of salvation to the ends of the earth. But the call goes forth in Isaiah chapter 53. Isaiah 53, what a marvelous chapter. Many of us have memorized great portions of this chapter. The cause that He was called to was to win for the Lamb that was slain, the reward of His suffering. You see, once God revived their hearts, revived their spiritual senses, He then lays before them in a great banquet table a redemption story. He tells them about the suffering Savior who would die, who would be rejected. Verse 3 says, He was despised and rejected, a man. Talk about His vicarious suffering in verses 4 through 9. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him. His atoning death, chapter 52 verse 15 and 53 verse 10, His triumphant death and ultimate triumph in verses 11 and 12. You see that second call came to excite them. Once they understood, once their spirits were revived, He wanted to excite them with the purpose of all of this. It was a Savior. It was a King who would come and give Himself on the cross, that all those who would believe in Him would not perish, but have everlasting life. The third call. So we saw the call to revival, the call to the cause. The third call. Chapter 54. This is where William Carey preached from and is a call to action. Verse 2 says, enlarge the place of thy tent. The analogy here is the ancient times, the tents that they had were not the typical camping tents we have today. I have a great tent. It's got three rooms in it. It's just my wife and me. I figured one of the rooms we can put the hot tub, another room we can put the exercise equipment, and the third room we'll just put the air conditioner. Actually, that's my way of camping. I understand back then camping was camping. They didn't go camping, but the traveling that they would do as they had these tents that they would live in as they traveled were basically made from skins from animals. They would put a pole up in the center and stretch cords out and then just drape these fabrics or these animal skins over them that just shed the water off to keep the sun off of them. But if you wanted a larger tent, all you did was get a longer rope. Stretch that cord out longer, but get a longer stake and pound that stake deeper into the ground because it was going to have to maintain that weight. So here's this analogy. It says, Enlarge the place of thy tent. You see, God's people had grown content with who they were. And the message is, break out, extend yourselves. Enlarge the place of thy tent and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy inhabitations. Spare not. Lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy stakes, for thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left. Thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles and make the desolate cities to be inhabited. The call was, Awake, stand up, rise up, shake yourselves from the dust, break forth, enlarge the place of thy tent, stretch out thy curtains of thy habitation, lengthen thy cords, strengthen thy stakes. Spare not, he says, fear not. The call is to go. Once you've been revived, once you've been excited by the message that has been given to us, we're to go, my friends. You know, in William Carey's day, he was so burdened for the world, but at that time, he was burdened for the millions that inhabited this earth. Today, there are billions. There were millions in his day. Today, those who remain without the gospel are much greater. the world reached its first billion inhabitants in the early 1800s. So right about the time of William Perry, right after the time he was sent and then he preached this message, the world reached its first billion people. A little over 100 years later in 1927, we reached 2 billion people. 30 years later, 1960, 3 billion. 14 years later, 1974, 4 billion. 13 years later, 5 billion. In 1999, the world surpassed over 6 billion souls. 2006, we're pushing 6.5 billion souls. Do the math. If we, and some estimate the age since creation, the age of the earth, 8,000 years. It took 8,000 years to reach 1 billion. 8,000 years to reach 1 billion people. We've gone from 1 billion to 6.5. in just over 200 years. William Carey was broken over his millions. Oh, that we'd learn to be broken over the billions without Jesus Christ. I wonder why we do not see the same rate of increase of messengers going to reach them. Why are there so few coming forth saying, I'll go, send me. Is it time once again that we hear William Carey's message? Awake, stand up, go forth, stretch yourselves, break forth, go. This week, we've heard mentioned several times from this pulpit, been prayed for, is Dr. Dreisbach. Most of you know, or at least have way of knowing, have known about Dr. John Dreisbach. Last year he was one of the speakers during Missions Emphasis Week. I spoke with him on the phone this morning. He can't be here this week. He's about four miles here in his home, has leukemia. I'm not sure really how much longer the Lord will give him life. Hospice comes in, visits him. If the Lord gives him life to December 23rd, he'll be 88 years old. Do you realize For the last countless years, he's been going about every year, every year and a half, every two years back to Africa. I mean, he's mid-80s. Going to the depths and the dark regions of Africa to preach the gospel. Understand, a man in his 80s is going to have certain physical limitations, issues, weaknesses, restrictions. But he let none of those things slow him or control him. In fact, I would have people say, you're letting Dr. Dreisbach go back to Africa again? Ah, this last time. He tried to find a place in Africa where it was the darkest. He located, in fact, he had seen these islands in the middle of Lake Chad. He tried to find them, and we tried to help him find on Google Maps, you know, the satellite imaging, these islands. Even Google can't find them, which tells how far away from civilization and life this man went for the sake of the gospel. We had to send with him a fellow who used to serve in the Marine Corps. Strong, stocky guy to take care of Dr. Dreisbach, to watch over him. Had to push them around in a push cart, because Dr. Dreisbach couldn't walk very well in the sand as they went from place to place. The place they stayed in, this little adobe dwelling, but it had no roof. There was no roof. You don't need a roof. It doesn't rain, but once a year, so why do you need a roof? There they slept for six months. Amazing. I had some people ask me, again, why do you let them go? I went to him before we went on that last trip. I sat in his office. I said, Dr. Dreisbach, and we had prayer together before he left. And I says, please tell me, how can I answer people who ask me, why does Dr. Dreisbach keep going back? He got a smile on his face. He kicked back in his chair. He said, let me tell you a little story. He said, years ago, there was a man came home from the war that had lost his leg in the war. But yet he had a burden for serving his Savior on the mission field. So he went and applied to a mission board. But the mission board rejected him. And so he came back the second year and applied again. And the mission board rejected him. A third time he came back, a third year, and applied once again. And the mission board once again rejected his application. The fourth year he came back, and you guess, he applied on another application. This time the mission board came back and said, why do you keep doing this? Why do you keep applying to the mission? You know you only have one leg. The man's response was, the reason why I'm applying with only one leg is because those with two legs are not applying. He said, why do I go back? Because those with youth and vigor and opportunity and health They're not going. He's praying for you right now. He said he'd be praying for those that God would speak to. Is your heart revived? Or are you distant from Him? Are you listening to Him? Are you willing to listen to God this morning? He says, hearken unto Me. Revive yourselves. Awake! Rise up! O arm of God, go! Take that message that will make your feet beautiful as you walk upon those mountains, as you publish salvation to the ends of the earth. Go! But break out of your comfort zone. Where is your comfort zone today? I know that phrase is used sometimes, We wear it out, but you know, we know it's true. What's keeping you from fulfilling God's purpose in your life? Pride, possessions, family, fear, ambition? How important is it for you to fulfill God's purpose of establishing His name amongst all people and publishing His salvation unto the ends of the earth? Are you willing to do it? Rise up, O arm of God. Let Him use you as that mighty instrument. Dr. Dreisbach can no longer go back to Africa. Who will go? Who will go back to those islands? Who will go to these places? or the gospel is yet to go. This conference, again, is about others. But what happens to others is directly hinged upon your response to God's call. Let's pray. Father, indeed help us this morning to allow our hearts to be revived. So many things this week to distract us. Give us a moment that we would be distracted by the billions that are lost. Distracted by the sense that they have no one, or there are few that can take the gospel to them, and there are great portions of this earth that have no one to tell them of Jesus' love. Help us now, I pray, for those of whom you would be speaking to this morning. May their hearts be open to listen, but their wills willing to respond. I pray in Jesus' name, amen.