All right, when you hear and see what we've seen tonight, there's no wonder we love missions. We love our Lord, but to hear the testimonies, you know the truth is we're missionaries. We come back here and we report. But we long to get back there because you'll see more people trust Christ and have more of an open door to share there than you will here most any day. So it's exciting to see what God's doing and hear about Faith Promise Giving and how God is taking care of getting his missionaries to the field. He's still calling people, they're still going, people are still giving, but we need a lot more. Pastor Sloots mentioned Japan and we had four families and many more over the years that first went to Japan together. Dr. Don Sisk grew up in Kentucky. I mean, over in the coal mining countries. It's welfare country now. But he grew up over there, hillbilly as he could be, and went to Japan and opened that Japanese Bible and he said it looked like chickens had been walking around on the page. And brother Ron White and Dave. Oh man, it doesn't matter. I'll think about it in a minute. Anybody old enough to do that, you'll catch that rabbit later. And by the way, they started churches, they went people well. Dr. Sisk, his Japanese wasn't so good, but he had a burden to start a church. In Japan, they don't have enough land for people to live on, so they'll take big bulldozers and equipment and go up on a mountain and push the dirt out in the ocean and make a new city. And so they started this city called Senri New Town. And nobody, all their Buddhist leaders were back on the mainland and there were nothing religious wise on this brand new little island, brand new city. And he just thought, this is the place I need to start my first church and had an interpreter back in those days. They had passed out flyers, Brother White and all the other missionaries helped them. pass out the material, and praying, and other Christians came in to help them with the first service, and they were getting ready to start, and this young college student from Kansai University came in, and he said to Dr. Sisk, I just want you to know, I have no interest whatsoever in your Christ and your Christianity, none of that, I don't want to hear it. I'm here tonight because I'm an English major. and I want to hear English. Dr. Sisk thought, sir, if you knew my Kentucky hillbilly English, you would not want to learn English from me. Sagoro Ogawa stood that night, and this rarely happens in Japan or anywhere else for that matter. First time he was ever in a church service, he stood at the back of the church, and he watched those Japanese Christians stand up on the stage and sing. What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought since Jesus came into my heart. If you want to hear that, they still sing it at the Bible College over there. And they were just beaming with joy. And that night, that young smart-aleck university student Got on his knees and trusted Christ. Kicked out of his home, it was from a well-off home, he was kicked out. But he became Dr. Timothy and Dr. White had Omote Sensei. God gave all those men men that just followed along and took those churches. And Senry Newtown today is the largest Baptist church of any kind in all of Japan. Churches there are usually small, it's a hard place, but they run hundreds of people. Anyway, I want you to open your Bibles tonight to it. You know, I don't know that I shy away from familiar passages about missions, but I don't tend to preach a lot on Matthew 28 or Acts 1.8, some of the key passages, because you get a lot of preaching on that. But tonight, I want you to look with me in Isaiah chapter six. And I know this is a very famous passage. All the Bible's great. I would think, you know, I guess all of us preachers feel like that what we say is important enough for you all to come and listen. But sometimes you have a message on your heart that you just really feel like this, This message tonight may be the most important message I'll share with you this whole week. I'm not trying to put down my other ones or the ones I'm going to preach tomorrow night and so on. But I want to preach tonight, and I'll say again a short message, I only have two points. I want to preach tonight on this topic, the glory and the grace of missions. So let me read the first verses in Isaiah chapter six. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw, Isaiah of course speaking, I saw the Lord sitting upon the throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple, and above it stood the seraphim, each one had six wings, with twenty covered his face, with twenty covered his feet, and with twenty 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 post of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, woe is me, for I'm undone, because I'm 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 laid it upon my mouth and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquities taken away, and thy sin purged. And also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I sin? We heard about sinning yesterday from Romans. Whom shall I sin, and who will go far us? Then said I, Here am I, sin me. And he said, go and tell this people, hear you indeed, but understand not and see you indeed, but perceive not. In the first part of verse 11, then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered until the cities be wasted without inhabitant and the houses without man and the land be utterly desolate. I've always liked to go to school. Now I know that makes me weird, okay? I like to read, I grew up, I went to public school back in a different dispensation. When you learn to read with phonics, and by the time I finished first grade, they didn't have kindergarten back then. We farmed, it was too much work, but first grade I learned to read. And once I learned to read, I couldn't get enough to read. I just read everything. And I still am that way. I read a lot. I've always got books with me when I travel. And of course, I read my Bible every day. But I like things. Anybody like my wife and I, we like to watch Jeopardy. Go ahead and admit it. You younger people need to. But no, it's changed too. On Jeopardy, when they're having categories, if it's on history, I could beat them all. If it's on geography, I've been there and seen it. I mean, I've been on the Great Wall of China so many times, I'm bored with it. I climbed Mount Fuji one year. Crazy, I guess, I don't know. But I could do well on a lot of the topics, but when they have topics on modern music and stuff like that, I lose every time. I like to know things. And I got saved and I surrendered to preach at 16 from a broken home. My wife and I grew up in the same church. We were two of the most backward, shy kids. Linda was so backward, she wouldn't even look at you unless you just looked her right in the eye. And then she would hide behind her mother peek around the side, and I was the runt in my class, a little guy, and nobody would have ever thought, but I knew that God called me. That was on a Tuesday in a funeral, had nothing to do with a funeral, but God was working on me. And Sunday, I finally, I tried not to, I mean, just so that I was not gonna go forward, but I couldn't stand it, and I went forward and told those people in that church that God had called me to preach. I didn't know what anybody thought until later after I married Linda. And I found out what her daddy said that day. We weren't married until some time after that, but he told his wife, honey, that little fella never will make a preacher. Well, it wasn't because God saw my whatever, it was because of his power and his grace and his love. And I like to learn and I like to know things, I fell in love with the Bible when I surrendered to preach. And I'd studied, I'd graduated from Tennessee Temple, but we were in France in early 70s and studying eight hours a day French, and I got sick. I had appendectomy. I had my appendage taken out in France. Now that's an experience. because they don't do laparoscopy there. They cut you open, and you go down. I woke up in a room with about 12 Frenchmen drinking their wine, smoking their cigarettes, and there was no bathroom in the whole room. You had to go down the hall, and there was not a commode in the whole hospital. They don't know what I'm talking about. Porcelain holes in the floor. Anyway, here I am. My wife's in a language school. I'm in this room with all these Frenchmen. I can't speak French. I just got there. But that week in that hospital, I read a book written by Dr. A.W. Tozier called The Knowledge of the Holy. And I didn't see anything that I didn't already know, but it changed my life and focusing my thought upon who God is and all that that means. And as I study my Bible and as I travel the world, I become more and more impressed with the fact that the majesty of God is always connected with the Great Commission. Matthew chapter nine, I'm not gonna read these passages, but Matthew chapter nine is the passage where Jesus said, the harvest truly is plenteous. That's what we're about this week, the harvest. The harvest is plenteous, but the laborers refuse. Someone asked me tonight, how many missionaries do we need? All I know is everywhere I go, the missionaries are crying and begging. Go back and tell them we need help. They're getting older, some of them. Others, there's cities in Japan with half a million people, a million people in them, and there's nobody there working. And Jesus said, the harvest is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray you, therefore, the Lord of the harvest. But can I remind you, we usually preach on that passage, but we forget that all of Matthew chapter nine is about the power of Christ. The whole chapter, it's a long chapter, has the power over death. The ruler's daughter had died and he brought her back to life. Power over darkness, he healed two blind men, gave them their sight. Power over deafness, the deaf and dumb men was healed. Power over disease, he went about all their villages and cities healing people. The power of God is manifest in that whole chapter. When you go to Matthew chapter 28, and I said, I'm not gonna preach on it, but you know, we usually read the verses that say Jesus came and spake unto them saying, all power is given. But you know, I don't ever do that. If I were gonna preach on this passage, I would always start at least in verse 17. And when they saw him, they worshiped him. I'm just saying that every time I see the great commission mentioned in the scripture, the authority, all authority in heaven and in hell, full ability to do what he wishes. I'm just reminding us that when we missionaries go, we don't go representing ourselves nor the United States of America. We're going to represent the one who has all power. In Acts 1 in verse number eight, we use that verse all the time. In Acts 1 in verse eight, you know the verse. Well, just before that, Jesus' disciples, he was walking among them 40 days after he was resurrected, and they said, Lord, will thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And let me give you the God-free version of what Jesus said to them. Man, that's none of your business. When God gets ready, Christ will come back. The kingdom will be set up. Don't worry about that. Here's your business. You shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall be witnesses unto me. And every time I read these passages, it reminds me that he is not dead. He is lifted up. He is alive. He is coming again. And surely nothing could be outside the power. And we fear, could I go to the mission field and make a difference? You might not, but you're not going. I preached that yesterday. You're not going alone. You're going with the one who has all power. In Isaiah chapter six, the prophet saw the Lord, and I'm not gonna read the verses, but if you read John chapter 12, verses 38 through 41, the glory Isaiah saw was his glory, the glory of Jesus, because it's clearly said in John chapter 12 that Jesus is Jehovah. And when Isaiah saw God in, excuse, yes, when Isaiah saw God high and lifted up, he seen Jesus. Now, let me give you a thought. In order to be a successful servant of God, I need first a vision of my Savior on the throne. There are two things here that go together. One, the vision, I saw the Lord. Number two, the voice then said, I, can I just say those things, that order is important. Even the title of my sermon tonight, I emphasize that my title is important. The glory and the grace of mission. So let me get, that's my introduction, but I won't take a lot of your time, but I want you to see this. First four verses in chapter six, we see the glory. 1963, some of you are looking out over this group, some of you are as old as I am and you remember, a shocking word went out over the radio broadcasts and the TV in that time, the president is dead. John Kennedy, young man, vibrant, dynamic, was cut down like that by an assassin's bullet and a nation was plunged into grief. In 740 years before Christ, it tells us your King Uzziah died. He had reigned over Judah for 52 years. For most of those people living then, that's the only king that they'd ever known. And the last great king of Judah is gone. It looked bad. Things are going to the dogs. There was abortion and homosexuality and pluralism and crime and tolerance. No, that's not then, that's now. But sometimes if we spend too much time watching Fox News or Newsmax and all the rest of it, I'm not against those things or telling you not to do it. But if you spend too much time on it, you will get depressed and you wonder what we're gonna do. Lord, are you gonna set up your kingdom right now? And he says to us, that's none of your business. You have a business to do. But I want you to know that Isaiah did the right thing. When King Uzziah died, he went to the place where he knew he could find God. He went to the temple. King Uzziah died a leper, but the king of kings was still sitting on the throne. I know who I'm preaching to. I know I'm in a good church. I know you all love the Lord. You believe the Bible. But I just want to repeat it again. Our king is right now sitting on the throne. He hasn't lost control. He knows exactly what's going on. And when our world tumbles in, if we could learn to look at things from heaven's perspective, it would sure help us a lot. He saw, Isaiah did, what God is really like. What is he like? These verses tell us. High and lifted up, holy and glorious. Can I just say it this way? God is not a buddy. He's not a grandpa sitting on a rocking chair on the clouds outside of heaven, just waiting for somebody to have a need. No, God is not a buddy. He's not Santa Claus. We do not rush, we do not dare rush into his presence because he is God of God's king of kings, high, lifted up, holy, holy, holy. Even the seraphim cover their faces when they see God. would not enter the presence of our president nor our governor, probably the mayor of our city, as sloppily and half-heartedly as most Christians entered the presence of the king of kings. I'm not fussing tonight, I'm just making an observation. And when Isaiah finally lifted up his eyes and he saw God for who he really is, you know what, his first word was woe. It's interesting. Back in chapter five, he's preaching a sermon on woe to the nation because of their sin. But when he sees God like God really is, he says, woe is me. Job in chapter 42 says, now mine eyes seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself and repent. Daniel said, there remaineth no strength in me, for my comeliness was turned in me into corruption. Paul said, what things were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ. Peter said, depart from me, Lord, for I'm a sinful man. Now, here's God's design. We see his holiness and his glory. I love Habakkuk. How about Sinclair tell you how to pronounce that in French? Habakkuk. And how about chapter two in verse 14? I love the verse. For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of his glory as the water cover the sea. Well, here's the first thing we need to do. We need to see his glory. Before we do anything else in missions, we need to get that right. Now here comes my second and my last point. Somebody say amen. Brother God, if you're doing good, amen. All right. I'm gonna repeat it again. The order of these two things are very important. My next point is experience His grace. But unless we've seen His glory, we're never gonna really truly experience His grace. Yet, the revelation of grace is just as remarkable here as that of His glory. Just think about it a moment. The Almighty One, the Holy One, the wonderful God, hears the sigh of a sinner in need. And Isaiah looked and he saw God high and holy and lifted up and the angels all around crying, holy, holy, holy. And he said, woe is me, but it's a wonderful thing to me that God hears that woe. And the song of the seraphim stopped in order that God could answer his cry. You see, here's what happens. Dear friend, when you see God in the right way, it gives you a new awakening of Christian conscience. We see it in Isaiah here. The easygoing Christianity of our day has no deep sense of sin, you know why? Because it has no clear vision of God. I'm an optimistic guy, I'm not pessimistic, but I believe that we treat sin, we Christians, I'm talking about not lost people, people in our churches, we treat sin with such frivolity. But Isaiah faced himself and confessed his sin and God did the cleansing. And from the very beginning, now watch it, it was God seeking Isaiah. You talked yesterday about missions being in the Old Testament. Missions was in the heart of God before anything was ever revealed in the Bible. When Adam and Eve sinned, they didn't go looking for God. They went and hid because of the shame of their sin. And God came looking for them. That's missions. That's why we do, why do missionaries go to these places and they show pictures, they don't show the real, they don't even show the real pictures. You wouldn't even want to see them probably. Sometimes people tell me I tell too much. God is the great missionary. Jesus came to save us. The Bible is the revelation of all of that. What grace that he wants us. What grace that he would cleanse us. What grace that he would change us. And the moment that happened in Isaiah's life, when he got a picture of himself, he was a servant of God. Let me just remind you, this man was not just a servant, but a successful prophet and servant. Boy, when he got a vision of God, it changed the way he looked at everything. And then it gave him a new concern for the souls of men. Because not only does God love Isaiah, God loves the world. You know, it's so easy for us to think God loves people just like us. God loves the French-speaking people in Cameroon, but he loves the English-speaking people there, too. He loves the tribal peoples of the world. He loves the people in the big cities. He loves Americans. He loves liberals. Just think about that. He loves people that are not like us. You know why they're that way? Because they haven't seen a true picture of God yet. Not only does God love Isaiah, he loves the world. Are we doing justice to the doctrine of God without seeing the missionary purpose and program of God? Who will go, God says, And the person who says I will go is the person who realizes their sin's been purged. Look, many Christians have never felt like they were called to do anything for God because they'd never been cleansed. When we see God like he is and we're cleansed from our sin, notice what Isaiah did not say. Lord, where do you want me to go? Lord, how much money am I gonna make if I go to the mission field? What are the benefits? You know, I told yesterday, he didn't like I told on him, I know, but here I was, I'd been a pastor for nine years, and I came back with a mission, and I had no income. I was a field director, I didn't have any income, because mission boards don't pay, most of them anyway, they don't pay their, I mean, if the missionary has to trust God, don't you think a field director has to trust God? Isaiah didn't say, Lord, are you gonna take care of me? If I go, you're calling for volunteers. Are you gonna protect me? Am I gonna be famous? I work with a dear missionary friend. We're still best of friends. Many years, 16 years, we worked together in a Muslim country. And more than once, he said to me, J.B., you realize you and I are never gonna be famous missionaries living in a place like this. God did not tell him his job would be easy. I'm not gonna reread the verses, but God said, Isaiah, he said, who will go? And Isaiah said, Lord, I'll go. And God said, okay. But Isaiah, they're not gonna listen to you. And Isaiah said, here I am, a volunteer, not pressed into service, because he said, look at what he has done for me. I'm going to end my sermon tonight with a question that I want you to consider seriously. Are we sending forth laborers before they have clearly seen the vision of a holy God? I can't answer that. There may be multiple answers to it. But we don't wanna send out missionaries who haven't clearly understood the reason why we're doing what we're doing. Either going or praying or loving or giving or any part of it. Have we met him? Have we seen his glory? And if we've seen his glory in the true way, have we experienced his grace? And Lord, I pray tonight, This chapter, there's so much in it, I just scratched the surface. But Lord, may we lift up our eyes and look to the hills from what's come with our salvation, and realize that you are the all-powerful, all-knowing, magnificent God, holy God, who loves us and wants the whole earth to be filled with his glory. And I pray that you'd just work in our hearts now in a special way this evening in Jesus' name. Pastor, would you come? Oh, he's coming to see us.