| The Year That Everything Changed - #5630 |
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Friday, August 8, 2008
Download MP3 (right click to save) Some years ago our family was vacationing on the eastern end of Long Island near a little village called Sag Harbor. It was amazing how much that village changed over a period of just twenty-four hours. One day it was a sleepy little town of tourists just strolling from store to store. The next day it was a chaotic beehive of snarled traffic and anxious people rushing from store to store. What made the difference? I'll bet you can guess! A hurricane warning! Yes, a powerful storm was moving up the East Coast and expected to hit that part of Long Island. So people were rushing everywhere to get prepared. Batteries and candles suddenly appeared by every cash register in town. They hadn't been there yesterday, and they quickly disappeared. People were suddenly living differently when there was a major storm. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Year That Everything Changed." You may be living a year like that - a year when a lot of things have changed. And times like these - let's call them hurricane times - can really change your perspective on what's important and how you should be living. In our word for today from the Word of God beginning with Isaiah 6:1, Isaiah says, "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord." Uzziah had been king for 52 years - so if you were 52 or under, King Uzziah was the only ruler you had ever known. And he had brought his nation to an unparalleled level of prosperity and power. And suddenly he was gone. It was one of those years when everything changed. So let's think of these verses in this way - "In the year that everything changed." That's when Isaiah says, "I saw the Lord." That's when you usually do - when everything is changing - when the hurricane is blowing you around. It may be that God has shaken your world recently so you'll see Him as you've never seen Him before - so you'll live differently. Now, there are three perspectives God wants you to live by in a season when everything is changing. First, Isaiah says, "I saw the Lord, seated on a throne, high and exalted." Isaiah describes powerful angelic beings he sees "calling to one another, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of His glory.'" Perspective number one when everything is changing: "Lord, You are awesome." Then Isaiah tells us he cried, "Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty." Then he describes how one of the angels touches his lips with a live coal from the altar and says, "Your guilt is taken away." Perspective number two: "Lord, I'm a mess." You see, God wants all this change to be a wakeup call that shows you the sin you haven't dealt with and to let Him touch it with His forgiveness and His cleansing. Finally, God asks, "Whom shall I send?" And Isaiah says, "Here am I. Send me!" God wants you to look at His awesomeness, then at your sinfulness, and then at the lostness of the people around you. Perspective number three: "They are dying." You've seen the King - they never have. And God has sent the storm to refocus your attention on the mission of rescuing the dying people around you. With all that's changed recently, the things that really matter have not changed. In fact, the changes make the important things more important than ever. Make frequent visits to God's Throne Room - to Jesus' cross to get clean - and go on frequent missions to take some people to heaven with you. With the storm intensifying, focus on the things that really matter so this can be the time when you really see the Lord. Share or Bookmark This Page       |
