SEEING GOD

Series: PrayerLesson #3

Is. 6:1 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.

Is. 6:2 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.

Is. 6:3 And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.

Is. 6:4 And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.

Is. 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.

Is. 6:6 Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:

Is. 6:7 And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.

Is. 6:8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.

I. If You Are A Christian, If You Are A Believer, You Can Do What You Are Called To Do. You Can Believe God. There Will Be Difficulties, You Will Face The Seemingly Impossible, But If You Set Your Heart On God, Nothing Shall Be Impossible Unto You.

1. Continuing on with that thought, using the scripture we read in Isaiah 6:1 and 8, “In the year that Uzziah died…” we recognize that this scripture has to do with the prophet Isaiah.

2. At the time when Uzziah the King had died, he came to the house of God to find answers.

3. We look particularly at Verse 1, “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.”

4. If you “pray through,” if you touch God, the first thing that will happen that you will see God.

5. There comes a time in every seeker’s life when his spirit demands reality. I am not speaking of being saved; I am speaking of knowing God.

6. After years of walking with God, Paul cried, “That I might know him” (Phil. 3:10). Who can question the great Apostle’s salvation?

7. We speak of a knowledge of God that isn’t based on an argument, a knowledge that is more than the ability to quote scripture. There will come a time in your life when you must know if these things are true or not.

8. Mark it down. Hell is going to assail your mind and you are going to have to come to a place to where you know of this reality.

9. Peter’s cry in Matthew 14:28 was, “..if that be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.” That is the cry of the human spirit in its desire to get beyond the ordinary, beyond the mere religious, beyond going to Sunday School and talking about a God that you never see.

10. Have you ever been there? Have you ever said, “I want to know God?”

II. I Am Glad For What Jesus Did In The 1st Century, But I Live In The 20th Century.

1. The problems are more complex today than they were in the first century. We need God like no other people ever needed God. “Let me walk on the water.” Let me get out of this religious boat.

2. Let me see something happen that man cannot explain. Let me move out into the realm of the supernatural where the only explanation of what is taking place is that, “God is here.”

3. Sooner or later, you will become dissatisfied. It has to be so.

4. If you think you have everything you are not going anywhere. But when you know there is more, when you read the book of Acts and your life is rebuked spiritually, something within you will say, “Let me walk on the water.”

5. Let me move beyond the safety of this religious institution, out there where Christ is, where the resurrection is demonstrated.

6. Isaiah, the young preacher, had reached that place in the 6 th chapter of the book of Isaiah. Isaiah was a student in the theological seminary. He had heard it all. He has heard of the miracles of yesterday, of the manna that fell, the Red Sea that parted, the walls that fell down, but they were just stories that his head believed, but not his heart.

7. The young preacher had reached a point in his life where his spirit demanded reality. He had to know.

8. Uzziah, the king of Israel, was an uncle to Isaiah. In the politics of Isaiah’s day, there was nothing beyond the king. The king held the power of life and death. Isaiah no doubt, could have a very promising career in politics.

9. His uncle was the idol of his life. He could be an ambassador. No doubt there was a place in the politics of the king for his young nephew Isaiah. The only problem, God has laid His hand upon him, but Isaiah is not sure.

10. So there came a time when Isaiah said, I am going to settle this issue once and for all. If God is real, I am going to know Him.

11. That isn’t wrong! God is real, and you can know Him to be real, if you will seek Him. “In the day you seek Me with your whole heart I will be found of you” (Jer. 29:13). Isaiah is faced with this. He knows God with his head, but doesn’t know Him in his heart. He knows the acts of God, but he doesn’t know the ways of God. He is in trouble. Many of you in this school are in the same place.

12. To answer the call of God on his life Isaiah has to put aside his political ambitions, but before he can turn loose of the seen, that is, what he can see and feel, he has got to know the reality of the unseen.

III. Here Is The Biggest Problem Of The Church.

1. She is so governed by the seen, the visible, the sensational, that she rarely ever gets beyond the seen, to see Him who is invisible. It is said that, “Moses endured as seeing Him that is invisible” (Heb. 11:27). That is the only answer. That answer must come or we are going to continue to fumble around in a form of religion.

2. Isaiah must discover the reality of the unseen. He is well acquainted with the seen. He can go in and out of the king’s house at will. Now he must move beyond the visible.

3. The Bible says, “In the year Uzziah died, Isaiah saw the Lord.” When his idol died, in that year, Isaiah “prayed through.” In the year Uzziah died, Isaiah settled the issue as to whether he was going to be a politician or a preacher.

4. I don’t know how long it took, but it was less than a year. I do know one thing, he was a determined young man to know reality. He set his heart to know, and the scripture says, “In the year Uzziah died, he saw God.

5. Every person on this earth deserves the right to accept or reject God on the grounds of reality. God never intended His people to be a product of an argument. It is not the will of God that the church be a debating society, and it’s not the will of God that you and I as preachers of the Gospel spend our time talking about God. We are to talk for God.

6. We are here to demonstrate Christ. Paul said, “This gospel is not preached in word only, but in demonstration and power of the Holy Ghost: So that your faith stand not in the wisdom (argument) of men, but in the power of God” (1Cor. 2:4-5).

IV. Paul’s Testimony.

1. Paul’s testimony was, “Through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God;…I have fully preached the Gospel of Christ” (Rom. 15:19).

2. How did he preach? Through mighty signs and wonders so that the Roman believer’s faith was anchored in reality. “…the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power” (1Cor. 4:20).

3. It is the will of God that our faith be based on reality. Nowhere in the Bible is this truth made more real than in the calling of the prophet Elisha.

4. When God is about to take the old prophet Elijah home, He tells him to anoint Elisha, the son of Shaphat to be prophet in his room.

5. The young man was in the field plowing with twelve yoke of oxen. The old prophet walked up behind him and passed his mantle over him, and kept walking. When that mantle touched him, Elisha dropped the plow lines, and ran after the prophet saying, “Wait for me, let me kiss mother and dad good-bye, then I will follow you. Elijah replied, “What have I to do with you?”

6. What he really said was, “Why are you coming after me? What do you want? What are you looking for?” Elisha went back, slew the oxen, barbecued them with the plows, and took off after the old prophet. He burned all bridges behind him. Something has happened in his life that has totally consumed him.

7. Edgar Bethany, a Pentecostal historian says, that Elisha followed Elijah for eight years.

8. The two came to Gilgal, and Elijah said to Elisha, “Tarry here, I pray thee; for the LORD hath sent me to Bethel.” And Elisha said unto him, “As the Lord liveth,…I will not leave thee” (2Ki. 2:1-2).

9. At Bethel, Elijah tried to leave him again, but he gave the same reply.

10. At Jericho Elijah said again, “Tarry,…here; the Lord hath sent me to Jordan.” Again, the young Elisha refused to stay. At the Jordan the old prophet Elijah took his mantle, and smote the waters. The waters parted, and the two walked across on dry ground.

11. Now they are on the other side of the river, there is no boat, no ferry, no way to get back. If God takes the old prophet now, the young prophet is going to be on his own. How will he get back?

12. In that impossible situation, the old man finally asked him, “What shall I do for you?” Elisha was quick to answer. “Let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me” (2Ki. 2:9).

13. What he said was, “I want a double portion of what I felt in that field eight years ago.” Elisha felt something, he knew something, and there was reality. He wasn’t following a man with an argument, he had tasted of the powers of the world to come.

V. God Wants Every One Of Us To Have The Opportunity To Accept Or Reject Him On The Grounds Of Reality.

1. Isaiah had reached that point in his life. There was something in him that demanded a reality.

2. He is being pulled in two directions. He wants to follow God, if indeed God is real, but he has to know.

3. The Bible says, Isaiah saw God.

a. When you see this term in the Bible, “to see,” it means “to know,” unless specifically stated otherwise. To know is to see, and to see is to know – “That the eyes of your understanding be enlightened; that you may know” (Eph. 1:18). “In the year Uzziah died, Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up.”

4. He came to know Him as God. To see God is to know God. It isn’t seeing Him with your eyes, but with your heart.

5. “Through faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God” (Heb. 11:3). Isaiah had an experience with God; he met God.

6. Isaiah had heard about God, but he did not know God. Multitudes have grown up in the church, heard about God all their lives, but have never known God. They are “Ever learning, but never coming to the knowledge of the truth” (2Tim. 3:7).

7. They have a head full of Bible, but never met God Himself. We’re not talking about salvation, we are talking about knowing the God who saved us.

8. When a man and woman get married, they think they know each other; but after years of sharing their lives together, they truly come to know each other. They know each other, but they are not more married now than when they were the first day they took those vows.

VI. Isaiah Grew Up On The Stories Of The Old Testament.

1. He (Isaiah) has heard about the parting of the Red Sea, the manna, the water flowing from a rock. Now he longs to be able to say with Job, “I have heard about Him with the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes have seen God” (Job 42:5). That is the strength of life.

2. It is one thing to know about God, it’s quite another thing to know God. You can know everything there is to know about food, and starve to death. You have got to eat food to receive from it. You can go to Hell knowing about God, but if you know God, you have the answer to life.

3. “He who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him” (Heb. 11:6). You cannot believe that God is in the frustrating circumstances of life unless you truly, experientially, know God.

4. There are those people who make a real start, are truly born again, but never pressed on to a real union with God. These people are easy to knock out. They are easily frustrated.

5. On the other hand, those who know God, who have a real encounter with God and every doubt is abolished concerning the existence of God, can point back to an experience where God became real.

6. Israel knew the acts of God. Moses knew the ways of God. In the wilderness when trouble came, Israel wanted to go back to Egypt, but Moses never faltered in his path. He knew God.

7. Isaiah saw God, and everything fell into place. He can walk away now from his political ambitions. To really see God is the only way for the child of God to overcome his desire for things. We have lost a generation of kids because we have put the emphasis on a full barn instead of a full heart.

8. If we as Christians would really “pray through” to a real encounter with God, the things of this world would have very little value to us.

9. Once Isaiah saw God, everything else was secondary. He became the greatest preacher of the Old Testament. Isaiah wrote in the 53rd Chapter of the book by his name. Concerning Christ, he wrote:

a. “Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? (Is. 53:1).

b. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with his stripes we are healed” (Is. 53:5).

10. Jesus quoted Isaiah in Matthew 8:17, “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet Isaiah saying, Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses.” For this message, Isaiah was sawn asunder. He was murdered for what he preached, but he had seen God and it didn’t make any difference.

11. To know God removes the fear of man. This is a big problem of the church today. We are afraid to be different, afraid to speak out against the awful mixture of truth and error. As a result, everything has become the church.

12. You could break up just about any conference on evangelism by simply preaching the uncompromising Word of God.

13. More than anything else, the church needs to see God. And for the church to see God, you as an individual must see God. You have to “pray through.”

14. Isaiah saw God and could forget the throne. How does that happen? He “prayed through.” He reached the place of total frustration in trying to make what he believed work. He woke up on a Sunday morning and said, “This has got to end, I must have an answer.”

Thirty-five years ago, I pastored a church of two hundred people. I married their living and buried their dead. They loved me, I loved them. They paid me a good salary, gave me a vacation every year. In spite of all that I became terribly dissatisfied, not with God, but with myself. I would ask myself, “Have I got a message of life, or am I just saying words?” If it is a message of life, then why is it not reaching more people? Why is it not more effective? I reached a point where there had to be reality.

I sought God in fasting and in prayer. For thirty days I never ate. I prayed, I wept - all of it born out of something inside of me that had to have reality, something that said, “Let me walk on the water.” I could not go on with theory. I could not go on talking about God; I must talk for Him. I read in His word, “In the day you seek Me with your whole heart I will be found of you” (Jer. 29:13). I found Him. Since that day, I have been in sixty countries of this world. I’ve lived in Russia, a great part of the time of the early 1990’s, and in that time I have seen nearly 3,000 churches come into existence. At one time I was on television in most of the nation. I say all this simply to tell you, you can know God.

VII. Isaiah Woke Up And Said, “I Have Got To Know.”

1. He probably went to the synagogue. On his way he had to pass the Rabbi’s house. The old Rabbi, seeing the young prophet asked, “Where are you going Isaiah?” “I’m going to church Rabbi.” “Why are you going to church son, it’s not Saturday, we don’t have church today.”

2. “But Brother Rabbi, I have heard you talk about God, how He delivered our people out of Egypt, how He fed and clothed them for forty years in the wilderness. Sir, I have reread those stories a hundred times. I have been overwhelmed by the record of such a great God, but I can no longer live in the past, I must know that God myself.”

3. The old Rabbi, concerned by the radical thinking of his best student probably said, “Son, I don’t want you to be disappointed.” The young preacher answered, “I’m not going to be disappointed, I am going to find God or forget about religion.”

4. That isn’t wrong! You have a right to know Him. You don’t have to live guessing whether God is real or not.

It doesn’t matter whether you believe my testimony or not, I believe it. I have met God. It is difficult to deceive the man who has seen God. I have seen a lot that is phony in religion. I have watched men play their games; leg stretching, teaching the deceived how to talk in tongues. I knew God wasn’t within a mile of that. It never bothered me. Why? I knew God and I knew He didn’t play games.

5. Isaiah will not be disappointed. When he comes back, he will have seen God. The uncertainty will be gone.

6. This kind of determination needs to take hold of the church. It needs to take hold of you. The church needs to “pray through,” to give herself to the altar, until once more God lives in and through her. We can touch our world if we will touch our God.

7. It is possible to know the Gospel works and still not have the true power to make it work. We can go through the ritual of praying for the sick, yet no one is healed.

8. The church has lost her plausibility; the social dimension of believing. She has learned how to be religious without God. This must end. We need to see God, know God, and walk with God. The world doesn’t want a performance, they want to see Christ.

9. Our five minute prayer meetings must turn into all night seekings. We must come back to an altar of fasting and prayer. Moses endured as seeing Him who is invisible. Moses saw God, he felt the call to deliver Israel forty years before deliverance came. He had the call, the zeal, but at a critical moment in his life he felt himself alone and ran.

{I have seen young preachers who felt the call of God, but because the world did not open up to them, they felt alone. The devil sold them the lie that God had not called them.}

10. {When Moses’ fellow Israelites turned on him, he felt alone and fled. To stand against the wiles of the devil, demands more than religion,} you must know God.

11. When Jesus said, “…nothing shall be impossible unto you…” (Mat. 17:20), in no uncertain terms He let us know there is going to be a struggle.

I have been married to my wife for over forty years. There have been some difficult times, times when either one of us could have destroyed the marriage. But because I knew her and she knew me, we have weathered every storm.

VIII.Moses Did Not Know God As He Would One Day Know Him. So When The Adversary Struck At Him, He Fled.

1. Later, Moses saw God at the burning bush, and from that moment on he moved with assurance. Moses never questioned God’s ability again.

2. At the burning bush, Moses moved beyond the seen to the unseen. From that point onward Moses was sure of himself, because he was sure of God. Moses endured because he saw beyond the visible.

3. Moses knew the ways of God, Israel knew the acts of God. Every time trouble came, Israel wanted to go back to Egypt, but Moses refused to look back.

4. Moses is one of the most unique characters of history. Before he fled to the wilderness, he was a man mighty in word and deed, but when God came to him years later, he couldn’t talk.

5. Moses tried to use his handicap of speech as an excuse not to obey. God let him know the reason he was in the desert in the first place was to break down his faith in his own ability. Now that Moses knew he could not, God could now live through him and do the work.

6. From that bush and his encounter with God, Moses headed for Egypt to deliver three million slaves with a stick and a brother that is going to backslide every thirty days.

7. With a little imagination you can hear his friends along the way crying out, “Where are you going Moses?” “I’m going to Egypt to deliver the people of God.” “Where is your army?” “This is it; this donkey, stick, and Aaron, my brother.”

8. Every step that little donkey took, the devil said, “Moses, you are the most wanted man in Egypt. Your picture is in every post office. They are going to pick you up at the border.”

9. Moses never turned that donkey around. He never let his fear dictate his course. He had seen God. That is the answer to everything.

10. The one hundred twenty saw God at Pentecost. Who can doubt that? Before Pentecost they were very unsure people. They couldn’t hear anything Jesus said. They were up and down, fighting over who was going to be on the right hand and who was going to be on the left. They had heard Him preach, witnessed His miracles, yet something was missing in their lives.

11. Upon His departure Jesus commanded them, “Tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power” (Lk. 24:49). In effect, He said to them, don’t you leave with a theory. Don’t you leave this city until you have had an encounter with God.

12. This is God’s message to you in this school. Isaiah “prayed through.” Isaiah saw the Lord. This happened at Pentecost. They saw God that day in a way that they had never seen Him. From that moment, there was no turning back.

13. To see God, to “pray through,” is the answer to everything.