The Holiness of God

Okay, hopefully that’ll help
you hear me a little better today. Before I get started, I just
wanted to share, this morning I get a text from Ron. He’s at
the St. Andrew’s Martyrs Memorial and
prayed that we all would have a great worship day today. And
he said, I don’t expect you to become a martyr today. So I just
didn’t know if somebody else knew something that I didn’t,
but please be generous and kind. Okay, let’s pray. Holy Father,
we thank you for the opportunity for us to join together on this
Lord’s Day, unified in Christ to worship you, praise you and
learn from your word. I pray that the spirit can make
use of my words to reach the hearts and minds of your people
and those who are not yet of your people. Let the words of
my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your
sight. Oh Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
Father, I pray that you will open our hearts and minds to
truly understand your holiness as we seek to worship you in
spirit and truth. We ask this in Christ’s name,
amen. All right, just have to take a quick note here. Try to keep myself on track so
I don’t keep you here too long. All right, well, welcome, everyone.
It’s a privilege to be here again today with you. I’m so thankful
for the opportunity to bring the Word of God to you today
and next week as it’s currently scheduled. I am constantly amazed
at the providence of God. I was speaking to Ron back in
early September about sermons that God had been putting on
my heart based on my walk and my pilgrimage, especially over
the last few years. There were two that really need
to be presented together, and only weeks later, I have the
opportunity to present them to you. This week we are looking
at the holiness of God, and next week we’ll be using this sermon
as a primary input for the sermon, Knowing God. So the topic of
the holiness of God is one that has been heavy on my heart for
some time. One quote that sums up for me my approach to this
sermon on holiness is from Martin Lloyd-Jones. He saw this issue
with the church and its collapsing view of the holiness of God back
in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, as did others before and after.
This quote from nearly 80 years ago is so much more true today,
and in many ways I’m thankful that he’s not here to see the
reality of where we are versus where he saw us heading back
then. His premise is that to understand the holiness of God,
we must start with God, not man. He says, half our troubles arise
in the Christian life because we do not start at this point.
It’s because we tend to assume that we know the truth about
God. It is because we tend to assume that everything is all
right in our ideas about God that many, if not most, of our
problems occur because we constantly start not with God but with ourselves. So many people assume that they
believe in God and that therefore they need not be concerned about
examining their beliefs. We cannot see God properly until
we truly understand his holiness and our proper relationship to
him. This knowledge can only come from how he has revealed
himself to us in his word and the insights provided by the
illumination of the Holy Spirit. To get this wrong is to create
a graven image that is not what God says of himself and is idolatry. So we must all test our views
and beliefs of God against the scriptures, not the world, Not
this culture or the babbling of false teachers. So our verse
today, Isaiah 6, 1 through 7, and 8 and 9a. I do have notes
in the back if anybody needs them. No big deal if you want
to get up and get them. I do have a lot of scripture
in this today. So it might be easier than flipping through
your Bibles. But we’ll go ahead and read through Isaiah 6, 1
through 9a at this time. In the year that King Uzziah
died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted
up. And the train of his robe filled
the temple, and above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings,
with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet,
and with two he flew. And one called out to another
and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole
earth is full of his glory. And the foundations of the threshold
shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled
with smoke. And I said, Woe is me, for I
am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst
of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King,
the Lord of hosts. Then one of the seraphim flew
to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs
from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said,
behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away
and your sin atoned for. And I heard the voice of the
Lord saying, who shall I send and who will go for us? Then
I said, here I am, send me. And he said, go. As we just reviewed, our primary
aim As we look at this passage, it’s to understand the holiness
of God and how we are to respond to this understanding. Of course,
this passage illustrates all of these key points. First, let’s
define the holiness of God. Holiness is the infinite moral
excellence of God that unifies and covers over His other attributes
and is expressed through His actions, words, and setting them
apart and above all others. We have the attributes of God
typically defined as communicable and incommunicable. Simply stated,
the communicable attributes are those that we see to some extent
in man. The incommunicable attributes
are not seen in man, but in God alone. Those communicable attributes
include truthfulness, faithfulness, graciousness, wisdom, knowledge,
power, holiness, righteousness, goodness, justice, love, rationality,
mercy, speech, righteous hate, and jealousy. It is these that
we share, at least to some small degree, while God possesses them
perfectly. The incommunicable attributes
include eternality, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, infiniteness,
self-existence, immutability, not changing, self-sufficiency,
sovereignty, transcendence, uniqueness, and being spirit. These are the
attributes that he alone possesses perfectly. Holiness is an attribute
of God and it can be seen in man to the extent that he is
holy and obedient to God. Of course, we’re only a faint
shadow of the smallest slice of the holiness of God. God is
perfect in all His attributes. The combining of all those attributes
together in perfection is what makes Him holy, holy, holy. He is completely without sin,
so He cannot tolerate sin. He is holy and therefore hates
sin. He forgives sinners, but not
sin. He must judge sin. Only those
who are regenerated and have the blood of Christ to cover
their sin will be reconciled to God and spend eternity with
Him as His children, His people. In seeing who God truly is, according
to His revelation in His Word, we can only barely comprehend
the awesomeness of how truly holy He is. Once we understand
and can see His holiness, we can see ourselves in relation
to Him. Like Isaiah, Moses, Abraham, the prophets and the apostles,
we’re all undone by His holiness. We see ourselves as the sinful,
disobedient, ungrateful people that we truly are. How amazing
is His love that He would save a people unto Himself in light
of this. In seeing who we truly are in
relation to God, we are making no claims for ourselves, and
that we depend wholly upon God. We bring nothing of ourselves
unto salvation. It is only by the grace of the
living God. His holiness shows us that His
essence is holy. It is crown of the Godhead. His
name is holy. It defines who God is. So why
focus on this? Frankly, the church has lost
its humility, understanding, and respect for our holy God
as we have focused on ourselves. Over the last century or so,
the church has been proclaiming a narcissistic, idolatrous false
gospel, devoid of the knowledge of sin, repentance, or the holiness
of Almighty God. While this is certainly not the
case at Providence Bible Church, we must guard our hearts and
minds to ensure we do not get comfortable with any part of
this apostasy while proclaiming the truth of God’s word. Now
that we have the background for what holiness is, why it is vitally
important, let’s set the context for our passage in Isaiah. While
there are different opinions on Isaiah’s experience, I believe
the strongest and simplest perspective is that Isaiah experienced a
vision. John Calvin saw this as a vision, God condescending
so Isaiah could survive seeing God in this way since no man
has seen God the Father and lived. The Lexham Survey of Theology
defines visions like this. Alongside dreams and theophanies,
visions are a means by which God has occasionally chosen to
reveal his will to certain individuals for the purpose of guiding, warning,
comforting, encouraging, or even pronouncing judgment on his people
or the enemies of his people. Visions differ from dreams in
that the visionary need not be asleep, though he neither need
be awake. Daniel saw a dream and visions
as he lay on his bed. Now let’s look at the passage.
I’m going to take them in groups of a few verses each. The first
one is verses 6, 1, and 2. And I’ll read it again. So as
we look at this verse, first, Lord. It’s the word Adonai. It’s often
applied to God, but it’s also applied to the glory of Christ.
It means master or lord, having sovereignty over all of us. In
John 12, 41, John indicates that Isaiah was speaking of Jesus’
glory. The throne high and lifted up, exalted above all others.
He is seated on the throne. The unbeliever thinks no one
is on the throne over all except perhaps himself. The train of
his robe filled the temple. There was no room for anything
else. It signifies honor, dignity, and majesty. And in verse two,
the seraphim were there to serve God. It doesn’t say explicitly
how many, but it’s implied that there are two, but it’s not really
important. The wings of the seraphim include
two for flying, two for covering the face, two for his feet. Flying
to serve God. Covering their face in humility
to not fully gaze upon the face of God. Humility in covering
their feet as its servants to God, also not touching the earth
or being defiled by it. Note that there is no higher
honor than to proclaim God’s holiness in his presence. Think
on this and how far we are from seeing God as the seraphim do.
The difficulty in prayer that we have, let alone being in the
presence of God for all time, I know I have a long way to go
to appreciate that and to be thankful in that way. Just as
a reminder, one thing I learned from this, John Calvin stressed
this, and I believe it’s very wise, that we not go beyond the
word of God. We can come to reasonable conclusions,
as I hope I just did in looking at these first verses, but we
do not need to go off into fanciful conclusions. There are many of
those out there. We must remember we are far from
perfect knowledge and be humble as we look at God’s word. In
the second grouping, I look at verses three and four. And one
called to another and said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts,
and the whole earth is full of his glory. And the foundations
of the threshold shook at the voice of him who called, and
the house was filled with smoke. Holy, holy, holy. It’s the three-peat. It indicates perfection, purity,
and the trinity. It’s indicated only two times
in Scripture, Isaiah 6-3 and Revelation 4-8. And Lord of hosts,
the word is God’s proper name, Yahweh, refers to his self-existence
and redemption. Another way of saying this word
is God of the armies of heaven. And glory, of course here glory
meaning the riches, the honor, the splendor, the dignity, and
the radiance. It’s to reinforce, remind us who God really is,
separate above and beyond creation, totally other, perfect in all
his attributes. In verse 4, the foundation shook. And when I read on, it’s the
very doorpost, the lentils, they shook at the entrance to the
temple. The voice of him, which was the seraphim speaking, sang
so powerfully and so passionately with his heart that it shook
the very foundations. The smoke, reminding us of the
pillar of the cloud that represented the presence of God, including
his Shekinah glory. Used to obscure Moses and Mount
Sinai, man can’t rise above to see the secrets of God. And yet
in the cloud, we can’t even see what lays at our feet. It’s a
reminder of our weakness and not to go beyond what scripture
says and to be humble in our approach to God. The next grouping
is verses five through seven. And I said, woe is me, for I
am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst
of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the king,
the lord of hosts. Then one of the seraphim flew
to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs
from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said,
behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away,
and your sin atoned for. Whoa, I am undone. Isaiah expected
destruction. He was reduced to silence. He’s
lost because of his sin in being before the holy God. He sees
himself in the proper perspective against God. The more clearly
he saw the Lord, he understood how bad his state was. In the
unclean lips for himself and for his people, Isaiah recognizes
that he is impure. His lips are full of flattery
and false intent. He was already a prophet. His
lips and tongue were consecrated to God as a prophet. God alone
can cleanse our pollution from sin. This purging of sin is necessary
to prepare in serving the living God. And looking at verses six
and seven, we see the seraphim touch his mouth with a burning
coal from the altar, taking away the guilt and atoning for his
sin. Atoning for sin is necessary to allow us to speak with confidence
in fulfilling our mission. God can’t tolerate sin. He is
holy and pure. He atones for the sin. He reinforces,
we can see this reinforced and the importance of repentance
in the life of the believer, repenting upon salvation and
repenting each and every day as we go forward to remain and
abide in Christ. So up to this point, we have
clearly seen the holiness of God on the throne. As a result,
we could see man in sin as he truly is. God had to atone for
his sin and remove his guilt. So what comes next? And looking
at verses eight and nine, A, and I heard the voice of the
Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? Then
I said, here I am, send me. And he said, go. Isaiah’s commission,
cleansed of his sin, confident in his mission, and able to serve
God. Notice the indication of who will go for us, the plural
for the Trinity. God has his back. God is with
him. Like we saw with the other prophets like Moses, we can see
how this very unique encounter prepared him for the service
he had ahead. This provides a lesson for us in our serving. Whether
as a minister or serving for the children, reaching out to
the lost, all of these things, it provides a lesson for us in
that we need to humbly be before Him, continually repenting and
letting Him lead us in service and not for ourselves. These
verses, in these verses, we have seen God in His holiness and
man in view of that reality. Modern man does not take the
picture of God from the Bible. He takes it from his own brain,
his heart, the world, the culture, and his own imagination. Man
has been creating God in his own image. From the beginning
of time, of course, we only have to look back to Sinai to see
the recording of that happening while God was present with him.
Simply amazing to me. A God less than the God revealed
in the scriptures. This is idolatry. This is a serious
violation in the first three commandments. We will see this
here in a little bit. Before I do the next section,
I do want to talk about the professing church. And what I’m referencing
here is the Western church, the Western church in total, whether
it’s Episcopalian, Catholics, Evangelicals, et cetera. At one
time, we were very close to one another, unified in our Orthodox
beliefs with serious, with some distinctions for sure, but that’s
who I’m referencing here when I talk about the professing church.
While the professing church has struggled in the man-centric
direction since the early church, it grew into the prominence by
the middle 1800s. The teaching of the last generation
especially has principally focused on man, the creature, and not
God. In his book on holiness, J.C.
Ryle, who wrote about this in the late 1800s after all the All of the cultic moves of the
early 1800s, and Martin Lloyd-Jones called it out in the 50s through
the 70s, as we mentioned, and many others have called it out
since then. This idolatry does not put God first according to
his word and his holiness, but man. Because man is defined first,
we are interested in what’s in it for us. We put on a theology that minimizes
or eliminates sin or repentance, so we can tell God what we need
to support our wills. This theology feeds upon itself
and gets worse and worse over time, as I believe is easy to
see, especially in our country today. We see this in our material,
idolatrous desires. If these people are honest, their
imagined God is little more than a candy man. Most see Jesus as
a friend that doesn’t ask too much of us. We are interested
in God insofar as it supports our material, prosperous, comfortable,
entertaining, and carnal pursuits. This is not true Christianity.
This is the false gospel that is proclaimed by so many in the
professing church today. There are many, many examples
that you can show this. I won’t belabor too much other
than to say it’s exemplified in the worship that many people
do. It’s man-centered. All the sexual
immorality that’s allowed, condoned, and even supported in the church.
Leadership, leadership positions. God clearly articulates who’s
to have leadership in the church, and many in the professing church
have set all of that aside to support their man-centered theology.
I do believe we should show grace, as I believe many of the people
in those churches and in those situations don’t even know that
they’re guilty of such grievous sin. That responsibility falls
on them, but principally it’s falling on the failing leaders
of the churches, and they will answer for this. We must show
grace and proclaim the true counsel of God’s Word, and show them
the true gospel. This wrong view of God and man
leads to heresy, apostasy, idolatry, and degeneracy. as indicated
in Romans 1, 18 through 25. First, in looking at this passage,
I just want to make sure we understand who is in view. We often always
see this passage used to show the degeneracy and decay in the
unbelieving world, rightfully so. But we fail to see the application
to those compromised, professing Christians in our churches. Until
the last generations, I know I couldn’t imagine this passage
applying so clearly to the professing church. It simply wasn’t anywhere
near as bad as it is today across the board. And we cannot see
this applied to the church. The question is, can we not see
this applied to the church in verses 21 through 23 in our reality
today? And if we look at Romans 1, 18-25, I’m just going to read
that. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against
all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness
suppress the truth. For what can be known about God
is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His
invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and His divine
nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the
world, and the things that have been made. So they are without
excuse. Here we see this clear reference
to general revelation and imprint on the conscience of man. Man
has no excuse, but they deny, they suppress to avoid the truth.
In verses 21 through 23, we see, for although they knew God, they
did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became
futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory
of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds
and animals and creeping things. You see the word knew here, they
knew God. They had the knowledge, they
had understanding, but not true salvation. True believers could
not do these things. While we still sin, we don’t
practice sin, and we seek forgiveness of that sin. They turn to the
creature instead of the creator. They’re no longer rational, reasoning
human beings. They’re driven by emotion, or
as I call it, emojic, as opposed to logic. And we can certainly
see that in the church today. If you’ve ever had dialogue,
I’m sure Patrick can relate, many, many conversations. People
don’t dialogue, they don’t reason, many of these people, they’re
past that. They’ve turned into emotional beasts in their responses
to these things. In verses 24 and 25, it gets
to the heart of the matter. As a result of all the above,
therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to
impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies. among themselves,
because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshipped
and served the creature, man, rather than the Creator, who
is blessed forever. Amen. Because they turned from
God to man, God gave them up to the lusts of their hearts.
This is the result of their turning from God. This is God’s judgment
on them. We are experiencing God’s judgment. This has now
overrun the church. Doesn’t this reflect much of
the apostate church that claims to be Christian today, but continues
to practice sin, accept it, and condone it, and shows no sign
of repenting? The professing church in the
West has been overrun by the world because of the elevation
of man over God and the church’s collapsing view of the inerrancy
of scripture. Not only do we have rampant apostasy
from essential doctrine, but even those who profess to hold
the scripture are steeped in this compromise in the world.
Apostasy is the departure and denial of essential Christian
doctrines. Without repentance, it shows
that the individual is a false Christian. Many churches, mainline
churches especially and others, say they believe scripture. And
over the last 20, 30 years, I have experienced this myself where
you go to a church trying to find a church in a new city or
what have you. And it’s interesting that 9 out of 10 church websites,
it’s like they cut and paste their doctrinal statements from
the same place. They’re all the same. Until you go there and
you see they don’t practice discipline or they have women in positions
they’re not supposed to be or there’s sexual immorality running
rampant in their church. They don’t preach sin, they don’t
preach repentance. It’s about the show. It’s about
meeting the needs of the people that are there without calling
them to faith in Christ and through repentance. This is a very common
thing. But again, as I stated before,
I just want to make sure we understand we’re showing grace. There’s
so much in this false gospel that’s being pushed out there
in the no repentance, in the false view of scripture. Love,
I’ll talk about this in a moment, love as a supreme attribute that
stands above all. And I’ll talk about that in just
a moment. Love as defined by man is the preeminent attribute
of God according to the error of the day. Everything is based
on it. Any other attribute or character
trait of God must be in subordination to their definition of love.
This is the opposite of God’s love. God’s love is aligned with
his other attributes. It cannot exclude or minimize
his other attributes in being a just God and hating sin and
being holy. Man’s love says his love is priority
above and beyond and forces their definition of love on God. The natural result of this then
is to deny sin, to deny repentance, or even the need for a savior.
Why? They say we are all made in the
way God designed us, so there’s nothing to repent of. I just
heard this last week in a man representing as a gay minister. The man first theology requires
that God love us over all else. The result is they don’t see
sin as rebellion against God. This is a direct attack on the
holiness of God. We just saw this, before I start
this, I just want to say, I don’t know how many, anybody aware
of Andy Stanley? Yeah, good people. Just knowing how much background
to give. Andy Stanley is a popular teacher, son of Charles Stanley
down in Georgia. Has a big mega church with multiple
campuses. Was fairly sound up until the
early… 2010, 2012 era, and a few years ago he decided that
the Old Testament wasn’t necessary for salvation. Don’t need any
of that stuff. Separate it, cut it out. It’s going to focus on
just the New Testament. Then it became sections or portions
of the New Testament insofar as he wanted to reach people.
And just a week or two ago he held a conference where all the
speakers that were invited were gay married men. And so he starts
out by saying, He affirms the biblical definition of marriage,
and then goes on for the rest of the conference to say how
these people that are in marriages as gay people, they are who they
are. There’s nothing to repent of. So it’s only a matter of
time before he goes the full distance. But my point is just
to say that in this case, when you listen to his sermons, it’s
astonishing. There’s no biblical support rendered for any of his
positions, but it is love. Love is the attribute that means
everything. Love versus hate. And if you don’t love the way
they define it, then you’re a bigot. You hate them. And that’s not
what God’s Word says about his own attribute of love. Just so
we’re clear, this is apostasy. Christ, having so often quoted
from the Old Testament, would disagree, as would the apostles
who all proved from the Old Testament that it was about Christ. And
the sad reality is he has faced negative impact from believers,
but there are a lot of people, thousands of thousands of people
that still attend his churches and do these things and have
accepted this. And it’s not just with Andy Stanley. This has been
the case with a number of megachurch pastors over the last five, eight,
10 years. Deconstruction of faith. People,
there is no deconstruction of faith. If you deconstruct your
faith, you never had true faith. You were not truly regenerated.
You were not a true Christian. And that’s not to say that in
a mean way. It’s to say that in the hopes that you would see
out what that true gospel message is to become truly saved and
regenerated, as opposed to what these false teachers are pushing.
While it’s easy to focus on others, I’d like us to turn the spotlight
on us, to the doors of our church, We need to remember that the
holiness of God does not compromise on sin, nor does God permit His
holiness and glory to be taken by anyone else. And there is
a big problem in the church today with the cults of personality.
All these people and pastors and going to conferences and
being elevated and sitting in panels and talking to one another.
Get on your knees, get your hands in the dirt, and go serve your
brothers and sisters in Christ and teach them about God’s word.
The idolatrous religion is the result when God is not known
as he has revealed himself. Inevitably, man puts himself
or something of his creation on the throne, the throne that
belongs to our holy God. What’s this compromise called?
As we’ve said before, it’s idolatry. Idolatry being anything that
takes that place of God and it’s contrary to his word. We can
see this in all the popular movements of today. John Calvin said, man’s
nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols. Like the Jews
at the foot of Mount Sinai, creating the idolatrous golden calf, while
Moses is on the mountain with God. The people see the thunder,
flashes of lightning, and the smoke on the mountain. God is
with them, and they still create an idol. Are we any different? His children? We see the compromise
in our lives. This is why this is so important
to me because I sinned against my God and against my family
for the last 10, 20 years in pursuing these idolatrous things
myself. Sports, homes, jobs, cars, general pride and arrogance
are theological positions. Theological positions where we
look down on other people who don’t know as much about what
we do about this or that doctrine and expect them to submit to
our greater knowledge. This is all idolatry. When we
come closer to God, learn more about God, we should become more
humble and see ourselves as we truly are as opposed to becoming
more prideful. One example I’ve thought of that
I’ve explored with my children is this, everybody’s been selfish,
man is selfish, and we’ve known that. And I always look at it
like a bubble, a bubble that surrounds us and has surrounded
us. When we grew up many years ago, that bubble was a lot bigger.
I didn’t have phones, distractions, all these things that could divert
me and keep me focused on other things. And as we’ve gone forward
the last 30, 40 years with all the technology that we have,
that bubble gets smaller and smaller. That bigger bubble,
I could see history, I understood history. We won’t talk about
the schools at this point. We just understand that that
bubble was bigger. I had a bigger view of the world.
When I joined the Marine Corps, I wanted to go serve and go see
these places, et cetera, and had interest in those things.
And it wasn’t just about me. But as you come forward with
technology, you can see that bubble getting smaller and smaller.
And it’s not surprising that that bubble being smaller and
smaller is focused on man. It’s focused on ourselves, and
we get this bubble that’s so tightly wrapped around us, and
we’re having a conversation with a young person not too many weeks
ago. The man had indicated that his son found out he was born
in 1984. And his son said, were you a
slave then? Because he had no context outside of that narcissistic
bubble. He didn’t understand 100 years
difference or otherwise. So I just point this out to show
that this is what we would expect to occur in judgment by God when
we’ve been given over and our narcissistic becomes such a small
bubble wrapped around us. But that is not Christianity.
You should not be that way as a Christian. In fact, for me,
the bubble as a Christian is it’s inverted. There is no self
because you’re inverted. The cross of Christ, you’re always
outward focused. You’re always serving others.
It’s not about yourself. And so that’s what the image
I try to use to support what I’m trying to say about this
narcissism and the danger that we have in it and these poor
children that are locked in this committing suicide, going off
and trying all these new deviant things that we see on social
media today and accepted in society. All of these things eat away
at God’s glory and masks his holiness. Any definition of God
that does not align with what he has revealed of himself is
idolatry. I recognize I’ve said this three or four times because
I want to really hammer this home. It’s something I’ve thought I
knew myself, and until I really hammered it home on myself, I
look at everything through a lens of idolatry now, in order to
not take any of the glory away from God. In Colossians 3, 5
through 11, it says, put to death, therefore, what is earthly in
you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness,
which is idolatry. On account of these things, the
wrath of God is coming. Once we have our proper understanding
of God and his holiness as revealed in his word, we see ourselves
correctly in relation to him. This is the starting point for
us for correcting this in ourselves. Please know that even though
saved, we will give account for every word and deed when Christ
returns as indicated in 2 Corinthians 5.10. I’m not questioning our
salvation. I’m just talking about us giving
account for every word and deed we’ve done since we’ve been saved.
Do we understand this? I know I need to be reminded
of my complacency with respect to this. The apostasy through
present a generation ago I’ll say that again. The apostasy
that we saw up until this last generation was contained to some
very well-known denominations or cults, but it was much more
bound. Now it’s truly everywhere. It
is metastasized within the church in the West. We must be diligent
for the cause of Christ. In this church, we must practice
discipline, purity, and proclaim the full counsel of the word
to maintain the holiness of God in the minds of his people. And
speaking of false teachers and prophets posing by extension
false believers, we take a look at Matthew 7, 21 through 23.
I had read this many times in the past, and I just didn’t understand. But now I can understand. When
I see the deception that’s being wrought amongst the professing
churches of Christ, this verse gives me hope in the sense that,
not for the judgment of these people, but you do get tired
and weary when you work hard. to do the right things and to
serve God, and you see all of this seemingly, all of these
people progressing and no accounting for what it is they’re doing.
But these verses really hit home for me. Jesus says in Matthew
7, 21 through 23, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will
enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will
of my Father who is in heaven. On that day, many will say to
me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons
in your name and do many mighty works in your name? And then
I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you
workers of lawlessness. Many will say they know Christ.
Many will say they’re believers. They did works. They were not
regenerate believers. And that’s what we have in our
churches today. We have a lot of people who are
opposing and many who don’t even know that they’re opposing. They
don’t know what true salvation is. And they are workers of sin. And Jesus says many of them will
be reminded. He never knew them and will cast
them out. We must stand for the holiness of God, not only in
the true knowledge of that holiness, but in the application of it
to our lives. We must mortify sin and purify
ourselves, purify our hearts and minds, which will lead to
us eliminating sin in our lives. We see this call to stand for
the holiness of God in the Ten Commandments. The first table
being focused vertically on God, the second table focused on horizontally
with others. In reviewing the first three
commands from Exodus 20, the first commandment, you shall
have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself
an idol. You shall not misuse the name of Yahweh. The holiness
of God demands that we have the proper respect and awe of his
majesty by recognizing he is first above and beyond everything
and everyone else in his do this reverence. It’s so much deeper
than using the Lord’s name in vain. It is also minimizing God,
putting anything else before God and misrepresenting God in
any way before a man that is contrary to what he reveals in
his word. Those who hold themselves free
to think of God as they like are breaking these commandments,
especially the second commandment. The positive force of the second
commandment compels us to take our thoughts of God from his
holy word and no other source, not our own mind, the world,
or the culture. Martin Lloyd-Jones, there is
far too much easy familiarity with the Most High. Thank God
we can come into his presence with holy boldness through the
blood of Christ. But that should never lessen our reverence and
godly fear. So now let’s take a look at practicing these things. What are we to do? What are we
commanded to do? Everything listed here are commandments. Be holy. Leviticus 11.44. For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate
yourselves therefore and be holy, for I am holy. 1 Peter 1.16,
since it is written, you shall be holy, for I am holy. Ephesians
1.4, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the
world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In
love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Christ
Jesus, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of
his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved.
We cannot be perfectly holy as God is holy, but with the work
of the Holy Spirit in us through sanctification, we’ll become
more holy day by day, conforming closer to the example of Christ.
And to focus on the kingdom in Matthew 6, 33. But seek first
the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be
added to you. Righteousness is a reference to the work of Christ.
The Father will take care of his children despite their best
efforts to the contrary. Love the Lord. Deuteronomy 6,
5, and 6. You shall love the Lord your
God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your
might. And these words that I command you today will be on your heart.
Matthew 22, 37 through 40, and he said to him, you shall love
the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and
with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.
And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor
as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.
Notice how the heart is referenced long before. We see in Jeremiah
31 through 33, having it written on our hearts. I love that verse
in that context and seeing that understanding and the visual
typology or shadows of things that would come. And notice,
I love in Matthew 22, 37 through 40, the first thing, love the
Lord your God. with all your heart, soul, and
with all your mind. This is the first, and this is the great
and first commandment. The second is to love your neighbor
as yourself. If you see it in context, love the Lord God is
first, then your neighbor. The world says the opposite and
then they redefine what love is. Just think COVID and how
we were all lectured about putting everyone else before us. If we
love them, we would be doing that. Stay home, you don’t worship
God. Stay home, love your neighbor, get the vaccine. That’s what
true love is. That’s what the world says. But
as some brave ministers understood, our first love is to our God
and then to our neighbors. Fourth, know the word. 2 Timothy
2, 15 through 17. Do your best to present yourself
to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed,
rightly handling the word of truth. But avoid irreverent babble,
for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and
their talk will spread like gangrene. Acts 17, 11. Now these Jews, were more noble than those in
Thessalonica, they received the word with all eagerness, examining
the scriptures daily to see if these things were so.” 2 Timothy
3, 16 and 17. All scripture is breathed out
by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction,
and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete,
equipped for every good work. Notice the babble in 2 Timothy
2, 15 through 17, contentious talk, debating without change,
unreasoning, being emotive. I appreciate my time in seminary
and I’m very thankful for it, but there was very much an indication
of situations where people went beyond and the theology became
the end instead of the means by which we would know Christ
and be servants for his word. It is vital to know the Word
of God in order to uphold His holiness and our sinfulness.
And I loved about the Bereans in Acts 17, 11. Test the teachings
to ensure they align with the Word, as the Bereans did. Do
not delegate or become passive, as is the norm today. We cannot
delegate these things to the pastor and let them stand on
their own out there. We need to be engaged, fighting for the
faith. Defend the inspiration and the inerrancy of all the
scriptures. The Holy Spirit testifies in the heart of all believers
in support of this reality. I mention this one because it’s
so frustrating because all these places say they believe in the
Word of God, but then when you get into them, there are those
who don’t accept any of Pauline epistles because he was misogynist.
So you throw that out. Others that it’s a red letter
only. So they only believe the words of Christ. And if you show
that Christ said certain things about gay marriage or whatever,
oh, well, those things we don’t include. So they continually
slice and dice the word of God so they don’t accept much of
the word of God, especially the Old Testament. God was just too
mean back in those days. So purge idolatry, 1 Corinthians
10, 14. Therefore, my beloved, flee from
idolatry. Ephesians 5.5, For you may be
sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral, or impure,
or who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance
in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with
empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes
upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners
with them. For at one time you were darkness,
but now you are light in the Lord. Galatians 5.20, idolatry,
sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions,
divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.
I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things
will not inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t allow this idolatry
to creep in. The closer you get to God, the
more holy he is to you. The closer you are, the more
undone and truly humble you will become in your desire to obey.
And note that these passages were all from Paul to believers. Kill sin, 1 John 3, 4. Everyone who makes a practice
of sinning, ongoing sin, also practices lawlessness. Sin is
lawlessness. John 8, 34, Jesus answered him,
truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave
to sin. Romans 6, 11, so you also must
consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Colossians 3, 5, put to death therefore what is earthly in
you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness,
which is idolatry. Romans 8, 13, for if you live
according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the spirit you
put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Do not become
complacent. Sinful thoughts, desires, and
actions must be purged, as Christ told us. Take your thoughts captives. Do not keep secret sins. Do not
fall for the, I’ve never been convicted line. It’s false. The devil will flee from you
if you resist him. Go to battle with the Holy Spirit
and with the brethren. How do we do all these things?
Devote yourself. The seventh item there. In order
to apply all these things listed above, to devote yourself to
the Father, by the Son, and through the Holy Spirit, apply the disciplines
of the Christian life, and the Holy Spirit will sanctify and
guide you as you grow in God’s grace and Christlikeness. Prayer
and fasting, praise, worship, reading and the study of the
Word, meditating on God’s Word, fellowship with other believers,
and serving. Do not let the evil one divert
you through the business of life. Protect this work. It’s absolutely
essential to be transformed from the world. J.C. Rowland, holiness,
I love this quote. A holy violence, a conflict,
a warfare, a fight, a soldier’s life, a wrestling are spoken
of as a characteristic of the true Christian. And Martyn Lloyd-Jones. I am not to live a good and holy
life to become a Christian. I am to live the holy life because
I am a Christian. So in conclusion, we’re called
and commanded to see God as He reveals Himself in His Word.
Anything less is an invention of man in his idolatry. Holy,
holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His
glory. Defend the honor and glory and holiness of God. J.C. Ryle, let us receive nothing,
believe nothing, follow nothing which is not in the Bible, nor
can be proved by the Bible. If you do not see God as holy,
holy, holy, you’re in a very precarious place as a professing
Christian. How can a Christian not see God in this way? Repent
and know your God. If you do not have the assurance
of salvation because you are not a believer in Christ, I urge
you to consider the gospel message of Christ as your Savior. Please
seek the Father while he may still be found. Please reach
out and talk to myself or anyone else here about this most precious
gift. Salvation in Christ is the only
path to heaven. There is nothing more amazing
or important to discuss. Your eternity depends on it.
We have the blessed privilege of knowing who the creator of
the universe is and he cares for us and wants to have fellowship
and communion with us through his revelation and our relationship
with him through Christ and by the Holy Spirit. Come to him
through the saving work of Christ, repent, and reorder your life
out of duty, out of respect, out of love. Let’s pray. Holy Father, thank you for giving
us your word to learn about your word and to apply it to our lives.
Please, Lord, fan the flames of our zeal and desire to grow
closer and more intimate with you through what we have learned
about why we seek to know your holiness. Pray that you’ll help
us to purify ourselves, eliminate sin in ourselves, eliminate the
idolatry in our lives. and accept the discipline you
place upon us as a result, and help us to look to your word
for all answers. Send us forth to witness to the
world boldly, and with humility, the truth, mercy, and love of
the gospel. In Christ we pray, amen.