I'll set this water up here.
Try to keep it out of my way. Alright, let's turn to Ezekiel
43. Ezekiel 43. I want to begin reading in verse
12. Ezekiel 43 verse 12. This is the law of the house. Upon the top of the mountains,
the whole limit thereof, round about, shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the
house." Now, Ezekiel was shown something in the beginning of
the book. He was shown a glimpse of Christ as he is now. He saw
Christ in a glorified state as the God-man in his throne. And he said it was as the appearance
of the glory of God. This is what he saw when he saw
this man, Christ Jesus. And then for eight chapters,
the Lord Jesus goes about measuring a city. And yet the city is a
temple. The whole city is a temple and
he goes about measuring this temple. Every inch of this temple. He showed him the outside wall
that protected the holy from the profane. He showed the whole
house and then all the little chambers that were connected
to the house. And then now he brings Ezekiel to the gate of
this house and he begins to speak to Ezekiel. And this is where
he ends up. This is the law of the house. upon the top of the mountain,
the whole limit thereof, the whole boundary, the whole house
and everything around it and in it, shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the
house. The house that's spoken of here
is the house of the Holy God. It's not this building. It's
not any other building. Our God does not dwell in temples
made with hands. This house is the people of God. He said, you are the temple of
the living God. For it's written, I will dwell
in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they
shall be my people. That's who's represented by this
house of God. It's the house of God where God
dwells. First of all, it's the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's our head. He's the head
and He's the temple. The scripture said, when John
was shown the revelation of Jesus Christ, it said, he looked, he
saw this city that we're talking about, he saw this city, and
he said, and I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty
and the Lamb are the temple of it. So He's the temple we're
talking about, the house we're talking about. And then His people
are the house. United with Him, He in them and
they in Him. His people are this house. Ephesians 2.21 said, In whom? In Christ. All the building.
This house is fitly framed together. And it grows. You ever heard
of a house growing? This house grows. It's a living
house. It groweth unto a holy temple
in the Lord, in whom you also are builded together for a habitation
of God through the Spirit." So he said, you're built up to dwell
in Christ and you're built up for God to dwell in you. This
is this house we're talking about. Christ is a Son over His own
house, whose house we are, if we hold fast the confidence until
the end. He's the temple of His people,
and His people are His temple. We're one in Christ. So the house
we're talking about is the house of God. It's the Lord's house.
Wherever we're gathered together, There's the Lord's house. And
wherever you are in whom Christ dwells, an individual believer,
there's the Lord's house. Each individual believer and
this whole house together, we're the house of the Lord. He dwells
in us. Now, what I want to show you
is the Holy One is speaking. It's Christ speaking and He declares
here that the law of His house is holiness. the law of his house
is holiness. He says, upon the top of the
mountain, the whole limit thereof, this whole house, round about,
shall be most holy. Now, holiness is of utmost importance
and we see that here because he says it twice. He says, behold,
this is the law of the house and he says it at the beginning
and then at the end. It's as if he's saying the alpha
and omega of his house is holiness. Holiness. And then he states
the fact, the law itself, the statute itself. He says, this
is the law of the house. And then he states it. Upon the
top of the mountain, the whole limit thereof round about shall
be most holy. And then he says again, behold,
this is the law of the house. So the law of God's house, that's
our subject. Alright, first of all, God's
house shall be most holy because Christ dwells in us and we in
Him. That's the first reason. Now
look back up at verse 4. When he brings Ezekiel up to
the gate of this house, Ezekiel's sitting there watching, looking
over the house that he's been shown. It's a spiritual a spiritual
house. He's seeing visions of God. It's
not a literal house he's looking at. He's seeing an illustration
of the church of God. And he says as he was standing
there, verse 4, the glory of the Lord, Ezekiel 43, 4, the
glory of the Lord came into the house. The glory of the Lord
came into the house. Look at verse 5, and the Spirit
took me up brought me into the inner court. And behold, the
glory of the Lord filled the house. And I heard Him speaking. He heard the glory of the Lord
speaking. I heard Him speaking unto me
out of the house. He's speaking out of the house.
The glory of the Lord is. And He says, and the man stood
by me. While he spoke to me out of the
house, the God-man stood by me, he said. The glory of God here
is his Son. That's who the glory of God is.
You know that. The glory of God is his Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the only way a child of God,
the only way a child of God is sanctified, set apart, made holy. The only way the whole house
of God is set apart and made holy is by God in Christ Jesus. It's by Him. It's by our triune
God through the work of Christ. Christ must fill the house with
His glory. That's how it's going to be sanctified.
That's how it's going to be made holy. Christ must fill the house
with His glory. Now, what is holiness? We talked
about that. What is holiness? Well, the chief attribute of God is holiness.
That's who God is. He's holiness. He's holy. Now
let me give you a good definition of holy. Hebrews 7.26 says, speaking
of Christ, it said, such a high priest became us who is holy,
harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, made higher than
the heavens. Any of those and all of those
tell us what holiness is. That's what holiness is. That's
who Christ is. That's what Christ is. As He
comes to fullness of the Godhead bodily, He's holy. God's, in
His nature, is purity. His holiness is the purity of
His nature. That means that he's without
spot, he's without stain. There's nothing like that in
God's nature. He's holy. He's light. He's purity
itself. He is glory itself. And in Him
is no darkness at all. God is holy. And not only is
He holy, He's so pure, He's of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. That means that He can't look
upon you and me, in us, just left to ourselves. He's of pure
eyes to behold iniquity. Therefore, everybody that makes
up this house, we've got to be as holy as God is, or He can't
have anything to do with us. Nothing at all. The Scripture
says, when He was given those, told Him to bring those sacrifices,
and all. He told them, it shall be perfect
to be accepted. There can be no blemish in it.
It's got to be perfect to be accepted of God. And that's true
of me and that's true of you. Brethren, you know people have
done everything in the world trying to make themselves holy.
They try to make themselves accept of God. They fast from things. They scourge themselves. They
abstain from all sorts of things trying to make themselves holy.
They go to the law of God and try to keep the law of God to
make themselves holy. But we can't make ourselves holy.
Here's the problem. Me and you are conceived in sin. And so we come forth with a nature
that's altogether unholy. It's altogether the opposite
of God. It's not holy. It is harmless. It is defiled. It's not separate
from sinners. We are sinners. And we're not
made higher than the heavens. We're made low as hell is what
we've made. That's who we are by nature.
So how are we going to be made holy? How are we going to come
into God's presence? The only way is if God does it.
He doesn't say they ought to be holy. He's not going to leave
this in our hands and say, I hope my house will be holy. They should
be holy. He says they shall be holy. There's
no maybes with God. When He speaks, He's saying this
is what shall be. This is what shall be. Now the
way we're made holy is this. Number one, God the Father. God
the Father sanctified His house in Christ before the foundation
of the world. When Jude wrote in Jude 1, he
wrote to them that are sanctified by God our Father. He's the one
that set us apart. He set us apart from all of the
sinners in the world. He set us apart not based on
anything in us. He set us apart. made us holy,
made us holy vessels unto Him. He did that. And then God the
Son came, and His whole house was in Christ when He went about
obeying the law. And when He went to the cross,
and He justified His people from all our sins, and He brought
in everlasting righteousness, when He obeyed God with a holy
heart, the Scripture says, both He that sanctifyeth And they
who are sanctified are all of one, for which cause he is not
ashamed to call his brethren. And Hebrews 10.14 says, By one offering he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. Christ did that. He did it by
his one offering. Perfected forever them that are
sanctified. Here we are, sinners. Here we
are, dead in trespasses and in sins. And we don't know God and
we don't care for the true and living God. We hate the true
and living God according to the Scriptures. So how are we going
to be brought to see Christ as our sanctification? How are we
going to be made to turn from our vain way and our vain works
and all these vain ideas we have about how we make ourselves holy? How are we going to be truly
made holy, separated from all that, and brought to see that
Christ is our only holiness? How is that going to happen?
Scripture says we're sanctified by God the Holy Spirit. Turn
over to 2 Thessalonians 2.13. Hold your place here. You know
this Scripture, but I want you to see something. 2 Thessalonians
2.13. We were just like everybody else
in ourselves. But now look at what it says,
2 Thessalonians 2.13. It says, we're bound to give
thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord,
because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation. Now
listen, look how he did it. Through sanctification of the
Spirit. He determined before that the
Holy Spirit would sanctify us, make us holy. in the experience
of grace, and belief of the truth. He would bring us to believe
the gospel. Where unto He called you by our gospel to what? What did He call you to? To the
obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. To obtaining
the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now go back to Ezekiel 43 and
I want you to see all this illustrated. Ezekiel 43. We've got Christ
here now. He's pictured in His resurrected
glory. He's speaking to Ezekiel. He's
shown him His house. Now look at what happened. Christ
Jesus, the glory of God, comes into us. He comes into these
earthen temples through the Holy Spirit. Look at verse 4. Ezekiel
43, 4. The glory of the Lord came into
the house. And then the Holy Spirit, when
He comes into the house, He lifts our hearts out of this earth.
He lifts us from looking at ourselves. And He turns us in a whole other
direction. He brings us into that inner
court, into that presence of God to see the Lord Jesus Christ
seated there. Look, verse 5. And so the Spirit
took me up and brought me into the inner court. And then, you
remember how the temple, the old covenant temple was sanctified?
Moses built it, and there it is all built and everything,
and all of a sudden, the Shekinah glory, the cloud of God came
into that temple, and it was sanctified. That place was holy. It was holy. Well, look here.
By the everlasting covenant of grace, spiritual sanctification
happens the same way. Verse 5, And behold, the glory
of the Lord filled the house. He comes into us, and He turns
us up, and He shows us that inner court of God in His presence
in that most holy place, and He shows us Christ seated there.
And the glory of the temple, the glory of Christ fills the
house. Fills the house. And when that
happens, brethren, it's just what Paul described over there
in 2 Corinthians 4, 6. He said, God who commanded the
light to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give
us the light of the knowledge of what? The glory of God. And where do we see it? In the
face of Christ Jesus. And the Holy Spirit said, and
then we're changed into that same image from glory to glory
by the Spirit of the Lord. This is what He does in this
work. And then we begin to hear. We begin to really hear the gospel
of our Redeemer. We really hear what He's saying,
what He's teaching us then. Look here, verse 6. And I heard
Him speaking unto me. I heard the glory of the Lord
speaking unto me for the first time out of the house. Now I
like this. Get the picture here. There He
is. Christ is in the inner court
of the house. That's where Ezekiel said he saw Him. Well, there's
Christ. He turns our affection and we
look into the inner court of God by faith and we see Christ
seated at the right hand of God. We hear it in the gospel. We
see Him there by faith. We see Him there. And He speaks
to us out of the house. He speaks to us from that place
where He is at and through this house right here as the gospel
is going forth, He speaks to us. He speaks to us out of the
house. And while He is speaking to us
out of the house, look here, and the man stood by me. There
he was. This is the God-man. This is
who he'd been talking about from the beginning of the book. He
sees him in the house in the inner court. He's talking to
him out of the house and there he stands right beside him. Why? He's interceding for him and
he's going to make the word effectual. He's going to make him hear it
in his heart. That's what Christ does for us. And that's how we
come to bow and believe and hear this gospel. Because he makes
the glory be filled up in the house. And then through the gospel,
He turns us. He turns us. He turns us from
our works, from the law, from ourselves. He turns us completely.
And He turns us to Him to rest in Him. Look at verse 12 again. He says, this is the law of the
house. Upon the top of the mountain, the whole limit thereof round
about, the whole house, shall be most holy. Behold, this is
the law of the house." This is what He tells us in our heart.
This is what He declares in our hearts. He says to you when He's
done this work, He comes and He says, this is the law of the
house. Here's the gospel of the house. Because Christ is seated in the
mount of God, accepted of God, holy, harmless, undefiled, separate
from sinners, made higher than the heavens, and because all
His people are set down in Him, in the mountain, in the top of
the mountain, the whole house is holy. The whole house is holy. You're sanctified. You're holy. Behold, this is the law of the
house. This is the good news. This is
the gospel of the house. Our holiness is the Lord Jesus
Christ seated at the right hand of God, or as Paul said it, so
that no flesh or glory in His presence. Of God are you in Christ,
who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification. and redemption. So now we start
glorying in the Lord and in the Lord only. Now that's what we
see first of all. God's house must be holy. And
the only way this house can be made holy is for God to come
in the person of His Son and make us holy and go back to glory. And then send forth this gospel
and fill each one of these earthen vessels and make us His temple,
fill us with His glory, teach us His gospel, and turn us from
looking to the works of our hands to make us holy, and turn us
to see, I'm holy in my Redeemer. There's something, I don't know
what the word is for it, but there's something that natural
man can't understand about this here particularly. True sanctification,
true holiness, when a man's really been sanctified in his heart,
He stops looking to himself and looks only to Christ, His sanctification. That's true sanctification. That's
true holiness. Alright, here's the second thing.
God's house shall be most holy because now the motive of the
sanctified heart is the glory of God. It's the glory of Christ. That's our motive in everything
now because of Him. Now look at verse 7. Ezekiel
43, 7. He said unto me, Son of man,
now get this, the place of my throne and the place of the soles
of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children
of Israel forever, and my holy name the place of my holy throne,
the place of the soles of my feet, where I'm going to dwell
forever, and my holy name shall the house of Israel no more defile."
They won't defile it anymore. Now the house of Israel, spiritually
speaking, is his church, his people, those that he sanctifies.
Now, when he speaks here and he talks about the place of my
throne, and the place of the soles of my feet. He's talking
about His child. He's talking about each one of
His people in His church collectively. You see, whenever He takes up
His dwelling in our heart, Christ becomes not only our Savior,
but He becomes our Lord. He starts to rule. He rules the
house now. He rules. His throne is set up
in the heart of His child, and He rules in the heart of His
child now. He rules in this house. I'm not the head of this house.
Nobody else here is the head of this house. Christ is the
head of this house. He rules in this house. And through the gospel, He does
that. He sets the throne in our heart.
Look over at Psalm 110. You're familiar with this passage
as well, but look at it now as we relate it to this. Psalm 110 and verse 1, the Lord
said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand till I make thine
enemies thy what? Thy footstool. Christ just said,
there's a place where my feet are going to be. And he said,
now you sit down here at my right hand till I make your enemies
your footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength
out of Zion. Remember last time we saw the
Gospels going forth out of Zion, out of that heavenly Zion where
Christ is seated. And that's the strength, the
rod of the strength of God is the gospel. And he says, rule
thou, that's what a king does, rule thou in the midst of thine
enemies. When he comes to you and me,
you know what he finds us as being? Enemies in our minds by
wicked works. That's what we are. But when
he gets done with us, you know what we are then? We're his footstool. We wear his feet well, because
he reigns his throne set up in our heart. And when He does this,
He does it by making us willing, making us willing to bow. Verse
3, Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the
beauties of what? Holiness. From the womb, that
means from the very beginning of being born again, of the morning
thou hast to do of thy youth. He becomes our Lord. He becomes
our Savior. Our old motive in everything
we did was law. Our old motive was reward. Our
old motive was legal fear. Our old motive was trying to
put on a show. Our old motive was just all these vain reasons. That was our motive. And with
God, I've told you this time and again, what matters is motive.
What's the heart? The motive of the heart. That's
what Christ was saying when he said it's not what you put in
that's going to defile you. It's that sewer tank, that sewer
pit you call a heart. That's what's coming out of it's
what's defiling you. All your motives are wrong. They're
murder, and they're stealing, and robbery, and they're adultery,
and they're thieving, and mainly God's glory. Stealing His glory. Robbing Him. But now, when He
dwells in that heart, our new motive now is Christ and His
name. It's His love and His honor. That's what constrains us now
in our heart. We serve Him in the beauties
of holiness because we want to honor Him. Do you want to honor
God? Do you want to honor Christ?
His gospel makes you want to honor Him. His gospel makes you
want to serve Him. If it's a burden to us and if
it's a task to us and we just don't want to have any part of
it, that's not a sanctified heart. That old man doesn't want to
have a part. He hasn't been touched, nothing has been done to him.
But in the new man, there's a delight to want to honor the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's there. You can't be born
again and not have it. And it's from the womb of the
morning. When He does this work, just like a baby comes out of
the womb, what do they do? They cry. Do they cry to be made
alive? They cry because they are alive.
And when He makes you to be born again, you want to serve Him
in the beauties of holiness, not to be holy, because you are
holy. Because you are alive. And He
does this just like that dew comes down in the morning. And
it's so on that tender plant. Now Christ and His doctrine becomes... It's like water to us. It's like
dew unto us. It's like nourishment to us.
We have to have it. We want it. We want to serve
Him. We want to know more and more about Him. Now, when he
does this, he says in our text, back in Ezekiel 43, he says,
they won't defile my house anymore. They won't defile my house anymore.
He speaks in our heart and he says, my child, defile not my
house anymore. Don't you know you're the temple
of the living God? Don't defile my house anymore. That's what
he teaches. That's what we hear in the gospel
continually. And here's why. Don't defile my holy name, he
says. Whenever He gives us life, just like when you give your
children life, they get your name. You give them your name.
The men, we give them our name. He's given us His name. The Lord,
our righteousness. Paul said, of whom the whole
family in heaven and earth is named. That's who we have His
name. And this is the greatest privilege
you could ever be given. in heaven or earth, anywhere,
this is the greatest privilege of all, hands down, period. To be of the household of God. To be a son of God. To have God
as our Father, Christ as our elder brother. To be an heir
of God in joint heirs with Christ. It's the greatest privilege of
all. And so our new motive now, do
you children love your father? Your earthly father? You love
him? Do you want to do something that would cause the whole world
to look at your earthly Father and laugh at Him and scoff at
Him and mock Him? You don't want to do that if
you love Him. You wouldn't want that for anything if you love
Him. Well, we don't want to see the name of our God mocked and
ridiculed and reproached better than the law, better than anything,
any other motive that there could have been, better than fear,
better than any constraint, better than anything else, the law of
holiness constrains us because here's what our desire is. Paul
told Timothy, you teach them to be faithful husbands and wives,
you teach them to be faithful fathers and mothers, you teach
them to be faithful employers and employees, that the name
of God and His doctrine be not blasphemed. That's why. That's why. That's our motive.
That's our motive. This is better law than that
legal law. This is the law of faith and
love. Holiness is. The chief way we no longer defile
this house is what Robbie read. He turns us from all our false
gods and all our false ways and even our sins. He says there
in Ezekiel 43, 7. He said that Israel, this is
what Israel had been doing. They called all their false gods
kings. Baal, you know Baal? Baal worship? Baal means Lord. That's like
calling him a king. It means Lord. He says, they're
not going to defile me anymore, neither they nor their kings
by their whoredom. He's saying, they're spiritual
whorlum and all these, he called them kings. That's what they
were calling them, they're lords. He says, now that I'm the king,
now that my son has dominion in their heart, they're going
to throw those little weaklings away. They're not going to foul
my house with those kings anymore. And look, nor by the carcasses
of their kings. You know what the carcasses of
their kings were? All those little dead statues
of their kings. And all those little dead idols
that represent their idol gods. He calls them carcasses because
they're just dead, dumb idols. He said, they're not going to
defile my house anymore. They're not. He says, like they have
in all their high places, all their churches, what they've
established. He says, my people aren't going to do that. He says,
they're not going to defile my name, verse 8, by their setting
of their threshold by my threshold. What's a threshold? That's the
entrance into the house. That's how you enter the house.
He says, when I sanctify my people, all those ways that they invented
to enter into the Lord's house. They used to tell a man, well,
you know, by your will you could be born again. That's some other
threshold. That's not our entrance. Or they
say, you know, if your father and your mother was a child of
God, that means you're automatically a son of God. It's not by blood. That's another threshold. Or
they say, you know, my mama did something for me or my daddy
did something for me. When I was eight days old, they circumcised
me or they sprinkled me or they baptized me. That's another threshold. And he says, when I sanctify
my people in their hearts, they're not going to defile my temple
by setting up that threshold by my threshold. His entrance
is Christ's way. Through faith in Christ, believing
unto righteousness, and then we confess him publicly in believers
baptism. Christ is the entrance into his
church. You have to be born into it. Born into it of his spirit. And then he says this, verse
8, and they're not going to set their posts by my posts. What's
a post for? It's a pillar. The ground and
pillar of the truth is the post of God's house. It's the doctrine,
the true, pure doctrine of God and His grace. That's the post,
the pillar that holds up God's house. And he says, then I'm
going to come in here teaching for commandments, as my commandments,
the doctrines of men and set those up by my word. He said,
when I've separated them and made them holy, they won't do
that anymore. They won't do that anymore. And
then he says, and they won't defile my holy name by their
abominations they've committed. That's all the other sin involved. That's men saying, I don't care
what God says, I'm going to do it my way. I'm going to live
in rebellion. I'm going to do whatever it is.
He says, now listen, God says here, when I sanctify my people,
they're not going to do that anymore. He says, my church is
not going to do that anymore. My people are not going to do
that anymore. He's saying here, a man had truly been sanctified,
he had truly been called out of darkness into light, till
he is totally, thoroughly renounced all his vain gods and all his
vain works and all his so-called salvation that he had. He said
he's just going to be... that's not going to be anymore. Paul said, I renounce it all,
I count it all dumb, he said. Now that's repentance. That's
true sanctification. That's to be called into light
out of darkness. And the Lord said, when my people are called,
that's what's going to happen with them. Now either God can
do what he says he can do, either God fulfills his word that he
says here he's going to fulfill, or he doesn't. Which one? He
does. He sanctifies his people out
of that mess and brings them out of it. He just brings them
out of it. He said in 2 Corinthians 6.16, he said, what agreement
has the temple of God with idols? What agreement does the church
of God have with false gospel? None. Absolutely none. He said,
you're the temple of the living God. He said, you don't have
any. And he said, now don't stay in there and don't try to think
I'm going to effect some change by staying in their midst. He
said, come out from among them and be you separate, saith the
Lord, and touch not the unclean and I'll receive you and I'll
be a father to you and you'll be my sons and my daughters,
saith the Lord Almighty. That's holiness. It's God separating
you out bringing you into his house and planting you in his
house that he might get all the praise and all the glory. Now
that's his house. Now here's the last thing. I'm
going to get personal now. God's house is kept in holiness
through the constant preaching of Christ. Look at verse 10. He says, Thou son of man, show
the house. Now look at that. Show the house
to the house of Israel. Show the house to the house of
Israel that they may be ashamed of their iniquities. And let
them measure the pattern. Christ, what He's done for His
people, what He does in His people, that's the house. He says, you
show Christ the house to the house of Israel. He says, you
preach Christ and what He's done to my house. When we see Christ,
we hear Christ preach, we come here to hear Him exalted and
hear about His works and hear everything He's done. I've been
trying this whole message to show you the house, Christ the
house. Showing you what Christ does
in His people, the house. And how He brings us to obedience
to Him, to His feet. And makes us constrained by the
motive of the gospel, the holiness of God, the love of God. Do you
see Him when He walked this earth as He was working that work for
us? Do you see how He sanctified His Father? He sanctified His
Father. He looked at His Father as being
the most holy, the most worthy of all reverence and all honor
of anybody else on this earth. When He got up in the morning,
He said, I must be about my Father's business. And he didn't stop
until he cried out and said, it is finished. His business,
everywhere he went, every day, all the time, was to do the will
of his Father. That's sanctifying the Father. Well, you say, well, that was
his purpose of being here, was just that. Well, brethren, that's
our only purpose of being here. Is it not? That's our only reason
for being here. is Christ and His Kingdom. He
said, Seek ye first Christ and His Kingdom. His righteousness. All this other stuff will be
added that you need. That's not what you're after.
What you're here for is Christ and His Kingdom. Sanctify Him
in our hearts. When you look at Him, how He
walked about and see how He obeyed God perfectly. And everything
He did. How every action, every word,
every movement showed that He was a different kind of person
altogether from the sinners He was saving. It showed He was
altogether different from them. He was the lily among thorns.
That's who He was. And that's who He calls us to
be, brethren. That's who He calls us to be.
And now look and see. Look how He suffered and bled
on that cross. Look how He suffered on that
cross, being separated from God, burying the sin of His people
in His... burying your and my sin in His body on that tree.
He's not called you to give up your only begotten Son. He's
not called me to go to a cross and lay down and have spikes
driven through my hands and feet. He's not called on me to be stripped
naked and to be separated from God for God and for my brethren. But when I see what he called
him to do and what he did, that makes me see whatever he calls
me to do is reasonable. Isn't it? Isn't it reasonable? He says, now you show them, Christ,
why? That they may be ashamed of their
iniquities. What makes you ashamed of your
iniquities? When I hear Christ, when I see
Christ, when I behold my Savior, and everything He's done, everything
He did when He walked this earth, everything He did for me, He
said, I'm going to pour out the Spirit on them, and when I do,
they're going to look on me whom they've pierced, and they're
going to mourn. And He said, now you just show them the house,
and that way they'll be ashamed for their iniquity. You see,
you're not going to be ashamed for your iniquities to take you
back to the law. That's not going to make you
ashamed. That's not going to make you ashamed. What's going
to make you ashamed is to see Christ fulfilling that law. What's
going to make you ashamed is to see Christ forsaken on the
cross who fulfilled that law, who willingly gave himself to
be set there as that one who had broken that whole law when
you were the one who broke it and I was the one who broke it.
That's what makes us look at our life and what we've done
when we look at His holy perfection and look at His holy obedience
and look at His consecration. I look at myself and say, I'm ashamed for my iniquities. Now brethren, Christ makes His
house to sanctify Him in His house and in our lives in every
way. Christ makes His house to sanctify
Him. while we're in His house in every
way. Christ's house is not a common place. We're here right now in
His house. This is not a common place like
every other place. Don't treat it common. No, sir. Don't treat it... Christ drove
men out of His temple one day because they were treating His
house like it was a common marketplace. He said, you've turned my house
into a den of thieves. They had no reverence in their
heart for him. They didn't care whose house it was. They'd have
been happy to be in a... To them it was all the same as
being in a brothel. They didn't care. They had no
holiness in their heart. He said, this is the law of the
house. Upon the top of the mountain, the whole limit thereof round
about shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the
house. Holiness is the law of the house. God showed us all
these links He went to, to save us. He showed us He gave His
Son to make us holy. And He tells us now, sanctify
God in your hearts. If that doesn't make us sanctify
God in our hearts, nothing will. And what I mean by that is, if
you don't see how holy God is, in that He wouldn't receive His
child into His house until He sent His Son and He had to die
and purge us of our sins and enter into us and make us holy.
If you don't see how holy that... that makes God to be altogether
holy. Brethren, He will not be approached
lightly. He will not be approached counting
Him common like everything else and everybody else. He just won't.
Now if He goes to those lengths to make us accepted in Christ,
If we can be sure of this, the time that we come together to
worship Him, it's not common like all other times. It's just
not. The whole house is most holy.
The Lord said, it says, the Lord will be sanctified in them that
draw nigh unto Him. Sanctify the Lord God in your
hearts. What does that mean? Let Him be your fear. Let Him
be your dread. David said, I will not offer
to God that which costs me nothing. I wrote this illustration down.
If you wait to talk about sin to folks who aren't sinning,
you won't ever talk about sin. And so I'm going to talk about
this now anyway. I have to. But take my son, for
instance. Especially during the summertime,
Will would rather come here dressed like he just came out of the
dirt at the playground. That's how he'd rather come.
And I always tell him, I say, son, go back there, wash up,
and put on some clothes, the clothes that I bought you. Because
Christ gave his son and purchased the finest garment that could
be purchased for his people. And Christ came and by His gospel
He turned the world upside down to bring the gospel to us to
wash His people from our sin. So, that clothes you put on,
that's not your righteousness and that's not your holiness.
But as you put them on and come to this house, you're going to
think about Him who is the righteousness and holiness of His people. This
is not the beach. This is not the playground. No, no. David said, I won't sacrifice
that which cost me nothing. And I know it's a whole lot easier
to say, yeah, I got to go kind of clean up. I got to go put
some clothes on. I got to do this or that. Show them my house, he said. And if that doesn't make it reasonable
service, there's a problem in the heart. There's a problem
in the heart. And that goes with everything,
everything we do. The priests, and their garments,
and their furniture, and the washings, and the sacrifice,
everything in that old covenant. He had to put on linen garments
then, nothing that would let him sweat. Showing that you've
got to approach God in the holiness of Christ apart from your works.
And he did all those things. Those weren't the holiness, but
they were pictures of it. And that's what I'm saying, brethren,
by these things we teach our children. Well, my child's not
going to understand it. Let me let you in on something.
They don't understand anything about anything. They don't. They sure don't understand nothing
about this. But that's my responsibility and your responsibility. To teach
them. To teach them. Some things are not acceptable
in God's house. They're just not. Women, y'all
look so good on Sundays. That's appropriate. Why not dress
that way Thursday night? It's the same God. He's present. Same King. Read that article
I put in the Bulletin Sunday. He said, offer it to your governor.
Will he accept it? How would we, if we got invited
just to go see Governor Chris Christie, I'd have my kids all
spit shine one or they'd look like they was going to see the
President of the United States. Just for the honor of the office.
We got one here in our midst. Way better than anybody. Christ
the King. He says sanctify me when you
approach me. God says, you tell them these
things. And I'll tell you this too, reverence for God is not
regional. It's not just a northern thing or southern thing. I've been preaching, traveling
preaching for 16 years from Mexico to Jamaica to every corner in
this country to backwood hollows to main street churches. God's
people reverence Him. It's fashionable everywhere you
go. Everywhere you go. He says now, let them measure
the pattern. Christ is the pattern. Just look
at Christ. The height and breadth and length
and depth of His love. The height and breadth and length
and depth of His suffering. The height and breadth and length
and depth of His pain and trouble that He went to, to redeem you.
Measure the measure, He said. You see His consecration? Like
those vessels in the temple that were separated and they couldn't
be used for anything else. He says, you're not your own,
you're bought with a price. You're separated to be used for
something else entirely. Do you see Christ's conformity
to God's will? Holiness is to be set apart,
to be cleansed, to be consecrated, to be conformed to His image.
Do you see Christ's constant communion with the Father? Am
I letting things come between me and the Father? This is included
in holiness. set apart, cleansed, consecrated,
conformed, communing. This is holiness. Holiness. He said, show them the pattern,
verse 11, and if they are ashamed of all that they've done, He
says, if they have a humbled heart, a humbled heart humbled
by grace, If they mourn their sins, if they're ashamed of their
false gods and their vain works, and they're ashamed of not reverencing
God, if their heart's truly sanctified and broken and contrite, He says,
then you show them everything else about Christ. Look at there.
Show them the form of the house, the fashion thereof, the goings
out thereof, the comings in thereof, and all the forms thereof. Show
them all the ordinances thereof and all the forms thereof. and
all the laws thereof, and write it in their sight, that they
may keep the whole form thereof, and all the ordinances thereof,
and do them." You know what that teaches us? He says if they're
ashamed, and their heart's broken and sanctified so that they're
ashamed and they want to honor Christ better when they see the
pattern, He says, I'm going to open it up to them like they've
never even seen it before. He said, when they sanctified
and they walk in my light, I'm going to give them more and more
light and more light and conform them to His image and make them
want to walk in His image more. Well, what if they get mad? Some
usually do. Always. It means they don't have
a heart that's sanctified and God said, leave them alone. Leave
them alone. Just leave them alone. He told
His disciples. He said, you wipe the dust off
your feet and you depart out of that house and don't look
back. What did God do to Nadab and
Bahu when they approached Him? Treated him like he was just
common as dirt. Killed him dead as a hammer. Well, I don't think
God's going to kill me. He probably won't. He'll probably
live to be 100. But he'll just let the world
swallow you up. Swallow you up. I pray you see the pattern. And I pray He's broken our hearts,
make us mourn and be ashamed of our sin. Because He says,
I'm going to show them that pattern. I'm going to show them everything
about Him through and through. More and more. More and more. Alright. Amen.