Moses was on the backside of
a desert, and he came to a bush, and it
was burning. It wasn't consumed. And God called out to him, and
he told Moses, he said, take off your shoes. The place where
you're standing is holy ground. That's the first time the word
holy is used in scriptures. with an object of His mercy in a mediator. That burning bush
was Christ. That little bramble bush that
looked weak and frail, but it burned. It wasn't consumed. Taking off His shoes was symbolic
of putting on reverence before God and approaching Him only
in a substitute. This is the way that God told
Moses that he would be approached in
holiness. When we begin to think of the
attributes of God, what we're saying is those qualities
about God that's only attributed to Him essentially. Holiness. The Scripture sets
forth that holiness is the Lord. He is a holy God. The holy Scriptures set forth the holy God. Now the Spirit of God, the Holy
Spirit, is going to teach us of the holy God. Holy. We hear that word. We use it. We say it. But whenever it comes to the
absolute understanding of it, we're lost. Just the contemplation
of it. This is the reaction of coming
and starting to have some kind of understanding of holiness. This is what it is. Job said
it. He said, I abhor myself, and
I repent in dust and ashes. God is holy. That's what I want
to look at tonight for just a few minutes. And I've thought about
this all day. What am I going to say about
the holiness of God? I don't even feel... Well, number
one, to say that I'm not worthy to be standing here talking about
it is an understatement. But holiness is that attribute
of God, like all of His attributes. I plan to look in this study,
this is part of that study, the God that we worship. Immutability. I want to look
at God's immutability. I mean, I can say it. I can use the word and I can
say God doesn't change. That's as far as my understanding
goes. holiness. How do you set forth
the holiness of God? Holiness is that purity or the
state of His nature. He is the standard of holiness. What that means is what He wills
is holy, is pure, is right. What he says is holy. What he does is holy. There are no questions about
it. Romans 9. Let me, I'll read this
to you. Romans chapter 9, verse 13, 14. As it is written, Jacob have
I loved, he shall have I hated. What shall we say then? Is there
unrighteousness with God? God forbid. God chose to love one And he
chose to hate another. That's right. Is there unrighteousness
with God? God forbid. Holiness essential to God only. Isaiah. Let me read this to you. Isaiah
chapter 6. 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. Above it stood the seraphims,
and each one had six wings, and with twain He covered His face,
with twain He covered His feet, with twain He did fly. And one
cried unto another and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord
of hosts. The whole earth is full of His
glory. We don't explain holiness. We bow to the fact that God Almighty
declares Himself holy, right, pure. And what He does is holy, for
He is holy. Isaiah 57, 15 says, For thus
saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose
name is holy. And all that that name is, It brings us to a point, as Job
said, we just bow to it. We read his Scriptures. We hear
his word preached. We hear what is said concerning
the Lord, what He does and when He does it and how He does it.
And we say, Lord, You're holy. We don't question Him. Jacob have I loved without holy love." Without his
love being holy love, then him loving Jacob and hating Esau
would be unfair. What's the difference in those
two boys? They had not done one thing. before birth, before they
were born, neither having done good nor evil. If holy love is
not attached, is not realized, is not understood, then you say,
well, that's not fair. His wrath, Jacob have I loved
and Esau have I hated. If it's not holy wrath, then
it's just cruelty. Wrath is holy. His love is holy. His grace is holy. I will have mercy on whom I have
mercy. Without holiness, His grace would
be just empty pity. What He does is right. It's holy. It's pure. And the reason that
men find fault with it is that they don't believe God's holy.
They do attribute unfairness to Him, cruelty to Him. Why would He wipe out? Why would
He send damnation and fire? Why? Because He's holy. His holiness and purity and sacredness
is the rule of all of His actions. Psalm 19, 8-9 says, The statutes,
the orders of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandments,
the commands of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. Why does
God send one here and another here? And why does God cause
one to be raised up and another one is put down? Why does God
make one well and one sick? Why? Because He is holy. The fear of the Lord is clean,
enduring forever. The judgments, the verdict of
the Lord is true and righteous altogether. The verdict. Was it right for God to love
Jacob? Yes. Was it right for God to
hate Esau? Yes. What made it right, God
did it. He's holy. Praying now that I
speak respectfully, no other attribute is spoken of more solemnly
or frequently than His holiness The greatest display that I can
think of, and I still continue with that. I pray I speak respectfully
here. The greatest display that I can
comprehend with my little fickle mind is the Day of Calvary. Listen to
this, Psalm 22. I'll read it again to you. Psalm
22. My God. My God. Why hast Thou forsaken me? Why art Thou so far from helping
me from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the daytime,
but Thou hearest not. And in the night season, and
am not silent, but Thou art holy. O Thou that inhabitest the praises
of Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ, the surety,
God-man, mediator. He cried out under the weight
of divine wrath against sin. This was truly His words. Here He is as the representative. Here is the substitute. There's
the Lamb, there's God's Lamb, made sin, hanging upon that cross. He's been beaten, spit on, beard
plucked out, whipped, stripped naked, nailed to a cross, forsaken of God. Forsaken of
God and men. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? Never did he lose sight of his
relationship to his father or his father's character. My
God, my God, you are holy. Oh, that I might be brought by
the Spirit of God to remember that when He leads me, providentially,
wherever He leads me, Lord, You're holy. And to bow to that and
have a heart that's made tender toward His holiness, that He's
right. God's holiness forbids him to turn a blind eye
to sin, he will by no means clear the guilty." And Christ was made
sin. He was made the guiltiness. And
Himself, He who knew no sin, was made sin. Here again, we
are truly over our heads as far as understanding. but that he
was actually made sin? Yes, he was. He was actually
made sin. God forsook him. If he was not
made sin, then God killed an innocent man. He died. He died. His soul was made an
offering for sin. Rather than God's holiness be
compromised, The surety must die. Why? Because without the
shedding of blood, there's no remission. There's no forgiveness. By one man, sin entered in this
world, and death by sin. You know, this world
thinks of sin as nothing more than just a mistake or a defect. And when we start talking about
sin, We talk about sin and really what we're talking about as a
general rule are the effects of it. We're talking about the
evidences of it. We're talking about the manifestations
of it. We're talking about the transgressions that are committed. We're talking about sins, transgressions
that are committed because of sin. Sin, though we may define it,
which I'm going to make a couple of statements as far as what
the Scripture says is defining it, but I can't explain it. How do you explain what the Scripture
has not explained? It's defined it. And I'll tell
you what I mean by this. If I tried to explain it, I'll
end up explaining it away because I'm not going to set it forth
in its heinousness. Romans 6.6 says that it's a body. It's a body. Knowing this, that
our old man is crucified with Him that the body of sin might
be destroyed. is a parasite. Sin is an intruder
that mysteriously invaded this world and it defiled man and
earth and the heavens, just everything. The earth was cursed because
of this monster that nobody seems to think anything
of. It's just that it's not really
that big a deal. It's a destroyer that promises
life and it pays in death. Sin. Now here's the definition. I said I can define it. can explain it, it's the violation
of God's law. That's what it says. Sin is a
transgression of the law. Can you explain that to me? I defined it. Transgression of
God's law. Listen, let me tell you something.
When the Lord Jesus Christ was hanging upon the cross, God Almighty
knew. God Almighty only knew what was
going on. He was made sin. We quote 2 Corinthians
5.21 often, and I have no understanding of what he did. I have no understanding
of what he was made sin. That intruder, that monster,
That parasite. That body that He was made. He
was made the essence of it. That God dealt with the essence
of it. The essence of what sin is concerning
all of His elect. He was made sin. You know, people
say, well, you're saying He was a sinner. Nuh-uh. That's talking
about transgressions. No, he was made sin. Why did God forsake him? Because
God is holy. He is of purer eyes than to behold
evil. Canst not look on iniquity. So man's acceptance before God
is founded on God's holiness. I tell you, by His holiness,
we are assured of salvation. Listen to this Scripture, Hebrews
6, 17, wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs
of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by
an oath. What oath was that? Here it is,
Psalm 89, 35, 36. I have sworn by my holiness that
I will not lie unto David, unto the spiritual David, unto Christ.
His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before
me." Holiness. Having sworn by his
holiness, this is what he said, I'm swearing by what I am, holiness. I've sworn by my holiness, he
said, if I fail. If I fail to save all that I've
everlastingly loved, if I fail to secure, if I fail to bring
unto myself by my Son, by my Lamb, if I fail to save all that
I have everlastingly loved and chosen in my Son. If I fail,
then I am not holy. I have sworn by my holiness,
by my purity, by my rightness. His elect, chosen, redeemed,
called and preserved all according to holiness. And I can't even
enter into what it is. Exodus 15, verse 11, Who is like
unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like unto thee,
glorious in holiness, fearful in praising, doing wonders? Can I read a verse of Scripture
in closing? And this is what I'd like for
us to do as we contemplate His holiness. Habakkuk 2.20. But the Lord is
in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence
before Him. Just be quiet. God is holy. Let's stand together.