The Reconciler and the Reconciled

Q: What does the Bible say about the holiness of God?

The Bible emphasizes that the chief attribute of God is His holiness, highlighted in scriptures such as Psalm 99 and Habakkuk 2. The holiness of God is a central theme throughout the Scriptures, indicating that He is entirely separate from sin, exalted above all creation, and the foundation of true worship. In Psalm 99, we see that the people are called to tremble before the holiness of God, while Habakkuk 2:20 reinforces that all the earth should keep silence in His presence. God's holiness dictates that He is not to be treated casually or familiarly; rather, He is to be revered and worshipped with great awe. The burning bush episode with Moses exemplifies this truth, illustrating that encountering God's holiness brings fear and reverence, as demonstrated when Moses hid his face, knowing he was in the presence of the holy God.

Q: How do we know that sinfulness is a serious issue?

The Bible portrays sinfulness as an exceedingly grave issue, primarily understood in light of God's holiness. The seriousness of sinfulness is starkly revealed when we compare humanity to the holiness of God. The apostle Paul said, 'Oh, the exceeding sinfulness of sin,' indicating that it is beyond mere wrongdoings — it is a state of being that stands in stark contrast to God's perfect nature. Understanding sin's gravity comes from recognizing that our pride and self-righteousness often obscure our view of God's holiness. Jesus repeatedly addresses the pride of the Pharisees, pointing out that true humility comes from knowing our state before a holy God. By understanding God's holiness, we grasp how utterly we fall short and how desperately we need grace and redemption.

Q: Why is reconciliation with God important for Christians?

Reconciliation with God is vital as it restores our relationship with Him through Jesus Christ, removing enmity and judgment. Reconciliation is a core teaching of the Christian faith, conveying the importance of being brought back into a right relationship with God. It is crucial because, prior to faith in Christ, we are enemies of God, subject to His wrath due to our sins. As Paul states in Romans 5:10, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. This act did not compromise God's holiness but rather manifested it, allowing God to remain just while justifying the sinner. Knowing that our sins no longer incur judgment is liberating; thus, reconciliation leads to peace, joy, and a new life. As Christians, we are called to live out this reconciliation and encourage others to be reconciled to God through Christ.

If you will, take your Bibles
and open them to the book of Exodus. I'm going to preach this morning
on the subject, The Reconciler and the Reconciled. The Reconciler
and the Reconciled. Now, the message that I'm going
to bring you today is a sermon that I wish I had
heard when I first became interested in spiritual matters. I wish
that the preachers to whom I listened in those days had known these
things. and believed them and preached
them to me. I wish I'd have heard them early, early in my life,
but I did not hear them. And most of these things I've
had to find out by searching the Scriptures alone through
the years. And this message that I'm going
to bring to you this morning is a message that the whole world
needs to hear, but is not hearing it. It's not
being preached in very many places. It's rare to hear a message on
this subject, very rare. And then, thirdly, This message
I'm going to bring to you today is the message, I believe, that
if I had only one message to preach to a new gathering, to
a congregation of people to whom I had never preached and probably
would never preach again, I had only one opportunity to speak
to them, I believe this is what I would say. And this message has but three
divisions, three very simple, easy-to-remember divisions, but of the most vital, vital importance,
the most vital importance. Now, let's look at the text,
Exodus chapter 3. kept the flock of Jethro, his
father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the backside
of the desert and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared
to him in a flame of fire, out of the midst of a And he looked, and behold, the
bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. Moses said, I will now turn aside
and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned. And when the Lord saw that he
turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of
the bush. Who was that angel of the Lord? and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. And he said, Moses, draw not
thy hither, put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place
whereon thou standest is holy ground. Moreover, he said, I
am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,
the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for Moses was afraid to look
upon God. Now, the first division of this
message is just that, the holiness of God, the awesome infinite
holiness of God. Moses hid his face and was afraid to look upon God. Now today's preaching emphasizes
over and over and over again familiarity with God, God's familiarity
with us, our familiarity with God, the love of God, the love
of God, the love of God. God wants you here and God wants
you there. But the Scripture declares over
and over again that the chief attribute of God is not His love,
it's His holiness. His immaculate, infinite, indescribable,
unsearchable, Scripture says, holy is his name. Holy and reverend is his name. Psalm 99 says this, the Lord
reigneth. Let the people tremble. Exalt the Lord our God and worship
at his footstool, for the Lord our God is holy. Zephaniah says in chapter 1,
hold your peace. Hold your tongue. That's something
that is unheard of in this day. Tongues are clattering, clattering,
clattering everywhere. Talking about God. God said to
Job, you're talking about things you don't know anything about.
You're muddying the water, God said to him. Hold your peace. Hold your tongue. at the presence of the Lord,
because he's holy. He's holy. Habakkuk wrote in
chapter 2, the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth
keep silence before him. What they call worship today
is noted for its clamor and noise, not for its silence. Turn over there to Habakkuk chapter
2, over there. One of the last books in the
Old Testament. Habakkuk chapter 2, verse 20. But the Lord is in his holy temple,
let all the earth keep silence before him. And then I want to
read the last few verses in chapter 3 of Habakkuk. Now, people say, talking about God,
said, the Lord's blessed us, and the Lord's fed us, and the
Lord's clothed us, and the Lord's prospered us, and God is good.
God is good when He doesn't feed me. God is good when my needs
are not met. like I want them to be. God is
good. How God deals with me has nothing
to do with His goodness. He's good regardless of what
happens to me, regardless of prosperity or famine. God is good. God is holy. Look
at these last verses of Habakkuk 3. Listen to Habakkuk. Although
the fig tree shall not blossom, there's no blooms on the fig
tree. Neither shall fruit be in the vines. There's no grapes
on the arbor. The labor of the olive shall
fail. There's no fruit on the olive
tree. And the fields yield no meat. And the flocks cut off
from the stall, and from the fold there's no herd in the stall.
These are people who live on the farm. They don't have any blooms on
their fruit trees, and they don't have any cattle in the field,
they don't have any sheep in the fold, they don't have any
herd in the stalls, they don't have any olive on the olive tree,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation. God is holy. God is good. God is God. How infinite, immutable, and
glorious is God's power, yes, and God's wisdom, yes, and God's
love, but how immutable and indescribable is God's holiness. God doesn't do anything because
it's right. It's right because He does it.
He is right. He is light. He is truth. God
is holy. This Bible is called His Holy
Word. His Spirit is called His Holy
Spirit. His temple is not His loving temple, it's His holy
temple. Now think about churches that are named the oasis of love,
or what about the oasis of holiness? God's holiness. His angels are His holy angels.
The ark is in the holy of holies. The mitre on the head of the
high priest says holiness to the Lord. The Messiah, the demons
called him the Holy One of God? I believe one of our greatest
problems in what we call religion, that has led to so many problems
in our personal lives, is we waste up here and brought God
down. Just brought Him down. We couldn't comprehend or understand
God as He is, so we brought Him down to where we can, where we
can talk about Him on our level, and we can commune with Him on
our level. And that's a mistake. God is holy. So holy that Moses, of all people,
Moses could not look upon God. God said to him in Exodus chapter
33, He said, No man can look on me and live. And here, when
God spoke to Moses out of the burning bush, Moses hid his face.
He was afraid to look on God. Daniel, the mighty man of prayer,
Daniel, he said, when I saw the Lord, my comeliness melted into
corruption. I was so overwhelmed and overcome
by the presence of the Lord, I couldn't find anything about
me that wasn't corrupt. I couldn't find anything about
me that I wasn't ashamed of. I tried to, like Moses, I tried
to hide, I tried to find something to hide behind. And what's distressing to me
is I watch these worship, so-called worship services on television,
and these people are, and these are people, these are flesh,
these are Sons of Adam and daughters of Adam were cavorting and convulsing
in the presence of God, using His Immaculate Holy Name in such
a familiar tone, it's just nauseating. Isaiah, in the year that King
Uzziah died, and King Uzziah died because he violated the
holiness of God, Uzziah was the best king they
had had in centuries. But God killed him because he
violated the holiness of God. And when Isaiah saw what happened
to his friend Uzziah, he said, I saw the Lord. And even the
seraphims covered their faces in God's presence. Even the heavenly
creatures wouldn't look on God. covered their feet, covered their
faces, and flew about his throne crying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord
God of hosts, the whole earth is filled with his glory. And
Isaiah said, Woe is me. You read the chapter prior to
that, he found a lot of things to brag about. After he saw God,
he didn't find anything to brag about. Not a thing. Not a thing. And Job, oh, turn to Job 42. I want you to see this. Job,
and God called him a righteous man, and God called him a man
that hated evil and shunned evil. God called him a man that was his servant. I'd say
Job was one of the most outstanding men in the world at that time,
in every way. And I want you to see how he
reacted. Here's an example for all of you. Job. In fact, he told us in the book
of James to consider the patience of Job and imitate it. Job 42, then Job answered the
Lord and said, I know that thou canst do everything, and that
no thought can be withholden from thee. Who is he that hideth
counsel without knowledge? Therefore have I uttered that
I understood not. Oh, I'm guilty of that. Are you? I've uttered that I understood
not. Things too wonderful for me, I've talked about, which
I knew not. Here I beseech thee and I'll
speak, I'll demand of thee, declare thou unto me, I've heard of thee
by the hearing of the ear, now mine eyes see of thee. Wherefore
I hate myself, I repent in dust and ashes, I make the dust my
headquarters, and the ashes my covering." I've seen the Lord. What would be the reaction in
these charismatic meetings If one of the preachers got up and
said, I've seen the Lord. I hate myself. I'm a man of unclean lips, and
I dwell among a bunch of people of unclean lips. Mine eyes have
seen the Lord. I've uttered things I shouldn't
have said, preached things I had no business preaching, things
I didn't know anything about. I hate myself. and I'm going
to take my place in the dust and ashes." God's true saints
would rejoice, and the rest of them would lose their religion. You want to know the holiness
of God? Go to Calvary. There you'll see the holiness
of God. When Almighty God permitted His beloved Son to be mutilated
spit upon, nailed her cross, and laughed at while he died
by wicked means, because he bore our sins. Turned his back on
the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, the kingdom of God is
not an emotional government. It's a holy reign. Turn to Psalm
24. Now, I want you to look at this. The kingdom of God is not an
emotional government. This is what It's got this whole
religious world messed up. They don't know God. They got the wrong God. Thou
thoughtest thou was altogether such a one as thyself. You thought
I was like your mama. You thought I was like your daddy.
You thought I was like you. God is not a man that he should
repent or lie or change. God's holy. It says in Psalm 24, listen,
the earth is the Lord's and the fullness of the world, and they
that dwell therein, they are His. Give Jesus your life. You're His. He's your Lord. Not what will you do with Him,
what's He going to do with you? The earth is the Lord's, and
they that dwell therein, He hath founded it upon the seas, established
it upon the flood. Now, who's going to ascend into
the hill of the Lord? Who's going to stand in His holy
place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who's never,
never lifted up his soul to vanity nor sworn deceitfully. Listen to this, I won't have
you turn, I'll just turn over here quickly and read it. Those are the folks that are
going to stand in His holy place. Those that have clean hands and
a pure heart who've never lifted up their soul unto vanity. And it says here in the book
of Revelation, "...the sea gave up the dead
which were in it, death and hell delivered up the dead which were
in them, and they were judged, every man according to their
works, and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire."
Now, God's holy. And the folks that are going
to live in His presence, and stand in His presence, and ascend
to the holy hill, are going to be holy like Him. And the rest
of them are going to be condemned eternally. That's what Scripture
says. God is holy. All right. What's the second division of
this message? Well, if the first division is
the holiness of God, then the next division has to be What? The sinfulness of man. And I can't touch the hem of
the garment talking about the holiness of God. Impossible.
I just feel so empty when I talk about the
holiness of God. I don't know how to talk about
it. Paul, he came back from the third heaven, he said, I heard
things I can't talk about. The holiness of God. All right.
This subject, too, is beyond my understanding or ability to
express. And it's neglected. The sinfulness
of man. Paul, talking about it, said,
Oh, the exceeding sinfulness of sin. You know, usually when
you talk about something, that's cold as ice. You know what I
mean, because you know ice. Cold as ice. Say something, hot
as fire. Well, you made it. Well, how
am I going to talk about sin? There's nothing with which to
compare it. It's just the sinfulness of sin. Compare it with itself, because
there's nothing worse. I compared this to something
greater, cold as ice, or hot as fire. But sin is wicked as what? As sin. And the subject's neglected
and misunderstood, and the reason men do not know much about the
sinfulness of sin is they do not understand the holiness of
God. There's the problem. The more you and I can understand
or look into or try to understand the holiness of God, the more
we're going to understand of this sinfulness of sin. A person's
understanding of sin is in direct relation to his understanding
of God's holiness. Like while ago, Job had a pretty
high opinion of himself until he met God. Isaiah had a pretty
high opinion of himself until he met God. Saul of Tarsus said,
I was blameless. And when God came, I died. put a high opinion of himself
until he met God. And this is true of us and of
any religious person. The prouder a man is, the less
he knows about God. The Pharisees were the Pharisees
because they didn't know God. And when a man comes to know
God, when he comes to see the holiness of God and the righteousness
of God, and the more he sees of it and understands it, the
smaller he becomes, the more sinful. Like somebody said, Paul
kept graduating, kept growing. First he said, I'm not worthy
to be an apostle. Later on he said, I'm less than
the least of all the saints. Later on he said, I'm the chief
of sinners. Our problem, here's our problem.
Turn to 2 Corinthians 10. Here is our problem. Here it
is. This is nutshell preaching right
here now. This is our problem in a nutshell. 2 Corinthians 10. Here it is. If you want to know what it is,
if you want to know why you're proud of your face or your place
or your race or your grace, if you want to know why you're proud,
why you look down on anyone, Why are you proud of anything?
Here's the reason. 2 Corinthians 10, verse 12. Paul said he didn't dare do this,
but this is what we do. We dare not, for we dare not
make ourselves of the number or compare ourselves with some
that commend themselves, and here's why they commend themselves.
They're measuring themselves by themselves. and comparing
themselves among themselves. I'm smarter than him. That's
what makes me proud. I've got the wrong pattern. I'm
looking at the wrong object. Boy, I'd never do that. Why don't you look at God and
start comparing yourself with Him? Now then, when we start
comparing ourselves with His wisdom and His love, and his
power, and his knowledge, boy, we keep on coming down. You talk
about the nothing, the nothings, mister nothing, nobody from nowhere. I tell you, and when we compare
ourselves among ourselves, it's not wise, but then the next step
is to justify ourselves. Ye are they which justify...
Turn to Luke 16. Ye are they, he said, which justify
yourselves before me. I'm just so satisfied with myself. I'm just so right. I'm just so
knowledgeable. I just have arrived, you know.
He said unto them, you are they which justify yourselves before
me, and God knows your heart. God knows your heart. There's
where the problem is, there's where the root of sin, there's
where the evil, the wickedness, there's where it all dwells,
where man can't see, but God can. God knows your heart. And that which you highly esteem,
and that of which you're proud, That which brings you such satisfaction
is an abomination to God Almighty. Oh, I wish we could see that.
We compare ourselves with ourselves. We justify ourselves. The more
a person's understanding of what he is by nature is learned only
before the searchlight of God Almighty's holiness, God's holiness,
God's perfection. And God said, Every imagination
of man's heart is deceitful, desperately wicked. None righteous,
no, not one. God looked down from heaven to
see if any did do good, and they're all gone out of the way. They
all together become unprofitable. Isaiah wrote, from the sole of
our feet to the top of our heads, there's no soundness in us. Romans
3, read it. Man at his best state, altogether
vanity. And here's what we learn when
we When we stand before God in our nakedness, we learn that
He's spirit and we're flesh. And that's all we are. I met
a woman a few days ago in a supermarket. I've known her for 45 years. She used to be one of the most
beautiful women. Carried herself with such Arrogance and pride. Haughtiness. She was proud of
her beauty. Live right here in this town.
Arrogant. She was one of the most pitiful
looking things I've seen in the last few weeks. So broken. So wrinkled. So twisted. So hardened. So ugly. And I just stood there and waited,
and I spoke to her, and she passed by, and I turned to Doris, and
I said, listen, God will bring the proud down. God will bring
the proud down. If He can't knock the starch
out of you and me by His Word and His holiness, He'll bring
you down in the latter days. You'll come down. That's all
we are, a mass of flesh, ugly, Depraved, corrupt flesh from
the sole of our feet to the top of our heads. That's all. And you say, you're getting ugly,
Preacher. No, we are ugly. And I know, I know, we sit here
and think about, well, I'm different. You're different when you compare
yourself with somebody else. But when you compare yourself
with God, there is no difference. All that's sinning comes short
of His glory. God is spirit, we're flesh. God is life, we're darkness.
God is truth, we're liars. Every one of us, liars. God is
life and we're death. God is good and we're evil. God
is love and we're hate. God is life and we're dying by
degrees. And we're coming to the end when
you're going to be a dead, rotten corpse. And we'll put you in
the ground. And if God doesn't have mercy
on your soul and give you grace and love in Christ Jesus, you'll
go to hell and spend eternity there. That's just so. That's so. Oh, the holiness of
God. And the wretched, wretched, wretched
sinfulness of this flesh. Can't be trusted, can't be relied
upon, can't be depended on to do anything but that which is
wrong. That's us. Boy, I hope the next picture
gets a little brighter. It does. Point number three. How can that holy God and that distressed, depraved,
dead flesh ever be reconciled? How? How can they be one? How can God reconcile us to himself? You got any suggestions? Well,
God can't change. He said, I'm the Lord, I change
not. And here's what men try to do. They try to bring Him
down. And He's not going to come down. He's not going to change. Find out who God is and leave
it there. Because He's not going to change.
Let God be God and every man a liar. And the thing about it
is we don't have the power to change. We're us. We're flesh. It says,
can the Ethiopian change his skin? Nope. Can the leopard change
his spot? Nope. Then neither can you do
good that are accustomed to doing evil. We can't change. Then Job
kept asking, how can man be clean? How can man be just with God?
How can he be lifted from the cesspool and changed? How can he be taken up? God's
not coming down. How can man be changed? How can
he be regenerated? How can he be recreated? How
can he become what he's not? Well, some people turn to the
ceremonies. I've been studying those books
that Sheila brought me on Russia. I've been reading them and looking
at them, and I've been watching their religion. They've got ceremonial
religion. They kneel deep in ceremonial
religion over there, these hats and crosses and all this stuff. And that won't do us any good. And then people turn to the law.
By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified.
Some people turn to works, and by the works of righteousness
shall no flesh be justified. And some turn to religious works.
Where shall we turn? Well, let's turn to Romans 3. If you turn to Romans 3, you'll
know to whom to turn, because it's all written right there.
In Romans 3, verse 20, here's the answer. Romans 3, verse 19,
Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith
to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty
before God. Before whom? Before God, that Holy God. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law, by the works of the flesh, By the ceremonialism of religion,
there shall no flesh be justified in his sight. By the law is the
knowledge of sin. But now, the glorious, impeccable
righteousness of God, without the law, without my obedience
to the law, is manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the
Prophets. It's even the righteousness of God, the holiness of God Himself,
purpose, plan, purchased and imputed unto us, which is by
the faithfulness of Jesus Christ unto all, and upon all them that
believe. There's no difference. for all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God, but being justified freely by his
grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus." Watch
this next line now, "...whom God hath set forth," God set
him forth, "...to be a propitiation, a mercy seed, a covering through
faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission
of sins, even Old Testament saints had already passed when Christ
died. Their sins were in the past when Christ died. Ours were
in the future. But Christ died for both of us
through the forbearance of God. To declare, I say at this time,
God's holiness. He didn't compromise His holiness.
He didn't compromise His justice. But here, Jesus Christ enabled
Him to be both just and justifier of them that believe. God's going
to stay right where He is. A holy, just, righteous, true
God sent His Son down here into this cesspool of iniquity. And He was made flesh and made
sin for us and obeyed God's law. He is holy. He is a holy man. And in Him we have a holiness.
In Him. He came down and lifted us and
washed us. and regenerated us and gave us
a new life and a new heart and a new nature. We keep that old nature we have
to battle with all the time, but He's given us a new nature
that likes to battle. Yes, sir, that new nature is
glad to take on that old nature. Greater is He in you than He
that's in the world. He's going to make us like Him. I want to read one scripture
and quit. 2 Corinthians 5. 2 Corinthians 5. This is a glorious chapter here. 2 Corinthians 5. Listen to it.
Verse 18. And all things are of God, salvations of the Lord, who hath
reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ. And he's given to us
this ministry of reconciliation. Good news. Namely, to wit means
namely, that God was in Christ. God himself was in that man,
Jesus of Nazareth. Reconciling the world unto himself,
not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed
to us this word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors
of Christ, for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ's head.
Be reconciled to God. Be reconciled to God. Christ
Jesus reconciled you to God. Now lay down your shotgun, put
up your sword, repent, bow and worship Him, and be ye reconciled
to God. That's right. The gospel will
do that. See, what the gospel does, Christ in the gospel, Reconciled
us to God. He took away the enmity. He took
away the wrath. He took away the curse. He took
away the judgment. There's no judgment to them who
are in Christ Jesus. Christ did what He did for us to God. Gave
us a perfect holiness and righteousness and cleansed us by His blood.
And God's not angry. That's the reason Saul of Tarsus,
40 years in rebellion, yet God loved him. He didn't love God.
He didn't love Christ. He wasn't reconciled. But God
was reconciled. That's the reason God put up
with you so long. Some of you right here, you haven't
been saved very long. You're up in years. You haven't
laid down your shotgun. Some haven't laid it down yet.
And it may be God will bring you that place. But He's reconciled. If you're His child, He's reconciled.
Christ reconciled God to you. If you're His child, if you're
one of His elect, He's not mad at you. He's not angry. You're
not under the wrath of God, because Christ reconciled you. And then
we come along with this gospel, the gospel of truth. It's not
the gospel of, you do this and God will do that, and you take
the first step and He'll meet you halfway. It's the gospel
of submission. Submission, surrender, lay down
your arms of rebellion. Bow to the Lordship of Christ. You be reconciled to God. That's
right. And the gospel will reconcile
you to God. It already has reconciled God
to you. Now it'll reconcile you to God. And you'll worship. You'll just sweep those old foundations
of flesh out, take the cobwebs out, and give you a new heart,
a new life, a new direction, new attitude, new spirit. He's
got to do that. Got to do it. Got to do it. Something I can't do for anybody,
I can't do for myself. Can't do for you. I can pray
for you, you can pray for me, you can pray for me. Salvation
is of the Lord. Only one that can turn a man
around is the power of God. Only one that can turn a man
wrong side out is the power of God. Only thing that can take
the starch out of this old rebel is God Almighty. And I tell you,
when He does, Any man's in Christ, he's a new Christian.

The Reconciler and the Reconciled

What does the Bible say about the holiness of God?

How do we know that sinfulness is a serious issue?

Why is reconciliation with God important for Christians?

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The Reconciler and the Reconciled

What does the Bible say about the holiness of God?

How do we know that sinfulness is a serious issue?

Why is reconciliation with God important for Christians?

Sermon Transcript

About Henry Mahan

Comments

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