Sam has the COVID, Wanda don't,
but it's the mild kind. He's, you know, like everybody's
had it recently, so. But remember him in your prayers.
But continue to remember Rain French, Natalie Rose, and those
others who requested prayer. Seek the Lord's help for them. I had to send my right hearing
aid back to the factory. It's going to take about a week.
So if you're talking to me, I'll probably only hear every other
word. I've still got my left hearing aid. But yes. Put me on there. I had to go
on some medicine for anxiety. A what? Medicine for anxiety. Oh. I've got a lot going on.
You have no idea. Okay. Remember, stand in your
prayers. Seek the Lord's help for him.
Other than that, we'll have a regular, start back regular schedule today,
though we don't have many folks here. We'll have dinner and sandwiches,
and then we'll have an afternoon in the Bible study and the First
Corinthians. So let's begin our worship service with hymn number
255, Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine. ? Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine
? ? Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine ? ? Heir of salvation,
purchase of God ? ? Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood ?
This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all
the day long. This is my story, this is my
song, praising my Savior all the day long. Perfect salvation,
perfect delight. Visions of rapture now burst
on my sight. Angels descending ring from above. Echoes of mercy, whispers of
love. This is my story, this is my
song, Praising my Savior all the day long. This is my story,
this is my song, Praising my Savior all the day long. Perfect submission, all is at
rest I and my Savior am happy and blessed Watching and waiting,
looking above ? Filled with His goodness, lost in His love ?
This is my story, this is my song ? Praising my Savior all
the day long ? This is my story, this is my song praising my Savior
all the day long. After scripture reading and prayer,
we'll sing hymn number 235. If you have your Bible, turn
to Psalms 111, the 111th Psalm. I'm going to read all 10 verses. I'm taking my text from verse
9 this morning. The title of my message is Above
It All. Psalm 111, praise ye the Lord. I will praise the Lord with my
whole heart in the assembly of the upright and in the congregation. The works of the Lord are great,
sought out of all them that have pleasure therein. His work is
honorable and glorious, and His righteousness endures forever.
He hath made His wonderful works to be remembered The Lord is
gracious and full of compassion. He has given meat unto them that
fear him. He will never be mindful or he
will ever be mindful of his covenant. He has showed his people the
power of his works and he may give them the heritage of the
heathen. The works of his hands are verity and judgment. All
his commandments are sure. They stand fast forever and ever
and are done in truth and uprightness. He sent redemption unto his people. He hath commanded his covenant
forever. Holy and reverend is his name. The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom. A good understanding have all
they that do his commandments. His praise endureth forever.
Let us pray. Our Father, blessed and glorious,
holy and honorable, perfect and pure, sovereign, great and mighty. You who sit
in a habitation of holiness, dwell in a light where unto no
man can approach. You who are mighty and almighty. We approach you in the name of
Jesus Christ and because of his shed blood and perfect sacrifice,
wherein you were satisfied and propitiated for our sins. And
the law that was against us and justice that held sway over us
was satisfied. And we are free from the law. And we are by the law, dead to
the law. We thank you, Father, that the
law has been fulfilled and satisfied for us, the righteousness of
the law fulfilled in us. and we thank you for it. Father,
we pray for those who are sick. Remember especially Brother D.
Parks as he's still continuing to go through chemotherapy. We
would be with Brother Moose and Sister Sandy and D's wife and
kids. We ask Lord you'd be with them.
Pray for those others who requested prayer for Stan who's going through
some troubles. We ask Lord you'd be with him.
Pray for Lorraine French. The doctors will be able to find
out what this malady is. Pray for Sharon as she ministers
to it. Pray for those of our congregation who are sick. Ask
the Lord to be with them and watch over them. Pray for our
shut-ins. Help us, Lord, this day to worship you as we consider
your true and holy character. And be thankful that you are
indeed a God who's full of grace and gracious and have great compassion. For certainly we're in need of
these things. Help us, Lord, now to worship you in Christ's
name, amen. Hymn number 235, Pass Me Not,
O Gentle Savior. Pass me not, O gentle Savior. ? While on others I would call
thee ? Do not pass me by ? Savior, Savior ? Hear my humble cry ?
While on others I would call thee ? At the throne of mercy ? Find
a sweet relief ? Kneeling there in decontrition ? Kept by unbelief
? Savior, Savior others our calling, do not pass
me by. Trusting only in thy merit would
I seek thy face, heal my wounded Savior, Savior, hear my humble
cry. While on others Thou art calling, Thou the spring of all my comfort,
more than life to me. Whom have I on earth beside? Savior, Savior, hear my humble
cry. While on others I would call
Thee, Now, since there's so very few
of us, Stan, would you receive the offer this morning, please? Let us pray. Father, again, we
approach in the blessed name of Jesus Christ, our King and
our Master, the unspeakable gift that you've given to your children
freely. And with him, you have freely
given them all things. Help us to rejoice. in the fact
that we can return unto you that which you've given us and it
would be used for the furtherance of the gospel here and in other
places. We count it a privilege to do so. Help us now to worship
you in Christ's name. Amen. Psalm 111 is a psalm of praise
and thanksgiving to God for all His works and things that are
done that are perfect and upright and full of accomplishment and
success. And this psalm has mentioned
His covenant twice. And in the text for today, in
verse 9, it says, He hath sent redemption unto His people he
hath commanded his covenant forever. Holy and reverend is his name. All his works are holy, for he
is the Holy One of Israel. One thing we immediately see
in verse 9 is that no preacher should ever put the word reverend
before his name because that's God's name. holy and reverend
is his name. And some form of the word holy
is found over 700 times in this blessed book. And holiness is
the chief attribute of God. As sovereignty is the essence
of all that he has done and will do, holiness is the essence of
his person. Holy is the only word that applies
to everything that He is and everything that He does. It is
His essential characteristic. And what we do not know and can
never know about the holiness could fill volumes because we
cannot even think about it in a truly holy manner. This essential
attribute of God is for the believer in all bows down and worships
in full understanding that he can never truly understand what
he believes about his God's holiness. In the context, in this very
verse, he speaks of redemption sent to his people. He didn't
say he sent it to everybody. He didn't say he offered it to
anybody. But he did say he sent it to
his people, redemption being bought back off the slave market.
and he commanded his covenant forever. God is a covenant God. There's the old covenant set
forth in the Old Testament and parts of the New and explained
in the New, but the covenant that was designed to fill a singular
purpose for a time and then pass away and pass off the scene.
And there's what is called the New Covenant, which is actually
the eternal covenant of grace under which God operates. Generally,
when men speak of holiness in reference to God, they speak
in terms of purity and goodness and moral infallibility and impeccability. These all do find their place
in the definition of holiness, and the evolution of languages
made this lofty and exclusive attribute, and it is exclusive
to God, to mean something achievable by sinful man. And the concept
has been reduced to a list of activities that are generally
restricted to a particular locale or denomination. This is what
old Jack Shanks used to call regional sanctification. Wherever
you're from, certain things are sinful and certain things are
not. And if you go to some other place, those things are acceptable.
And so that's called regional sanctification. But people call
that holiness. The warped view of holiness has
led some human beings to leave society altogether, to live spartan
lives, dress in particularly uncomfortable attire, and even
commit unlawful crimes in the name of holiness. The fact is, however, that holiness
belongs singularly, exclusively, and entirely to God and may only
be attributed to humanity, to those people or things that He
has separated to Himself for use in His glorification, the
glorification of His name in the salvation of the elect and
for their good. He alone is to be revered He
is to be revered. I am not to be revered. No man
is reverend. Only God is reverend. He is to
be revered for His unique and singular and exclusive holiness. If a thing or a person wears
the title holy, it is only because the Lord, the Holy One, has declared
that to be so and has designated that for Himself. That makes
a thing holy. You can't make yourself holy.
You can't be holy. Only God is holy. When He tells
you to be holy, it's an expression of Him separating you to Himself. By simply declaring a thing to
be holy, God makes that thing holy. It's holy. You remember
Belshazzar and Daniel when he was going to have that great
feast and he decided to take the things that were designated
for the use in the offerings and sacrifices of the Jewish
people, designated by God as holy. They were chalices and
they were spoons and forks and tridents and things like that
that were only to be used in those exercises because God had
said, these are mine, therefore they are holy. And Belshazzar
decided he wanted to take those cups and plates and forks and
spoons and use them in his feast. And as he did, a finger began
to write on the wall, Many, many tickle you farsing. And what
it was saying, Judgment's come to your house. You've been weighed
in the balance and you've been found wanting. Your kingdom's
going to depart from you today. Today. Why did he do it? What
happened? He just took some plates. Because God had said, These are
mine. These belong to me. they are
holy and you cannot touch them they are mine when the Lord says
be holy for I am holy whoever he says that to is holy is holy
and ye shall be holy unto me for I am the Lord I the Lord
am holy and I have severed you from other people that you should
be mine he says that in Leviticus chapter 20 verse 26 If He has
said that Christ is to be holiness to His people, as He says in
I Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 30, if He has said that Christ
is to be holiness to His people, then they are not only HOLY,
they are ESSENTIAL HOLINESS! They are COMPLETELY SEPARATED
UNTO GOD! And they belong to God and to
no one else! He does NOT tell men or women
or any human being, He does not tell them to be holy so they
might set out on a course of required activities that they
might progress into a state of holiness according to the dictates
of man's religious requirements. He says, Be holy. Be ye holy for I am holy. Be ye holy, for I am holy, because
He is holy. That is the state of being for
those who are declared to be His. They are holy. If you're a child of God today,
you're holy. Why? Because He's holy. That's
what He said. Be ye holy, because that's what
I am. He's not going to say mock me
or imagine you can be like me. He is saying you're mine. I'm
holy. Therefore you are holy. For him to state the reason for
your holiness to be his holiness simply means that he has separated
you for that estate. This fact hobbles religion's
ability to set their standards of holiness because, in effect,
it frees those whom God has declared to be holy from the influence
of religion altogether. Be ye holy. Now, religion is
going to tell you a whole lot of things for you to do to be
that way. It's going to tell you how to wear your hair, how
to dress. When I first came up here, women
had to wear dresses in the cold. It's the winter. And one of the
ladies in the church said, we have to wear dresses. But they
was already doing a work around. They was wearing a skirt with
jeans under it. But they was wearing the skirt
because the church had said that's holy. Church had said that's
holy. And you don't want to make people
mad. You don't want to be talked about.
So you do it along the line. Up in Iowa. bunch of legal religion
up there. They're solid Calvinists, all
of them. They're all Dutch Reformed. They're strong believers in the
doctrines of grace and Tulip and so forth, but they're all
legalists. I mean terribly legalists. But they have a definition of
holy. You can't have a TV in your house. Every one of them
has got a TV in their house. But the church says you can't
have a TV in the house. And the deacons go around checking
these houses. That's their job. They'll go
around inspecting the holiness of the house. You know what the
people do when the deacon comes? They hang an afghan over the
TV. And the deacons know what's under
the afghan. But they didn't see the TV, so
they must not have a TV, and therefore they may be holy. Reminded
old Ralph Barnard told good friend of mine who's gone on to be with
the Lord one time, he said, you know, TVs and damnable things,
I wouldn't have one in my living room. My friend went to his house
to see him and walked into his den and there was a TV. He said,
you told me you wouldn't have a TV. He said, no, I said, I
wouldn't have one in my living room. He said, my den, not my
living room. People have a degree or have
a thought that they think what they know holy is. And religion
is the worst. When I was growing up, Men and
women couldn't go swimming together. They called it mixed bathing.
You couldn't do that. You couldn't do that. Because
Reynolds Tobacco Company built most of the churches in that
area, nobody said anything about smoking. But there was one church
down on 150 that you couldn't smoke. If you smoked a cigarette,
you wasn't holy. And I've had people actually
say that back when I used to smoke cigarettes. you know, the
Lord would like you better if you didn't smoke those. Can you
imagine people saying that? Very close kin of mine said that
one time and I said, that's the stupidest statement I've ever
heard. The Lord would like you better if you didn't smoke? That's
silly. But people have these ideas about holiness. What is holiness? It is being
separated by God for His glory and for your good. and for use
in his purpose of salvation. That's what it is to be holy.
You can't see it. You can't smell it. You can't
touch it. It just simply is because God has made it to be so. Fifty-one
times in this book the Lord is called the Holy One. The Holy
One. Just one. Following the use of
this terminology in scriptures, we find that the designation
often refers to Christ in His absolute uniqueness and singularity.
Paul said that Ananias said to him, You're going to see the
Holy One. You're going to meet the Holy One. The Holy One. And he did. He was designated
as the Holy One who is essentially and intrinsically and completely
and singularly holy. He is Jesus Christ is the Holy
One. That's who He is. The only way
a human being can be classified as holy is if the Lord has chosen
him to Himself because those whom He has chosen according
to Scripture, He has given all spiritual gifts in Jesus Christ
according as He has chosen Him in Christ before the foundation
of the world that He should be holy and without blame before
Him. There you go! That is what they
are going to be and they will be for His glory according to
the 11th verse of that same chapter. But as to the meaning of holy,
as it can only be attributed to God, it simply means this,
separate. That's what it really means,
separate. When the Jews said God is holy,
they meant He's out there, somewhere, running everything. Not here. We have His rocks and stones
that have writings on them that tell us that He's somewhere.
but they never considered under the old covenant a real personal
relationship with God because He was out there. This is the
wonder of the salvation of God's people by the death of Jesus
Christ. Separate! To try to begin to
understand this, we must look at this attribute in a little
and concrete sense I know that we operate in the spiritual realm
and the only real things in this universe are the invisible things
that run the universe. That's the only real things.
Anything you can see and touch and feel ain't going to last.
It's going to disappear. It's going to disappear. It's going to be burned one day
and melted with the fervent heat. What's real? What's real? If all this is not,
what's real? what's invisible, what can't
be seen, what's eternal and everlasting. Now, I know that we operate in
the spiritual realm, the only real things in this universe
are invisible, but to understand the concept of holy as well as
a human can, our minds must approach this truth in a literal sense. separate means not uh... not
of the visible outside or uh... it means not of the visible it
means outside or above or beyond separate that's what it means
i know people talk about being separated in this world you know
religion likes to use that word we need to be separated fact
is we can't be we're here we're right in the middle of everything
so we're not going to be separated And a man telling a story about
a church who had on its sign, it was a Baptist church had on
its sign, the most separated church in America. Man, they
was separated from society. What happened was the preacher
left town with the church treasurer, who happened to be a pretty good
looking woman, and took all the money with him. He separated
the church from his money. That's how separate he was, but
they were really separate. to understand the concept of
holiness. Separate means untouchable. That's
what Paul said to Timothy, God dwells in a light. What's that? Dwells in a light where into
no man can approach. God dwells in a light. At the
outset, our scope is limited as to truly discovering God or
laying out holiness as some reasonable form. In fact, the Bible does
not actually describe His holiness. It just says He's holy. Nowhere
in this book will you find holiness described. It's just declared. It's just proclaimed. He is holy. The Bible does not actually describe
it or put it in a form or a list of characteristics that would
define it, define what holiness means. All through the scriptures
that is true. Isaiah said, His thoughts are
above our thoughts. As the heaven is above the earth,
His thoughts are so much higher than our thoughts. His ways are
higher than our ways. That means whatever our thoughts
are, they're not God's thoughts. Whatever our ways are, they're
not God's ways. His ways are indescribable. The word used
to describe Him is holy. He's holy. But He's out there
somewhere. Above it all. Above it all. That's the language of Scripture.
Turn in your Bible at your will. Look over at Job. Chapter 11. Verse 7 says this. Canst thou by searching find
out God? Canst thou find out Almighty
or the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven. What
canst thou do? Deeper than hell, what canst
thou know? What can you do? Are you going
to figure out God? He is higher than the heavens
and deeper than the hell. What are you going to do? What
can you come up with that might have some bearing of understanding? In Psalm 139, verse 6 it says, Such knowledge
is too wonderful for me, it is high, I cannot attain to it. Whither shall I go from thy spirit?
Whither shall I flee from thy presence? As I ascend up into heaven, thou
art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold,
thou art there. Wait a minute, that's what it
says. If I take the wings of the morning,
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall
thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me." You want to try to explain that?
What can we say? What can we come up with that
even begins to measure that? Over in Ecclesiastes chapter 3, that great chapter 3. Wayne told me, he said, when
you bury me, this is what I want you to preach from, Ecclesiastes
chapter 3. Verse 11 says this, God has made
everything beautiful in His time. Look at the world. Look at what's
going on. Look at the political situation
in this world. We think it's just ugly as all
get out. God says it's beautiful in His
time. Why? It serves His purpose. It serves His purpose. Also He
set the world in our hearts so that no man can find out the
work that God maketh from beginning to end. In other words, our view
is worldly. Our view is what we can see.
Our view is how the world affects us. This is what our view is. Basically, all human beings,
regardless of whether they're saved or not, are egocentric
human beings. They are. They see things as
how it affects them. That's just us. That's our old
sinful self. And so when we look at things,
we think, well, this is bad, that's good, this is good, that's
bad. We don't know. That which we think good might
be bad, and that which we think bad might be good. We just don't
know, because God has put the world in our heart. We can only
judge things by what we see and what we experience, but that's
not what's going on out there. Separate, above it all, is the
one who's pulling all the strings of this universe. and holy. Look at chapter 8 of
Ecclesiastes and verse 17, Then I beheld all
the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done
under the sun, because though a man labor to seek it out, yet
he shall not find it, yea, further, though a wise man think he know
it, yet shall he not be able to find it. We just don't know
what's going on. But we are separated unto the
one who does. This is where the comfort for
the child of God comes. And we by nature are not separate.
We're in the mix and affected more than we would like to say
by the fleeting circumstances that occur in our lives. But God is outside all that.
He is separate and shows us to some degree how He controls all
of it. All things are in Him, by Him and through Him, and they
are also before Him. All things are before Him, patently
in front of Him. He rules from the habitation
of His holiness. Now, I use my sanctified imagination
and try to put a picture of this on. It is like the whole thing
of this time, this thing called time, had a beginning and has
an end. and it's linear back yonder Adam is formed from
the dust of the earth and he sins against his God over here
at the end time Christ is coming back with his church all this
thing in between is time and here's God as if he's holding
the border of each in his hand and looking at it and controlling
it. All this stuff goes on here.
He's taken care of. It's His time, His world, His
universe, and you're His. Absolutely. It is here, separate
from us, beyond us, even though the Spirit of His Son, He dwells
in us, that we approach in prayer. the holy God look at a few verses
of scripture Deuteronomy 26 listen to how men approached him Deuteronomy 26 verse 15 here
he prays look down from thy holy habitation from heaven bless
thy people Israel and the land which thou hast given us as thou
swearest unto our fathers a land that floweth from milk and honey
look down from heaven what are they saying you're out there
we're down here look down look down upon us in Psalm 68 verse 5 here's how the Lord is
he's a father of the fatherless a judge of the widows God is
in his holy habitation in his holy habitation that's the way
men speak of him in his holy habitation Isaiah 63 15 Revelation
16 speak of him in his holy habitation he inhabits light and understanding. It is the knowledge of His holiness
that gives us peace in the world that is chaotic and outside our
control. We can look at it all and know that our God
is holy. That's what David said when the heathen showed him their
God made of silver and gold and all pretty and able to carry
it on his shoulder. They said, David, where's your
God? He said, our God's in the heavens.
and he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased." Our God is in
the heavens. He's above it all. He's out there.
And all His attributes are prefaced with this essential attribute
that He is holy. His love is a holy love. His mercy is holy mercy. What does that mean? It's untouched
by the situation of the recipients there. His grace, His justice, His wrath,
His vengeance, His salvation, all of that's holy because He
is holy. His book is called the Holy Bible.
His judgments are called holy in Scripture. Nothing that makes
up the habitation of the universe can affect His holiness. God
can't be affected. God's not a reactor. He's the
actor. We're the reactors. He's the
actor, and from that high, lofty, and holy place, he works all
things together for the good of his people. Now that takes
some faith to believe that, as we live in the world we live
in today, and we see what's going on. I saw an advertisement from Boston
University this week, Boston University Children's Hospital,
advertising taking out the uterus of teenage
girls on demand so they could believe they're women. They were
advertising this on the internet with this girl who talked like
she was really a sweet, smart, young lady. And they were talking
about the operation like it was, well, you know, we take this
out and we remove the uterus and it's a hysterectomy and sometimes
we take out the ovaries and things like that. It was just like there
was nothing to it. And I'm thinking, where are we? in this world I look at it and I think oh my
soul we're a gone Jesse well the world is a gone Jesse but
God's people aren't and that somehow somehow is gonna work
for his glory and my good the day has come when men are calling
evil good and good evil. That's here. They're doing that. And it's all working for our
good. Where our Lord said men will call good evil and evil
good, He says tell the righteous it shall be well with them. It
shall be well. Father bless us to understand
and pray in Christ's name. Amen. Now I'll hit stop on both
of those.