When is the last time you heard a sermon about holiness?

[Richard OFfill]

Be Ye Holy

When Jesus said, "If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father," it didn't mean that God was essentially a young man, 33 years old with a beard, who smelled sweaty on hot summer days and shivered on cold winter nights.

In His essence, Jesus was not 33 years old; He was from eternity. He was the holy One who never had slept and who had eternally dwelt in light unapproachable.

But when He came here, He laid His essence aside. Just as we must protect our eyes when we watch an eclipse of the sun, so to reveal His character to us, He had to veil Himself by becoming one of us. When He said, "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father," He was not saying that the Father looked like Him, but He was saying, "In spite of what you see, I am the Son of God."

The point that we must grasp once and for all is that God is first holy, and then He is everything else.

We like to focus on the mercy of God, the forgiveness of God, and His love for us. But mercy, forgiveness, and love don't have any significance unless we have a clear understanding that the essential essence of the person of God is His holiness. Scripture even refers to the holiness of God as a consuming fire.

By the way, speaking of the mercy of God, we can make a huge mistake if we confuse the mercy of God for sinners and take it to mean that God is tolerant of sin. This can't be, because holiness and sin are opposites. I believe that we will not be able to understand what salvation is and what it is for until we begin to understand holiness. When God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt, the first thing that He began to teach them was the meaning of holiness.

The holiness of God is the foundation on which the whole plan of salvation sets. If we don't understand what holiness is, we can never know what sin is and how God relates to it. On the flip side, unless we understand the true awfulness of even the so-called smallest sin, we will not be able to appreciate the majesty and glory of God's holiness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJt30KL7tOw

Read  https://www.revivalsermons.org/index.php?pg=sermons&id=49#sthash.6JQOmSJA.dpuf

 

[Ed Sutton]

I looked for Jesus's testifing as to the definition of holiness.    ( holiness is con* = 8 hits ) 7 are this (due to 5k leaving context out )

 

"Holiness is constant agreement with God".

the one different quote = 

"Holiness is connected with mercy, as the effect is connected with its cause".

This agrees with the Bible's definitions of Fearing God Biblically( starting at Deuteronomy 10:12,13), like Jesus did & does (Hebrews 5:7); and not like the sailors who cast Jonah overboard.

holiness = 43 Bible Texts
Matthew 5:8  Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

Hebrews 12:14  Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:

[Richard OFfill]

I like the words to the hymn 'Take time to be holy. Speak oft with thy Lord. Spend much in secret with Jesus alone......"

[dedication]

Amen!

It is seldom that we hear of the holiness of God any more.  It's more common to have people think of Him as their buddy -- someone on their level.


We can contemplate the experience of Isaiah --

"There rose up before him a vision of Jehovah sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, while the train of His glory filled the temple. On each side of the throne hovered the seraphim, their faces veiled in adoration, as they ministered before their Maker and united in the solemn invocation, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory," until post and pillar and cedar gate seemed shaken with the sound, and the house was filled with their tribute of praise. Isaiah 6:3.
     As Isaiah beheld this revelation of the glory and majesty of his Lord, he was overwhelmed with a sense of the purity and holiness of God. How sharp the contrast between the matchless perfection of his Creator, and the sinful course of those who, with himself, had long been numbered among the chosen people of Israel and Judah! "Woe is me!" he cried; "for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips:  for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." Verse 5.{PK 307}