Start your day off. Right with the free in touch, devotional subscribe today in touch with dr Charles Stanley reaching the world with the gospel of jesus christ through sound biblical teaching.
Next on in touch knowing Holy God, what is it about God that causes people to shun him, avoid him, detour around him, distanced themselves from him, become angry with him, hostile, taught him and even hate God.
How could somebody feel these things when we say that God is a god of love and goodness and mercy and kindness taught us?
Where do all these negative attitudes come from? Why do people feel that away?
Well, I think there’s one attribute about God that people don’t usually think about.
They don’t want to think about, They don’t like thinking about it and that is the holiness of God.
And that’s what I want to talk about in this message entitled when we think in terms of our attitudes toward God and all the things that we could think the wonderful privilege of knowing Holy God and I want you to turn if you will to Isaiah and in the book of Isaiah, that’s Isaiah Jeremiah, Ezekiel, those big profits there for some of you who may be a new christian, I don’t know whether it is in your bible and um I want you to turn to the sixth chapter and while you’re turning, I want to give you a little background of what’s happening.
King Josiah was one of the best kings that Judah ever had.
Came to the throne at the age of 16, reigned for 52 years.
Started out well did a fantastic job strengthen the city built up the military fortified their city. Lots of expansion.
Then he comes to a lot of years of his life with all of his wealth and power and it becomes very prideful.
One day he goes into the temple and he begins to assume the rights that God had only limited to the high priest and to the priest.
And so when they try to stop him, he gets into this big rage and as he begins to shout and rage at them, leprosy breaks out on his head and so he ends his life in a very sad way.
And if you turn to second Chronicles for a moment, turn to second Chronicles and the 26 chapter and listen to this terrible way.
This very successful man had ended his life.

The scripture says about him and king use a a was a leopard to the day of his death and he lived in a separate house being a leper for he was cut off from the house of the Lord.
It is with that in mind that this sixth chapter of Isaiah takes place because Isaiah, the prophet now has gone to the temple to express his Remorse and his grief before God because of what’s happened to king used in the scripture says, beginning in verse one in the year of King use Diana’s death.
I saw the Lord sitting on a throne lofty and exalted with the train of his robe filling the temple sarah film necessary film were what the bible calls flaming angels the only time that they are mentioned the bibles in this particular book.
In this particular chapter. Twice here the bible says they stood above him. That is God.
Each having six wings with two. They covered their face.
Two they covered their feet into they flew one called out to the other and said, Holy Holy Holy is the Lord of hosts.
The whole earth is full of his glory.
And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out while the temple was filling with smoke.
Then I said, Isaiah speaking Woe is me, I’m ruined. That is this is it.
Life’s over because I’m a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips.
For my eyes have seen the king the Lord of hosts.
Then one of these Seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hands which he had taken from the altar of tongs and he touched my mouth with it and said, behold this has touched your lips and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven.
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying whom shall I send and who will go for us?
Then I said, here am I send me now.
Here is an experience of Isaiah the prophet in the temple worshiping and he gets a glimpse of God.
That does not mean that he saw God face to face for no man ever did or could and live.
But he got a glimpse of the glory of God and and his reaction to this glimpse of the of the glory and the holiness of God brought him to a place of absolute awareness of his sinfulness, his unworthiness, and fell upon himself confessing his sins and acknowledging that he was unworthy even to be in the presence of almighty God.
It is with that background that I wanted to talk about. This whole idea of the holiness of God.
What is it that we’re talking about when we talk about the holiness of God?
What is the holiness of God? What’s holiness in the first place? What’s the holiness of God?
So, I want you to listen carefully. The holiness of God has two aspects.
First of all, it deals with God’s moral purity, which means that God is absolutely perfectly sinless, That there is no evil, no evil motives, no evil actions.
Nothing that God has ever done has been wrong. He does not think evil.
Uh he does not, he does not do evil. He hates everything that is evil.
He despises everything that is sinful. He is against all sin, all evil and every type.
He does not hate the sinner, but he hates what the sinner does.
He despises all types of sin because God knows the destructive power of sin in a person’s life.
And therefore because God has called every single one of us unto himself.
And because God desires to make us his Children, because he has the best plan possible for each one of our lives, because he has a will for our life, anything that interferes with, anything that hinders anything that would bring about sin in our life and cause us to miss God’s by in our life.
God hates it. God wants it out of our life. God does not in any way tolerate sin.
He cannot because it is his in nature from eternal past, even natural eternal future.
God is absolutely perfectly sinless and pure and therefore he cannot tolerate look upon nor acknowledge nor ignore sin.
So that the forgiveness of sin is not God ignoring sin.
The forgiveness of sin is God having dealt with sin and relating that to you and to me.
And so therefore we talk about God being holy. He is morally pure.
There’s not anything in him that is not absolutely pure to a degree to which you and I could possibly not understand.
For example, in first John Chapter one, he says that in him that is in God, there is no darkness at all.
Now, every single one of us came in the world with a sinful nature a bent away from God.
We did not just naturally trance become transformed and osmosis into becoming a christian.
You don’t grow into being a christian, you by an act of your faith in the death of the Lord, jesus christ, placing your trust in him by the grace of God and an act of God.
We are forgiven of our sins.
We are justified, declared not guilty and become the Children of God, which the bible called Saints, that is every single person who has trusted jesus christ as their savior has become a saint.
Now, that is not a saint in terms of the way.
Maybe some other church may make Saints out of particular people who have lived a certain kind of life.
But God says for example, he addresses the believers in Ephesus or Corinth philippi, he says to the Saints in common the Saints in Ephesus, so that the saints in philippi the Saints in Thessaloniki, we become the saints of God.
So therefore, when the bible uses that terminology, I want us to understand that when it comes to God, he is absolutely perfectly morally pure.
There is nothing about him that is tainted in any way.
So, because you and I come to work with the sinful nature, we can only perceive or conceive of of of holiness and purity to some degree, but God is absolutely never, has never will cannot because his his very nature to be absolutely totally pure above and beyond all sin under any condition at any time in eternity, past, till eternity future.

So that is the, that is the moral aspect of God’s purity.
And that is the moral aspect of God’s holiness now.
But the holiness of God involves more than just his moral purity. It involves separateness.
It involves separateness, that is that God is separated from. He has separated himself from all evil and all sin.
And God, we say, is transcendent, which means that he is lifted above and beyond.
He is above and beyond this earth. He is above and beyond all human beings.
He is the sovereign of this universe, his holiness, his purity, his righteousness is so above and beyond anything that we can possibly conceive of, that he is separate from man because of his holiness.
He cannot look upon it. He cannot tolerate, he cannot ignore it.
That because of his holiness, God is just and must deal with disobedience and rebellion in any and every single form.
When we think of the idea of separateness, there are some words, for example, that we use, like Holy Saint holiness sanctify.
They all come from the same word. For example, the word, the word Holy.
The word Holy Thing is a holy place is a hoagie, or we talk about to be made holy to be sanctified, to be sanctified, cosmos.
And so these words all have the same route and the reason I mentioned that is this, that to be sanctified is to be made holy to be set apart.
God has made us holy, none of us can make ourselves holy.
And so the awesome emphasis all through the scripture and those old testament. Saints understood that.
And over and over and over again, God demanded the recognition of his holiness and his punishment of his own people.
He would just wipe them out when they proved to be unholy when they began to worship other gods.
It was the one thing God says. I’m a jealous God.
I’m the one who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
I’m the one who has blessed you with this land.
I’m the one who’s provided your needs, you to worship me and me. Only God almighty Jehovah.
God is the only person who has ever, who has ever existed and has always existed.
He is the only person listen who deserves our worship and our praise and our honor, because he is the only one who is absolutely perfectly pure and holy and separate above everything that exists on the face of this earth.
Therefore, when people use God’s name today in profanity, they do not recognize. Listen to watch this.
Are you listening to say men? The law of God has not changed.
God has not decided it’s okay to use God in profanity.
Now, these thousands of years later, does he strike us dead?
No, because we are living in an age of grace and I’ll explain that in a moment.
But in those days, somebody profane the name of God, The penalty was stone them to death to use the name of Jehovah in a profane fashion, God has not changed his law when it comes to the fact that that is a sin god hates.
And yet people use his name in vain as if they were talking about somebody else or some other thing.
There’s some things that are holy now.
How do people react to the holiness of God? How do people who are unchristian?
How do people who are non christians, how do people who do not know jesus christ as their personal savior?
How do people who do not know God when it comes to the holiness of God?
How do most of them think?
Well, they think don’t crowd me, don’t smother me, don’t give me this God, don’t give me this, jesus bit, don’t throw the bible in my face, don’t cram religion down my throat.
You know what the problem is?
They’re very uncomfortable in the presence of the proclamation of the gospel or they’re very uncomfortable in your testimony about what jesus is doing in your life.
They’re very uncomfortable about even talking about jesus, they’re very uncomfortable when you mention his name.
They’re uncomfortable when you talk about going to church and what God is doing in your life.
They’re uncomfortable when you talk about what the bible is teaching you, they’re uncomfortable about how God has worked in your life, uncomfortable when you start talking about sin and uncomfortable.
But when you start talking about how God has worked in your life in the past very uncomfortable. Why?
Because that’s exactly what holiness does.
When a person is living in disobedience, holiness makes them very uncomfortable.
That is, I call it holy heat, They can’t handle it, they can’t handle it.
You go to work tomorrow, the people you work around.
Often times you start talking about jesus, what do they start doing?
They start backing off, you know, let’s now listen, listen, what do they say?
I don’t discuss politics and religion, which is a lie because I guarantee you they discuss politics and they discuss religion when it’s safe in their crowd.
When everybody agrees with them, get rid of that.
So it’s all a big lie, but they’re uncomfortable.
You go to work tomorrow and you start talking about, let me tell you what the pastor preached on yesterday, which you’re more than likely not going to do.
He preached on the holiness of God.
I mean, who wants to hear about that?
But you don’t even have to come on that strong, you’d have to come on that strongly at all.
When you get personal with someone about jesus, if they’re living in rebellion towards God, they get very uncomfortable.
It’s Holy heat, you see, because watch this.
Now remember who you are, you are a child of a holy God, you’re one whom God has, has forgiven their sins, You have been pardoned of your sin, You are now in dwelt by the person of the Holy Spirit, who is the person of the trinity of the Godhead God is living on the inside of you.
You’ve been sanctified, set apart by God. For God, are you still a sinner? Yes.
Do we still sin against God? Yes. Are we morally up here all the time? No.
So do we have our faults and our failures and our weaknesses?
Yes, but God has chosen to express his message, his witness, his testimony, his character in and through those of us who are still growing still learning, still moving ahead.
Sometimes we stumble, but he has chosen to use us to get the truth of himself to those around us.
And so it’s very discomforting to some people.
Well, what about those who have become Children of God, but who have chosen the rebellion to in rebellion towards God?
Who out of the Will of God? What? How do they respond the same way?
Stop giving Don’t don’t cram the bible in my throat. I know about church.
Don’t give me this bit about tithing. Well, I’ll read the bible when I get good.
I used to read it. I’ve I’ve been I’ve tried all that. Don’t put pressure on me.
I come to church when I get ready. You know what?
They have the same attitude oftentimes as an unbeliever, when you get out of the will of God.
The one thing you don’t want to discuss is the holiness of God.
When you’re living in sin.
The last kind of message you want to hear is a message about the holiness of God.
Whether you’re a saint or whether you’re a rebel against God, that’s the last thing you want to hear.
Why? Because it is holy Heat. We listen.
There’s something about being confronted with the truth that we are repulsed by that when sin on the inside of us is in control, when we have yielded ourselves to sin, when a person has given themselves over to their sinful nature and have chosen to live a diabolical life, listen, they’re going to attack that, which is holy ridicule that, which is holy, fight against that, which is holy.
And listen, demean in any possible way that which is holy. You know what?
All the attacks in the world will not make us less holy than we are.
We’re Children of God doesn’t mean that we’re perfect.
We’re saints who stumble Saints in the process of being and listen.
Not only have we been sanctified and made holy?
We’re in the process of God refining our holiness until the day he calls us home to be with him.
Now, how does one who desires to live in the will of God walk in the ways of God be obedient to God.
What kind of response do they have to the holiness of God awed by his holiness, overwhelmed by his holiness overcome by his holiness, it makes us want to get out on our face before God and acknowledge that we are unworthy to call his name unworthy to receive his grace?
Unworthy? Unworthy to name the name of Jehovah God and to call him our God.
We want to praise him and worship him. We want to gather together.
We we want we want to adore him.
We want to give to him, we want his message spread around the world.
We want God to have his way in our life.
We want holding this the rule and reign in our life. We want to walk in obedience to him.
We want to be the kind of, of saints that those who are in need of christ will see something in us, that they will want, who he is in our life.
People respond to God in all kinds of ways.
I believe that my response to the holiness of God the message of his holiness to my own heart, Or if suddenly I since I’m in the presence of God and or in his awesome holiness, my response to that is the best barometer I know to where you and I are in our relationship to Almighty God.
Now, with that in mind, I want to answer a big question. Big question.
And here’s the question, how is it that Holy God, morally absolutely perfectly pure separated from man, transcendent from man because of his holiness and his righteousness and his purity?
How can this Holy God have a relationship with us have intimacy with us.
How can how can we talk to him and he be willing to talk back to us?
How can we say that God is with us? How can we say that?
He walks with me and talks with me and calls me one of his own?
How can we say that we have a personal relationship with Almighty God?
How can we talk about worshiping him and being in his presence when he speaks of separateness?
How how can all of this possibly take place when God is who he says he is?
Now, once you listen carefully, what bridges the gap between Holy God and sinful man?
My friend doesn’t make a difference who you are, where you come from, what you believe, What your religious belief, maybe This is absolutely not my opinion.
The biblical, eternal, unavoidable, irresistible, unchangeable truth of the living God.
There is only one way that Holy God and sinful Man can ever come together. And what is that?
That is by the cross of jesus christ.
That is the only thing that bridges the gap between sinful man and Holy God. How does it happen?
Here’s the way it happens. The most horrible demonstration of justice ever demonstrated ever expressed in humanity happened on a hill called calvary.
It happened. The crucifixion of jesus?
Because here’s exactly what happened God in his justice demands penalty for disobedience, every single living human being past, present future has disobeyed almighty God.
And so therefore every single human being is guilty before God let me add one parenthesis, I’m accepting those babies that born and die early in life before they can ever reach an age of knowing and understanding and being accountable to God.
So we’re talking about the average normal person now, every single person under listen, under the penalty of the guilt of disobedience to God because we came into this world would have been away from him and all of us have sinned against him.
Now, God in his justice requires judgment on sin.
That means that every single one of us, if we had died and there have been no cross, we would have been separated from God eternally under the wrath of God, which is his intense hatred for sin for all eternity.
That’s what listen, that’s what hell is about. That is what eternal separation from God is about.
Now watch this sanctification set apart for God, but dying without christ set apart from God.
And so what did God do in his love in his goodness? In his mercy.
Listen, at the cross two things met at the cross is the justice and the mercy of God.
The justice and the mercy of God.
Here listen, here is the justice and the grace of God meeting at the cross. What is God doing?
He’s placing this awesome load of all the sins of all mankind upon the person of jesus christ.
And then unleashing listen, his justice, unleashing his wrath upon his only begotten son.
God listen, Jesus christ is the Listen, jesus christ is the only sinless person god ever punished.
And jesus christ volunteered, he, he offered himself as the lamb of God to be slain for the sins of the world.
And so God the father placed upon him every sin of every single human being on the face of this earth.
And what did he do? He unleashed his judgment. He unleashed his wrath.
He could not look upon, Listen, he could not look upon his only begotten son with all of the sin, the wickedness and violence.
Listen, every single possible sin that man can commit and every single sin that man listen, did commit had committed is committing, or will ever commit.
Listen, all the penalty for all of that was placed upon him in one single act, and God judged him, condemned him, unleashed his judgment upon him in one act.
And what was jesus response, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Distanced yourself from me, separated yourself from me. That’s what judgments about. That’s what rats about.
That’s what condemnation about. That’s what the hell is all about. God.
Listen, the bible says that God created hell for his angels, fallen angels the devil and his angels not for us.
A person has to choose. A person has to choose to disobey and rebel against Almighty God.
And so what did God do?
Because his love for you and me was so great.
He placed upon his son. Everything that you and I deserve.
The last thing you want is justice. You want grace, you want love, you want mercy.
And so jesus christ died as a substitute for your sins and mind. And now here’s what God did.
He said. Now that my son has paid your sin debt in full and paid the full penalty.
My son has felt and experienced my judgment, my condemnation, my justice and my wrath.
I separated myself from him and let him pay the penalty in order that you and I would not have to.
And now that he has paid that penalty.
Here’s the offer if you are willing to acknowledge your sinfulness and that your unworthy, unfit, helpless and hopeless before almighty sovereign, Holy God.
And you willing to confess your sins before Almighty God and ask him to forgive you, pardon you of your sin, based on not your conduct, your promises of better behavior, but based on the fact that christ died for your sin paid your sin debt in full suffered his wrath condemnation and judgment in your place.
And you’re willing to accept him as your personal savior.
In that moment, the moment you say, I’m asking you to forgive me of my sins and I’m trusting jesus christ as my savior.
I’m placing my faith in him as my savior. In that moment, God executes as the judge of life.
He executes what he executes his righteousness for you and me.
He justifies us as the judge of all humanity. In that moment he declares you and me no longer guilty.
How can he declare us no longer guilty and still be God?
Because his son is the substitute for your sins and mine.
And he had to be the virgin born sinless son of God, because everyone else would have had to die for their own sin.
In that moment he justifies us. In the moment he justifies us. This is what he does.
He declares us no longer guilty.
We are pardoned of all of our sins were We listen, we are freed from the penalty of sin.
We instantly become a child of God. Our names are written in the lamb’s book of Life.
We are eternally and forever secure in the listen, in the undying, unchangeable, unconditional, eternal love of all, mighty Holy God.
That’s what the holiness of God is all about. And that’s why there’s a cross.
It isn’t something you just hang around your neck. It isn’t something you put on the bracelet.
It isn’t something we put on a steeple.
The cross is God’s holy bridge from holiness to sinfulness and bringing us back to him and father how grateful how unworthy we are to call your name, to speak your truth, to proclaim your holy word.
I pray. The Holy Spirit will sink this message so deep, so strongly let it penetrate every single heart that hears it.
I pray that there will be multitudes of people as they hear it now and around the world, who will acknowledge your holiness, their sinfulness, their need of christ and in confession of jesus savior receive him is the Lord and master of their life.
But we ask it in his wonderful and holy name.
Amen.