Knowing a Holy God (Pt. 1)

The Bible is filled with descriptions of God’s love, power, mercy, and other
attributes. But which one is mentioned most often? Its His holiness. Dr. David
Jeremiah sheds light on the quality of God’s holiness with examples from Scripture
of those who encountered it.

Special Strength is Coming from Dr. David Jeremiah Absolutely love Dr. David Jeremiah Sermon, it’s absolutely from God! What a beautiful gift!🙏❤️

And we thank you for joining us today. This is turning point. I’m David Jeremiah.
And today we’re going to talk about God. How about that? On a religious radio program?
We’re gonna talk about God. This is the beginning of a series called the God. You may not know.
Uh we’re going to talk today about knowing a holy God.
What does it mean when the Bible says God is holy? Some people say that is his fundamental attribute.
Is that true? We’ll find out about it as we get started in just a few moments in our study of the attributes of God.
This is from a book called the God. You may not know.
And uh I want you to know you can get this book.
It’s 12 chapters to help you develop an intimacy with God as you learn about his character and his attributes.
It includes a downloadable leader’s guide for group or individual study.
All you have to do is send a gift and ask for it.
When you send your gift in the month of April, ask for the book, the God, you may not know.
And all those extras I talked about are a part of it. Well, let’s get started with this discussion.
We’re going to begin where most people would begin when you’re trying to understand who God is.
So here we are getting to know a Holy God.
It was January nine in 2018 in the headline in a local Atlantic City newspaper, read this.
Solomon leads Saint Augustine to dominant win over Holy Spirit.
The story was about Charles Solomon, a basketball player for ST Augustine preparatory school who had a good night on the court against Holy Spirit High School, a Roman Catholic preparatory school in, if you look up the word holy in the news, many of the references are to sports teams like Holy Trinity, Holy Cross.
Holy redeemer. It’s remarkable how many references represent careless uses of the expression like holy cow or holy smoke or holy moly.
Some of these phrases have an interesting background. Maybe you’ve heard somebody say holy mackerel.
Well, I did a little homework on that and found out that it comes from the 17th century when they had to allow mackerel to be sold in the fish markets on Sunday because they deteriorated before Monday.
So they called the mackerel, holy mackerel.
Others have tried to track down the meaning of Holy Toledo.
That’s really interesting to me because I was born in Toledo, Toledo, Ohio.
I have to promise you I had nothing to do with it being holy. But where did it come from?
A former police officer in my hometown of Toledo, Ohio said apparently there was an alleged agreement between police officials and underworld people in the early 19 hundreds during prohibition and the police promised to give safe crackers safe haven in Toledo.
As long as they didn’t ply their trade inside the city limits.
So the thieves would commit burglaries in Detroit or Chicago, some other midwestern city and flee back to the holy land for safety.
Even in the church world, the word holy is used carelessly when people become a bit overzealous in worship, we call them holy rollers.
If someone tends to be judgmental or critical, we say they’re holier than thou.
And if in the nursery, a child loses his temper, we call him a holy terror regardless of how society uses the word.
It’s a very special word. It’s one of the towering truths of scripture. One of the preeminent attributes of God.
If we examine the holiness of God, that’s where we should begin.
Philadelphia, Pastor James Montgomery Boyce once spoke to a group about the attributes of God and he began asking the group to list God’s quality in the order of importance.
The group put love first followed by wisdom, power, mercy, omniscience, and truth.
And at the end of the list, they put holiness that surprised me said Boyce because the Bible refers to God’s holiness more than any other thing about God think of it this way.
God is all loving, but the angels around the throne aren’t singing. Loving, loving.
Loving God is all knowing.
But there’s no record of the heavenly host singing omniscient, omniscient, omniscient his power and might have no limit.
But the songs recorded in the Book of Revelation don’t say powerful, powerful, powerful.
The cry of the heavenly host is holy.
Holy, holy God is called holy more than he is called anything else in the scripture.
He is repeatedly referred to as the holy one of Israel or the Holy God.
Now, most of us know that we read our Bibles, we sing the songs.
We know that the Bible says God is holy. But do we know what that means?
What does it mean? When the Bible says that God is holy?
Basically, it means two distinct things. First of all, God’s holiness is his separateness.
That’s not a word we use, but it is exactly the right word.
The Bible says that God is separate from everything.
And everyone in first Timothy six, we read these words who alone has immortality, dwelling in the unapproachable light whom no man has seen or can see.
Theologians talk about the otherness of God. Hosea says it this way.
I am God and not man, the holy one in your midst. In several places.
In the Bible, we read passages that start like this.
God is not a man that he should over and over.
You see that the scripture teaches us that we should always view God not as just one of the human family, but God is separate from us.
He is the only being in the whole universe who was not created for. He is the creator.
He is separate and above his creation. He is eternally unique because there is no one like Him.
There is no one who can be compared to Him before. There was anything, there was God.
He always has been and he always will be. There never has been a time when he ceased to be.
Nor will there ever be a time when he is not who he is.
He is the distinct unique being of history. He is the Holy God.
CS Lewis who wrote all of the wonderful chronicles to try to help us understand the Bible through his little stories, tries to get at this separateness of God in the lion, the witch and the wardrobe.
He describes his story the first time the Children hear about Alan, I I I is he a man as a man said, Mr Beaver sternly, certainly not.
I tell you he is the king of the wood and the son of the great emperor beyond the sea.
Don’t you know who is the king of the beast? Aslan is a lion, the lion, the great lion.
Oh said Susan, I thought he was a man. Is he quite safe?
I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion that you will dey and no mistake said Mrs Beaver, if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslin without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or just plain silly Benny.
Is it safe? Said Lucy safe said Mr Beaver, don’t you hear what we are telling you?
Who said anything about being safe? Of course, he isn’t safe but he’s good. Here’s the king.
I tell you, you can trust him. Like Alan God is definitely not safe.
The God revealed in Jesus Christ is holy. He’s a holy God. He cannot be contained.
He cannot be tamed. He is not safe, but He is good. He is very good.
When you think about the holiness of God, you just need to remember He’s holy because He is the only uncreative being in the universe.
He is unlike anyone for He is the originator of everyone.
But God’s holiness is also his sinless.
The holiness of God conveys the idea of absolute purity.
First, John 15 says this is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you that God is light and in Him, there is no darkness at all.
Holiness means the total absence of any taint of evil. No shadow of sin comes close to his person.
He is pure and sinless holy in all of his being, in all of his words, in all of his ways.
Speaking of God, the prophet Habakkuk said it this way you are of pure eyes than to behold evil.
And you cannot look on wickedness examining the holiness of God. If somebody asks you, what does it mean?
When the Bible says that God is holy, you can answer them in two ways.
It means He is unique, unlike any creature, because he’s originated all of life and he is absolutely perfect.
He does not have one sin stain on his person, nor will he ever He is holy in the Bible.
There were people who met this God and encountered his holiness.
I guess it would be a good thing for us to just ask ourselves, what would we do if God were to make himself visible in this room today?
If we encountered the holiness of God, the Bible is filled with kings and beggars and prophets and prostitutes and warriors and weaklings, merchants and thieves.
But when they encountered God, they reacted almost remarkably in the same way, they trembled, they cowered, some of them went mute.
The ones who could manage speech expressed despair and they were convinced they were about to die.
I’d like to take you on a little journey.
This is going to be fun because I love these stories and just tell you about a few people in the Bible who met the holiness of God.
Let’s talk about Moses for a moment.
Moses had several extraordinary encounters with the holiness of God moments that changed him forever.
Once while he was tending his flocks, minding his own business, he spotted a bush that was on fire and he went to investigate.
And when he got near to the bush, the Lord spoke to him out of the bush and said to him, Moses Moses and Moses said, here I am and God said, do not draw near this place, take your sandals off your feet.
For the place where you stand is holy ground. Hm.
Later in that same region, Moses went to the mountain to get the law from God and he had a moment of conversation with God.
And he asked God this question found in Exodus chapter 33.
He said, God, please show me your glory, show me your holiness.
Now, it’s impossible to see a full manifestation of God’s holiness and live to tell about it.
But the Lord gave Moses an approximate experience. Let me read this to you.
This is not a well known part of moses’ life.
So the Lord said to Moses, I will do this thing that you have spoken.
But he said, you cannot see my face for no man shall see me and live.
And the Lord said, here’s a place by me.
You shall stand on the rock and it shall be while my glory passes by that, I will put you in the cleft of the rock and I will cover you with my hand while I pass by and I will take away my hand and you shall see my back, but my face, you shall not see in some mysterious way.
Moses was unable to see the front of God. He only glimpsed the backside of God’s glory.
But this is what the Bible says happened when he descended from Mount Sinai and reconnected with his followers.
So when Aaron and all the Children of Israel saw Moses behold the skin of his face shown and they were afraid to come near him.
His face was so illuminated with the holy light that he had to wear a veil.
When he spoke to others, his face was a glow with the reflected glory and holiness of God.
That’s how it was for Moses. And then there’s this man in the Old Testament named Job.
He was a righteous man, the wealthiest man of his generation.
And you know his story within a few days, he lost all of his money, all of his health, his Children were all taken from him in a series of devastating satanic attacks.
I always tell people when I reference job.
If you’re having a bad day, go read job in the first few chapters, you will feel immensely better when you are done.
In the 38th chapter of job, God comes to job and reveals himself to him.
God takes job on a tour of the sciences, pointing out the wonders of geology and meteorology, and oceanography, and astronomy and zoology.
And in light of all the supreme grandeur of God’s holiness job was shaken and he responds to his vision of the holiness of God in the 40th chapter with these words, he says, behold, I am vile.
What shall I answer you? I lay my hand over my mouth.
I know that you can do everything and that no purpose of yours can be withheld from you.
I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see you.
Therefore, I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.
When we experience the holiness of God, that’s what we want to do every time, put our hands over our mouth.
So we don’t say something stupid.
Probably the most famous encounter with the holiness of God had happened with a man by the name of Isaiah.
Once again, a little background, Isiah was one of the greatest kings of the Old Testament.
He came to the throne when he was 16 years of age and he reigned over Israel for 52 years.
He was the only ruler that most of the people in Israel had ever known, including the prophet Isaiah.
And this king Isaiah, the Bible says he did what was right in the eyes of God and served God wonderfully till he got old.
And when he got old, he got arrogant and one day he went to the temple and when the priests weren’t available to minister to him, he grew irritated and he decided he didn’t need a priest.
He usurped the functions of the priest, which was an abomination to God.
And the Bible says, he immediately broke out in leprosy.
And from that moment, he lived in a separate house under quarantine, never being able to be around others.
And when he died, the whole nation mourned, that’s when Isaiah went to the temple, the prophet went to the temple to pray and ask for God’s direction during this transition.
What do you do when a man who’s been the king for 52 years finally dies. What happens next?
And when he arrived at the temple that day, he wasn’t prepared for what he saw.
Isaiah six tells us that in that in the year that king Isaiah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up and the train of his robe filled the temple above it stood sir of him.
Each one had six wings with two.
He covered his face with two, he covered his feet and with two, he did fly and one cried to another and said, holy holy holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory.
And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out and the house was filled with smoke.
So Isaiah said, woe is me 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 my eyes have seen the king the Lord of hosts and one of the Seraphim flew to him having in his hand, a live coal which he had taken from the altar and he touched his mouth and said, behold, this has touched your lips, your iniquity is taken away and your sin is purged.
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us?
And I said, here am I send me?
Isaiah went to the temple to mourn the loss of the king.
And he got a vision of the heavenly king.
The ancient Hebrew language had no way of emphasizing words like we do.
You couldn’t push a button on a computer and have your words changed in style?
They didn’t italicize or underline or type in bold print when they wanted to highlight something, they doubled it.
Remember how Jesus would often say, truly, truly, I say unto you that’s Jesus saying underline this, this is important.
This is in bold. This is my way of saying this is critically, critically important. Very seldom.
Do we see triplicates and never of any other attribute of God. Is there a trip in the Bible?
But when Isaiah was in the temple beholding the Lord high and lifted up, the angels were crying holy, holy, holy, the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory.
Isaiah was stunned and the Bible says, he saw himself as he really was.
And then along with job and Moses and Isaiah, there’s Paul, remember Paul on the road to Damascus all of a sudden he sees a bright light from heaven and it was brighter than the noonday sun and it knocked him to the ground.
And when he experienced the holiness of God, he was blinded as though his eyes had been burned out by the infinite brilliance of the savior on his throne.
His spiritual and physical eyes were open and his life was changed through that experience.
Saul of Tarsus became Paul the apostle.
And finally, there’s John, if you read the Book of Revelation, you know, it was written by the apostle John.
And Revelation gives us perhaps the most understandable picture of what God might look like to us.
If he were to manifest himself, read the first chapter of revelation.
And it will tell you that when John looked into heaven, he saw the enthroned Lord whose hair was like blinding snow, his eyes were flames of fire.
His voice was like the sound of many waters and his countenance was like the sun shining in all of its strength out of his mouth, came a two edged sword.
And John said, when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead encountering the holiness of God.
I rather think if you and I would have any experience like one of these five guys, we would do the same thing, don’t you?
We’d put our hand over our mouth, we’d fall on our face.
We would say woe is me for, I am undone.
When you see the holiness of God, it has an incredible impact on you.
And we know that maybe that’s why we’re a little bit timid about even exploring this subject.
How am I impacted by the holiness of God today?
Is this just something I need to have in the hard drive of my mind so that if somebody ever asks me about it, I can give them an answer.
No, it’s much more than that. Let me see if I can help us get our arms around that.
What are the takeaways for you and me when we know what the holiness of God is all about?
Well, let’s talk first about association.
When we understand how Holy God is, we see ourselves in the light of that holiness.
The standard of all morality is God’s absolute perfect, unsullied holiness and anything that falls short of that can never measure up for fellowship with the Holy God.
That’s why Jesus Christ had to come to this world because we could never be holy enough to know God.
We had to borrow our holiness from God’s son and we’ll have some more about this tomorrow as we continue our discussion of knowing God.
The title of the series is the God. You may not know. And we’re going to talk about His attributes.
We can never know everything there is to know about God and some of his attributes are a secret, but he has revealed himself in the scripture and he is easy to know from the things he’s told us.
We can know a lot more about God than we do if we will just be diligent and open our Bibles together.
You know, there’s an old adage that says the more you know, somebody, the easier it is to love that somebody I promise you the more you know God and especially his love for you, the more you’re going to want to develop a relationship with Him during this month.
When you send a gift of any size, we want to send you the book, the God.
You may not know this 272 page hardcover book is available to anyone who will send a gift of any size to turning point during this month and simply ask for the book, a study guide CD and DB set are also available.
You can get those from turning point, which is David Jeremiah dot org.
Don’t forget we’re coming to Boise Idaho April the 20th to the extra mile arena.
And you can get your tickets from David Jeremiah dot org.
If you live in that area, I hope you’ll come and join us for a night of worship and teaching and fellowship.
We’ll see you tomorrow.