His Word Today

“That dread and amazement with which as Scripture uniformly relates, holy men were struck and overwhelmed whenever they beheld the presence of God. When we see those who previously stood firm and secure so quaking with terror, that the fear of death takes hold of them, nay, they are, in a manner, swallowed up and annihilated, the inference to be drawn is that men are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of their insignificance, until they have contrasted themselves with the majesty of God.” John Calvin

I have heard people say that they would love to see the LORD. I have heard people sing, and I have sung, words extolling the LORD being high and lifted up and wanting to see Him in the light of His glory. What was the effect upon people in the Scriptures who did witness and encounter the holiness of God? What was their reaction?

Believers may often respond with the exclamation of “wow” following a particularly moving worship service. I wonder how many of us react with the exclamation of “woe?” Are we duly touched and impressed with a conviction of our own insignificance when we encounter, however briefly, the majesty and holy magnificence of God? Let’s look at some Old Testament characters who were.

Let’s begin with Abraham. The father of the faithful. Abraham is known in the Scriptures as the “friend of God” (James 2:23). What was Abraham’s perspective and reaction when realizing he was in the presence of the LORD in Genesis 18:1-33?

First, when the LORD appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre he ran to meet the LORD and the two other visitors with Him and bowed himself to the earth (Genesis 18:2). One commentary explains that, “When the visitor is an ordinary person, the host merely rises; but if of superior rank, the custom is to advance a little towards the stranger, and after a very low bow, turn and lead him to the tent, putting an arm round his waist, or tapping him on the shoulder as they go, to assure him of welcome.”

Following a time of refreshment from Abraham and Sarah to the three visitors, the LORD reveals to Abraham His intentions of judging Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:16-21). What follows is Abraham’s negotiations with the LORD as to the extent of His judgment. Throughout this exchange, Abraham acknowledges that he is only “dust and ashes” and possesses a posture of submission and deference to the LORD. Abraham did not view the LORD as a buddy, in which he could address Him as an equal.

Dr. John Walvoord explains that, “Abraham … hurried to them (18:2), hurried back to the tent (v. 6), ran to the herd (v. 7), and his servant hurried (v. 7); Abraham bowed low before them (v. 2); he had water brought to wash their feet (v. 4); he served them freshly baked bread (v. 6), a choice … calf (v. 7), curds and milk (v. 8), and he stood while they were eating (v. 8; cf. vv. 1–2). All this suggests that he perceived who his visitors were.”

What about the Patriarch Job? What was his response when he finally received the audience before God that he so earnestly requested in light of his extreme sufferings? In Job 42:1-6 we receive the answer.

“Then Job answered the Lord and said: ² “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ³ ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ⁴ ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.’ ⁵ I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; ⁶ therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

 Job’s response, to being in the presence of the LORD and the LORD’s response to Job’s complaints (Job 38-41), was one of self-condemnation, an acknowledgment of his own ignorance of the ways of God, and a self-despising resulting in repentance. In short, Job repented of his pride.

Our third example are the people of Israel at Mt. Sinai in Exodus 19. Israel assembled at Mt Sinai for what would become an eleven month stay (Exodus 19:1-40:38; Numbers 10:1-11). It would be on the third day of their assembling that God would appear to the people. Exodus 19:16-20 records what occurred.

^16 “On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. ¹⁷ Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. ¹⁸ Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. ¹⁹ And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder. ²⁰ The Lord came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. And the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.”

 There is a brief statement in vs. 16 regarding the reaction by the people to the presence of God: “all the people in the camp trembled.” The word “trembled” means to be actively and continually, physically and emotionally, terrified.

From but three examples found in the Old Testament, we see that people were physically, emotionally and spiritually brought low when they encountered the holy LORD God. Was this the same type of reaction for those we find in the New Testament who encountered the LORD’s holiness? When next we meet, we will discover the answer.

What about you? Do you have a sense of your own unworthiness when entering into the LORD’s presence: whether in corporate or private worship? May we approach the LORD today with the fresh eyes of understanding of how to correctly come before the presence of the holy One. Remember, “that men are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of their insignificance, until they have contrasted themselves with the majesty of God.”

Soli deo Gloria!

 

“Man is never sufficiently touched and affected by the awareness of his lowly state until he has compared himself with God’s majesty.”  John Calvin

Have you ever been traumatized? What in fact does it mean to be traumatized? What exactly is trauma and how does it relate to the subject of holiness?

Trauma is defined as a deeply distressing or disturbing experience. Many people, including my family, have experienced the personal trauma of the death of a child, or children.

For those serving in the military, the experience of combat, and injury from combat, is a deeply distressing and disturbing experience. Not only for the veteran but also for his/her family.

Recently at work, one of my co-workers came into the warehouse office complaining of chest pains. Our supervisor immediately called 911, an ambulance was dispatched and my friend was taken to the hospital. Seeing him waiting for the ambulance, I saw the face of a 57 year old man who was experiencing physical and emotional trauma.

I believe it is safe to say that all of us have experienced some kind of personal trauma at some point in our lives. Perhaps as a child, adolescent, teenager, young adult or even as a mature adult. Trauma knows no boundaries and sets no age limits. Anyone who has watched infomercials about Shriner’s Hospital for Children or St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital can see how these two particular institutions help families cope with the trauma of childhood diseases and birth defects.

People do not just experience physical trauma. There is also psychological trauma, which is damage to the mind that occurs as a result of a distressing event. Trauma is often the result of an overwhelming amount of stress that exceeds one’s ability to cope, or integrate the emotions involved with that experience.

There are three types of trauma: acute, chronic, or complex. Acute trauma results from a single incident.  Chronic trauma is repeated and prolonged such as domestic violence or abuse. Complex trauma is exposure to varied and multiple traumatic events, often of an invasive, interpersonal nature.

You may be wondering what trauma has to do with the subject of holiness. Plenty! Those individuals, or people groups, who the Bible states personally encountered the holiness of God experienced psychological, emotional and even physical trauma.

Dr. R. C. Sproul explains that, “Nearly five hundred years ago, the task of systematizing the biblical doctrines recovered during the Protestant Reformation fell to John Calvin. His Institutes of the Christian Religion remains one of the most important and influential theological works ever produced. Calvin devoted his life to Bible study, refining and expanding the Institutes before his death. Near the beginning of this work, Calvin succinctly encapsulated what the encounters between God and man in Scripture tell us about human nature. He writes, “man is never sufficiently touched and affected by the awareness of his lowly state until he has compared himself with God’s majesty” (1.1.3).

A common expression in the Old Testament was “We shall die, for we have seen God” (Judges 13:22). Dr. John MacArthur writes that, “This reaction of the fear of death is familiar with those who come into God’s presence. Many did die when facing God, as the OT records. It is the terror in the heart of the sinner when in the presence of a holy God. Cf. Ezekiel (Ezek. 1:28), Isaiah (Isa. 6:5), the 12 (Mark 4:35–41), Peter (Luke 5:8), and John (Rev. 1:17–18).

For the next several days we will briefly examine the situations which brought people in the Scriptures to an awareness of the holiness of God and their inevitable reaction to not only who God was, but also who they were. It would wise for believers today to also gain this perspective.

Soli deo Gloria!

 

 

It is amazing how the subject of holiness has dominated my thinking of late. More amazing still is how many times, since I began earnestly studying this biblical doctrine that I have come across comments and quotes concerning holiness. Today’s blog is a miscellaneous selection of quotes regarding this important and essential doctrine in the believer’s life.

1 Thessalonians 2:11–12 says, “¹¹ For you know how, like a father with his children, ¹² we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.”

 In commenting on this text one pastor writes, “The Christian ethic is inseparable from the Christian gospel. Lose one, and the other will disappear as well. Paul indicates that living the Christian ethic is “worthy of God” (1 Thess. 2:12). Essentially, the Apostle means that believers must live in such a way that it can rightly be said of them that they belong to God. In other words, our conduct must reflect the character of God Himself. If it does not and we remain impenitent, we show ourselves unworthy of the kingdom. The sense here is not that we merit our kingdom citizenship by our holiness but that kingdom citizenship inevitably and always manifests itself by our holy living. Paul says that we are to “walk” in such a way, using the present tense (v. 12). We should be consistently pursuing righteousness, slowly but steadily increasing in godliness.

Another Bible teacher explains that, “Our love and holiness are not the basis of our salvation. Only the perfection of Christ can make us stand before God unafraid. Yet, neither will we be saved without growing in love and holiness, for sanctification—growth in grace—is the inevitable fruit of our justification—being declared righteous in Christ. Those who have been saved will certainly pursue love and holiness. Let us strive to do so today.”

Dr. Sinclair Ferguson, at the 2019-2020 Reformed Bible College Convocation, preached a message entitled Fidelity, Sanctity and Orthodoxy. Regarding the subject of sanctity, or holiness, he stated that, “God has called us to a holy calling, or a calling to be holy. One of the great forgotten words of the modern Christian church is the holiness of God and the holiness of his people. The Apostle Paul builds up all that Christ has done for us in order to create this sanctity, this holiness in us. God set His heart upon it before the dawn of time. He sent His Son to accomplish it by His death and resurrection, His ascension and His heavenly reign. What is the goal of this? The goal of this is that He might transform us and make us holy. Holiness is not an optional addition to our calling. Holiness is our calling. Holiness is the only thing that will last for all eternity in the presence of God. It is being like Jesus.”

May each of us resolve to pursue holiness at all costs. This is because holiness is not an optional addition to our calling. Holiness is our calling.

Soli deo Gloria!  

  

                                                              

 

Today we conclude an excerpt from an article I discovered about holiness at monergism.com. It is by David Wells and is taken from his book “No Place for Truth: Or whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology”). David Wells is Distinguished Senior Research Professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is the author of several books in which his evangelical theology engages with the modern world.

Dr. Wells’ contention is that the holiness of God has been, and always will be, essential for the church in general, and the believer in Christ in particular. I was impacted by this brief excerpt from his book which proved to be the impetus for the development of The Cambridge Declaration (1996) by the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. What Dr. Wells wrote in 1993 still resonates truth in 2020, which is characteristic of all theological works that stand the test of time.

It is this God, majestic and holy in his being, this God whose love knows no bounds because his holiness knows no limits, who has disappeared from the modern evangelical world. He has been replaced in many quarters by a God who is slick and slack, whose moral purposes turn out to be avuncular [as from a friendly uncle] advice that we can disregard or negotiate as we see fit, whose Word is a plaything for those who wish merely to listen to themselves, whose Church is a mall in which the religious, their pockets filled with the coin of need, do their business. We seek happiness, not righteousness. We want to be fulfilled, not filled. We are interested in satisfaction, not a holy dissatisfaction with all that is wrong.

This is why we need reformation rather than revival. The habits of the modern world, now so ubiquitous [exists throughout] in the evangelical world, need to be put to death, not given new life. They need to be rooted out, not simply papered over with fresh religious enthusiasm. And they are by this point so invincible that nothing less than the intrusion of God in his grace, nothing less than a full recovery of his truth, will suffice.

In this regard, the death of theology has profound ramifications. Theology is dying not because the academy has failed to devise adequate procedures for reconstructing it but because the Church has lost its capacity for it. And while some hail this loss as a step forward toward the hope of new evangelical vitality, it is in fact a sign of creeping death. The emptiness of evangelical faith without theology echoes the emptiness of modern life. Both have elected to cross over into a world in which God has no place, in which reality has been rewritten, in which Christ has become redundant, his Word irrelevant, and the Church must now find new reasons for its existence.

Unless the evangelical Church can recover the knowledge of what it means to live before a holy God, unless in its worship it can relearn humility, wonder, love, and praise, unless it can find again a moral purpose in the world that resonates with the holiness of God and that is accordingly deep and unyielding-unless the evangelical Church can do all of these things, theology will have no place in its life. But the reverse is also true. If the Church can begin to find a place for theology by refocusing itself on the centrality of God, if it can rest upon his sufficiency, if it can recover its moral fiber, then it will have something to say to a world now drowning in modernity. And there lies a great irony.

Those who are most relevant to the modern world are those most irrelevant to the moral purpose of God, but those who are irrelevant in the world by virtue of their relevance to God actually have the most to say to the world. They are, in fact, the only ones who having anything to say to it. That is what Jesus declared, what the Church in its best moments has known, and what we, by the grace of God, can yet again discover.

I truly appreciate Dr. Wells’ challenging words. Let us resolve to remain irrelevant to the modern world by our relentless pursuit of the truth of the gospel and the personal holiness which is the result of justification by grace alone, through faith alone in the person and work of Jesus Christ alone.

Soli deo Gloria!

 

 

For the next two days I am reproducing an article I discovered about holiness at monergism.com. It is by David Wells and is an excerpt from his book “No Place for Truth: Or whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology”). David Wells is Distinguished Senior Research Professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is the author of several books in which his evangelical theology engages with the modern world.

Dr. Wells’ contention is that the holiness of God has been, and always will be, essential for the church in general, and the believer in Christ in particular. I was impacted by this brief excerpt from his book which proved to be the impetus for the development of The Cambridge Declaration (1996) by the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. What Dr. Wells wrote in 1993 still resonates truth in 2020, which is characteristic of all theological works that stand the test of time. Dr. Wells thoughts are as follows.

It is important to note that the shallowness of modern life derives not from its banality but from its having lost its moral bearings. Our Age like every age that has preceded it, interrogates the unknown with its own questions – questions that grow out of its needs and interests. Our questions today hardly ever go to the heart of moral reality, because modern life is hardly ever about moral concern. Christ seems to offer little of what this world is asking for. It wants whatever is new; it looks for the next step in the journey of the human spirit. Christ did bring to completion much that was predicted or prophesied in the Old Testament, but he introduced few new ideas, and none that would suggest that the human spirit is embarked on a journey. Rather, he brought access to the world of moral reality from which sinners are alienated, and that is everything. He brought everything in himself, for he is God.

More than that even, Christ brought everything into harmony with the holiness of God. To be sure, this harmony has two entirely different expressions: justification and judgment. In both, the holiness of God comes into its full and awful expression. In the one case, it does so in him who bears the consequences of that wrath on behalf and in the place of those whom he represented; in the other case, it is expressed in the final and awesome alienation of those in whom God’s judgment vindicates for all eternity his holiness.

It is this holiness of God, then, without which the Cross of Christ is incomprehensible, that provides the light that exposes modernity’s darkness for what it is. For modernity has emptied life of serious moral purpose. Indeed, it empties people of the capacity to see the world in moral terms, and this, in turn, closes their access to reality, for reality is fundamentally moral. God’s holiness is fundamental to who he is and what he has done. And the key to it all has been the loss of God’s otherness, not least in his holiness, beneath the forms of modern piety. Evangelicals turned from focusing on God’s transcendence to focusing on his immanence [pervading all creation]-and then they took the further step of interpreting his immanence as friendliness with modernity.

The loss of the traditional vision of God as holy is now manifested everywhere in the evangelical world. It is the key to understanding why sin and grace have become such empty terms. What depth or meaning, P. T. Forsyth asked, can these terms have except in relation to the holiness of God? Divorced from the holiness of God, sin is merely self-defeating behavior or a breach in etiquette. Divorced from the holiness of God, grace is merely empty rhetoric, pious window dressing for the modern technique by which sinners work out their own salvation. Divorced from the holiness of God, our gospel becomes indistinguishable from any of a host of alternative self-help doctrines. Divorced from the holiness of God, our public morality is reduced to little more than an accumulation of trade-offs between competing private interests. Divorced from the holiness of God, our worship becomes mere entertainment. The holiness of God is the very cornerstone of Christian faith, for it is the foundation of reality. Sin is defiance of God’s holiness, the Cross is the outworking and victory of God’s holiness, and faith is the recognition of God’s holiness. Knowing that God is holy is therefore the key to knowing life as it truly is, knowing Christ as he truly is, knowing why he came, and knowing how life will end.

Part Two of an excerpt from Dr. Well’s book “No Place for Truth: Or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology” concludes tomorrow.

Soli deo Gloria!

^6” Moses and Aaron were among his priests, Samuel also was among those who called upon his name. They called to the Lord, and he answered them. ⁷ In the pillar of the cloud he spoke to them; they kept his testimonies and the statute that he gave them. ⁸ O Lord our God, you answered them; you were a forgiving God to them, but an avenger of their wrongdoings. ⁹ Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at his holy mountain; for the Lord our God is holy!” (Psalm 99:6-9)

Psalm 99:1-5 speaks of the transcendent holiness of God. The adjective “transcendent” means superior, excellent, supreme and divine. Transcendent is a term teaching that God is separated from man and above man. God is transcendent in that He is holy and man is sinful. The LORD is transcendent because He is infinite and man is finite. God is “wholly other” than man. Psalm 99:1-4 reveals the truth of the LORD’s transcendent holiness, while vs. 5 is the believer’s response to this truth.

Psalm 99:6-9 also speaks of the intimate holiness of God. The adjective intimate suggests the concept of the closeness of God, the nearness of God, the warmness and friendliness of God. Intimacy is the opposite of distant.

Therefore, Psalm 99 strikes a wonderful balance between the transcendent holiness of God which is superior, supreme and divine and the intimate holiness of God which is personal, private and innermost within the soul of the believer. Both perspectives of God’s holiness are necessary for they both are biblically presented in this psalm.

Psalm 99:6-8 is an account of God’s intimate revelation of Himself to Israel and her leaders. Psalm 99:9 is the believer’s response to such revelation.

^“Moses and Aaron were among his priests, Samuel also was among those who called upon his name. They called to the Lord, and he answered them.” Moses and Aaron were among His priests. Moses, the great Hebrew leader, prophet and lawgiver. Aaron, elder brother of Moses (Exodus 7:7) and a priest (Exodus 31:10). Both Moses and Aaron offered sacrifices to God on behalf of Israel. Samuel, was a judge, a priest and a prophet immediately prior to the united kingdom under Saul, David and Solomon (I Samuel 1:20-28:20).

All three proclaimed the person and work of the LORD God Almighty. All three shouted and proclaimed HIs name. They directed the people to the LORD. They wanted the peoples focus to be upon the LORD and Him alone. The result was that Yahweh responded to them.

“In the pillar of the cloud he spoke to them; they kept his testimonies and the statute that he gave them.” The pillar refers to a vertical column of water particles. In other words, a cloud which according to Exodus 13:21 represents the Shekinah Glory of God. It was through this visible manifestation that the LORD literally spoke to Israel. Although they did not do so perfectly, Israel kept His testimonies. God’s chosen people guarded the LORD’s written testimony and His law along with His regulations and thoughts. By placing law in Israel’s possession, the LORD was giving an indication its inherent value and worth.

“O Lord our God, you answered them; you were a forgiving God to them, but an avenger of their wrongdoings.” Yahweh, our Elohim, answered Israel with gracious forgiveness when they sinned against Him. He carried their sins away (Leviticus 16). At the same time, because of His holiness, He was also an avenger. Who paid back harm with harm justice and punishment because of Israel’s depraved and immoral deeds.

Dr. John Walvoord writes, “The psalmist spoke of the Lord’s merciful dealings with his ancestors in spite of Israel’s iniquities. Moses … Aaron, and Samuel prayed and were answered. God spoke to them (i.e., Israel) from the pillar of cloud (cf. Ex. 13:21) and they obeyed. Even after Israel sinned and was punished, the Lord … answered their prayers and forgave them. So praise is due this Monarch not only because of His holiness (Ps. 99:3, 5) but also because of His merciful dealings with His people. God’s mercy prevents His own from being consumed by His righteous judgment.”

 “Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at his holy mountain; for the Lord our God is holy!” What is to be the believer’s response to such graciousness and holiness? Praise and exultation of course. Believers are commanded to worship Yahweh our Elohim: the LORD our God. Within the Old Testament context, worship was to be done at God’s holy mountain: Jerusalem. See Psalm 43:1-3; 48:1; 87:1.

Why does God command the believer to worship? It is because Yahweh, our Elohim is holy. He is infinitely holy in His person, nature and behavior. He never does His creation wrong for He is sacred and set apart from sin.

The believer’s worship of the LORD is not optional but optimal. It is to be the priority of our lives. Nothing should interfere with our daily, and weekly, worship of the LORD. Why? It is because He is holy.

Soli deo Gloria!

 

 

“The Lord reigns; let the peoples tremble! He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake! ² The Lord is great in Zion; he is exalted over all the peoples. ³ Let them praise your great and awesome name! Holy is he! ⁴ The King in his might loves justice. You have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob. ⁵ Exalt the Lord our God; worship at his footstool! Holy is he!” (Psalm 99:1-4)

Psalm 99:1-5 speaks of the transcendent holiness of God. The adjective “transcendent” means superior, excellent, supreme and divine. Transcendent is a term teaching that God is separated from man and above man. God is transcendent in that He is holy and man is sinful. The LORD is transcendent because He is infinite and man is finite. God is “wholly other” than man. Psalm 99:1-4 reveals the truth of the LORD’s transcendent holiness, while vs. 5 is the believer’s response to this truth.

“The Lord reigns; let the peoples tremble! He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake!” The LORD, Yahweh, as we have often noted is the most personal name for God. He is “I am that I am” (Exodus 3). He is the Self-existent One. It is He who perfectly, both now and forever, rules for He is King. What is to be the peoples’ response to such truth? The common man, as opposed to the uncommon LORD, continually and physically quakes with fear.

In an atypical synonymous parallel statement, the psalmist states that Yahweh remains in authority not only over those on earth, but even over the cherubim angels in heaven (Ezekiel 1; 10). Since this is so, the earth is to shake in reverence like a bag hanging upside down.

^“The Lord is great in Zion; he is exalted over all the peoples.” Yahweh is not only important among the Jews, but He is presently and actively high above and to be worshiped by the non-Jews. That is, the gentiles. All creation is to praise Him.

^“Let them praise your great and awesome name! Holy is he!” Why is everyone to make a public confession of the acts and attributes of power belonging to Yahweh? Why is creation to praise Him intensely? To begin with, it is because His name, representing who Yahweh is, is important, awesome and worthy of renown. Additionally, it is also because Yahweh is unique and pure and separate from sin. He continually exists is holiness.

“The King in his might loves justice. You have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.” The psalmist moves from speaking about Yahweh, the King, to speaking directly to Him. The psalmist says that Yahweh is the absolute ruler. He possesses the ability, or mightiness, to do what is required, necessary and intended.

Yahweh also has a close relationship with and a fond affection for what is right for He alone distinguishes between what is right and wrong. Yahweh, the King form and fashions, secures and sustains uprightness or a level path of life. Once again, it is He alone who has created justice and righteousness.

“Exalt the Lord our God; worship at his footstool! Holy is he!” What is to be the believer’s response to such magnificence and majesty? Two exclamations are given by the psalmist.

First, we are to obediently worship in humility, in honor and homage to Yahweh, our Elohim or mighty God. Second, the believer is to do so because Yahweh is holy. It is he who is transcendently holy, pure and sacred.

Regarding the commandment to exalt the LORD our God, John Calvin writes, “This exhortation is properly addressed to the church alone, because having been made a partaker of the grace of God, she ought the more zealously to devote herself to his service and to the love of godliness. He is holy. For the prophet, in hallowing the name of the one God, declares all the idols of the heathen to be unholy; as if he should say that although the heathen claim for their idols an imaginary sanctity, they are nevertheless very vanity, and offense, and abomination.”

Take the time to evaluate what, or who, in your life aspires to be worshiped by you as holy in place of, or equal to, Yahweh. No one, or nothing, is to be honored and praised but He alone. He alone is holy.

Soli deo Gloria!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Exalt the Lord our God; worship at his footstool! Holy is he!” (Psalm 99:5)

“One feels most happy when blowing the trumpet of jubilee, proclaiming peace to broken hearts, freedom to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. But God’s watchman has another trumpet, which he must sometimes blow; for thus saith the Lord unto him, “Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain.” Times there are when we must ring the tocsin; men must be startled from their sleep, they must be roused up to enquire, “What are we? Where are we? Whither are we going?” Nor is it altogether amiss for the wisest virgins to look to the oil in their vessels, and for the soundest Christians to be sometimes constrained to examine the foundations of their hope, to trace back their evidences to the beginning, and make an impartial survey of their state before God.” Charles H. Spurgeon, At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, 1862.

Spurgeon was addressing in this sermon introduction the subject of holiness in general, and the holiness of God in particular. It should come as no surprise that when considering the doctrine of holiness that the student is ultimately drawn to examine the doctrine of the holiness of God.

The LORD is the source of holiness. He is the dispenser of justifying holiness in declaring sinners righteous before Him. He is also the same Lord who commands each believer to live before Him, and others, in an ever growing, sanctifying holiness. What the believer is in position before God, justified, he/she is also to be in life and living before God and their fellow man, sanctified. In other words, since each believer has received the nature of God at conversion, this new nature must be displayed in the way each believes lives their Christian life.

One of the most significant psalms, which speaks of the Lord’s holiness, is Psalm 99. Dr. John MacArthur writes that, “The theme of this psalm is summed up in its last phrase: “the LORD our God is holy” (v. 9). The psalmist encourages praise to the king for his holiness (vv. 3, 5, 9), which is the utter separateness of God’s being from all other creatures and things, as well as his moral separateness from sin.”

For the next several days, we will devote our time to examine Psalm 99 in its entirety. It is my desire that each of us come away with a renewed appreciation and awe for the holiness of our LORD.

In 1987, my family and I were living in West Michigan. I was serving as a youth pastor in Greenville, a growing bedroom community of Grand Rapids. It was at this time that I took the young people of our church to a Christian concert in Downtown G.R. The concert featured musician and songwriter, Michael W. Smith.

Michael did not have a backup band accompanying him that evening at the sold out arena. It was just him and a grand piano on stage. However, what a wonderful worship service it was.

In the midst of his singing and sharing, he sang a simple chorus I had never heard before, or since. It has never appeared on any of his C.D.’s to my knowledge, and he never sang it at any of his future concerts I attended. The chorus was taken directly from today’s text, Psalm 99:5.

Exalt the LORD our God,                                                                                                                Exalt the LORD our God.                                                                                                                 And worship at His footstool,                                                                                                       And worship at His footstool.                                                                                                      Holy is He.                                                                                                                                        Holy is He.

For me, this chorus was the high-point of the evening’s concert. I trust that this study of Psalm 99 may prove to be a highlight of our study of holiness.

Soli deo Gloria!