The Holiness of God.
Isaiah chapter 6, beginning in verse 1.
Let's stand as we read God's word.
In the year that King Uzziah died, I
saw the Lord, seated on a throne, high
and exalted, and the train of his robe
filled the temple.
Above him were seraphs, each with six wings.
With two wings, they covered their faces.
With two, they covered their feet.
With two, they were flying.
And they were calling to one another, holy,
holy, holy is the Lord Almighty.
The whole earth is full of his glory.
At the sound of their voices, the doorposts
and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled
with smoke.
Woe to me, I cried.
I am ruined, for I am a man
of unclean lips, and I live among a
people of unclean lips, and my eyes have
seen the King, the Lord Almighty.
Then one of the seraphs flew to me
with a live coal in his hand, which
he had taken with tongs from the altar.
With it, he touched my mouth and said,
see, this has touched your lips.
Your guilt is taken away, and your sin
atoned for.
Let's go to the Lord in prayer.
Great and mighty God, we come before
you in the name of your Son, and
acknowledge that we desire to learn about something
that we know almost nothing about, your holiness.
And Father, as a sinful man, as a
sinful preacher, who knows so very little about
you, God, I pray for grace and mercy
to be able to speak about things that
are too high for me.
I pray that by your grace and for
your glory, you would reveal yourself to your
people, that they might know to honor you
as you are Lord, God, Creator of all
that is and was and ever will be.
Father, help us to understand tonight that you
are holy, that you are holy, holy, holy.
Have mercy on us, God, in Jesus' name,
amen.
Have a seat, thank you very much.
Tonight we're going to do a study, a
biblical study on the holiness of God.
In what I can see in Scripture, and
what I can see in church history, the
holiness of God has always been held up,
not as a attribute of God, but as
possibly, if one could say such a thing,
the attribute of God.
In that when you begin to talk about
God, or you desire to know God, or
you would like to draw near to God,
the first thing that you must come face
to face with is something that is utterly
foreign to sinful man, that God is holy.
What does that mean?
Well, I'd like to read for you for
a moment just a definition.
The word holy comes from a Hebrew term
which means separated, put apart, distinct from the
common or ordinary.
Holiness refers basically to two things when we
talk about God.
One, it refers to moral purity.
God is pure, pure, pure, pure, without stain,
without blemish, without wrinkle, without spot.
He is holy, and holy not like we
understand holy.
We're not talking here about good.
We're talking about perfect.
We're talking about moral perfection.
God is morally perfect.
When we talk about holiness, we also need
to understand that God is not only morally
perfect.
God is separated from all things and all
creatures that are not morally perfect.
That is to say, God can't tolerate sins.
He can't even tolerate a sin.
As I said last night, how many times
did Adam and Eve sin before they were
cast out of the presence of God?
Once.
God has no, no, no tolerance to anything
or anyone that contradicts or opposes His nature.
He's holy.
But also holiness refers to something else, something
that we need to understand in America today
since we have made God so common.
Holiness not only means that God is morally
pure.
Holiness means that God is not common.
He is not ordinary.
He is not casual.
He's distinct.
He is not like us.
And no matter what term we can use
to call Him forth, it doesn't matter if
we can call Him Abba Father, a word
that actually means Daddy.
That doesn't matter.
He's still not ordinary.
He's still not casual.
And He's still not common.
And He is never to be taken lightly.
He's God.
And God is holy.
And I want to read for you just
a few texts.
You won't be able to turn there right
now, but I just want to scan a
few texts before we get to our major
text, which is Isaiah 6.
In Psalms 119 it says this about God.
Holy and awesome is His name.
The name of God.
When you hear about the name of God,
or you hear in Hebrew it says the
name, it's referring to the person of God.
Everything that He is.
All of His attributes.
All of His works.
The name of God is holy.
It's not common.
You talk to an Orthodox Jew.
You ask him about the name of God.
You try to get him to roll the
name Yahweh off his lips.
He won't do it.
Why?
He's so afraid of offending the glory of
God.
The glory of God that is found in
His name.
Now you say, they take that to an
extreme.
Well, maybe so, but I'd rather be at
that extreme than at the extreme we are
at as a people.
We market the name of Jesus as though
it was Tommy Hilfiger.
We wear it on our clothing.
We buy cups and saucers with Jesus' name.
A name that is above every name.
And we market it.
I can hardly walk into a Christian bookstore.
They repulse me.
One time Keith Green, a man, I can't
believe there's actually a generation of Christians that
know not Keith Green, but he was a
musician.
Maybe one of the last.
One time he was doing a, he didn't
do concerts.
He preached when he sang.
And he was coming down out of the
podium and he saw someone with a hat
on it that said Jesus.
And he said, where did you get that?
And they said, well over there where they're
selling Jesus junk.
I want you to know that's an oxymoron.
You never put the name of God or
Jesus in a conjunctive relationship with junk.
As a matter of fact, you never put
God in a conjunctive relationship with anyone.
His name is not what you use it
for.
It's not a cult symbol.
It's not a marketing device to sell clothing.
It's a name that rolls off our lips
with our head bowed in honor.
It's a thing we hold precious.
Because it's a name that is above every
name.
Look what we've done.
You play marbles with the diamonds of God
and that's a very dangerous thing.
We're a generation that knows not God and
therefore we stand in danger.
Because His name is not only holy, it's
awesome.
Do you want to know what awesome means?
Abject terror.
Yes.
Abject terror.
I heard Leonard Ravenhill preach a few times
before he died.
And I'll never forget he was reading through
a text and it came to the fear
of the Lord.
And he said, now this word fear in
Hebrew means fear.
If it meant anything else, they would have
translated another word.
It doesn't mean reverence.
It means the kind of things that make
your knees knock together and your teeth chatter.
His name is awesome.
It strikes terror into the heart of man.
And don't you ever forget it.
This comfortable God of yours is no God
at all.
He can do nothing for you.
But you like Him because He can also
do nothing to you.
But that's not the God of the Bible.
Awesome is His name.
Isaiah 57, 15 says, He is the high
and the lofty one, the one who lives
forever, whose name is holy, who lives in
a high and holy place.
As I've said before, I was taught to
teach men to be careful.
Now don't you make God too glorious because
He'll seem too far away from all of
us.
Bring Him down on our level.
You bring God down on any level you've
created an idol.
I want you to know God is in
a high and lofty place.
And I want you to know something.
Yes, you can call Him Father.
What is the best way, the only way,
the correct emotional and psychological and spiritual way
to approach God?
Jesus taught us in the Lord's Prayer, Our
Father who art in heaven.
You see, you can call Him Father, but
never forget your Father's in heaven.
And He's God.
In Old Testament Scripture tells you to mark
your words before they come out of your
mouth.
And don't say too many things in the
presence of Yahweh because He's God.
Let me put it to you this way.
God is not your good buddy.
He's not your friend or the man upstairs.
And you and Jesus ain't got your own
thing going.
Isaiah 6, verse 3.
Look what it says in verse 3.
And they were calling to one another, Holy,
holy, holy is the Lord Almighty.
The whole earth is full of His glory.
Holy, holy, holy.
When you and I want to emphasize something
when we're speaking, we raise our voice to
say God is great and holy.
Emphasizing holy.
When you and I write something in English
to emphasize it, we put it in bold
letters, run a yellow marker through it, or
underline it.
When a Jew wants to emphasize something, he
repeats it.
He repeats it.
And you can find this in the parallelisms
in the book of Proverbs.
In the book of Proverbs, have you ever
read where it says something like this?
The wicked shall not live in the land.
The wicked shall be destroyed.
It's saying the same thing twice, isn't it?
It repeats it for emphasis to indicate that
the wicked will be destroyed by the wrath
of God.
That's the way the Jew emphasizes something in
Scripture.
Do you realize that there's no other attribute
of God repeated in Scripture except His holiness?
It never says that God is love, love,
love.
Did you know that?
It never says God is merciful, merciful, merciful.
And it never says that God is nice,
nice, nice.
What it does say is God is holy,
the declaration.
God is holy, the repetition.
And then even further, God is holy.
Isn't it funny that the church emphasizes now
the same attributes of God that a pagan
ungodly world does?
You ought to be touched by an angel
or another one of those silly shows about
God.
And they'll always tell you that God is
love, won't they?
They'll never tell you that God is judgment
and holy and brings wrath upon the wicked,
will they?
You go to a Baptist church, you feel
like you've been in touch by an angel
because you'll hear the same thing.
God is love.
Oh, God would never do a thing like
that, don't you bet on it.
You say, is this all you talk about,
Paul?
No, I've got quite a few sermons on
love, but we'd have to get through about
three months of preaching before we'd get there.
God is holy.
He's holy.
Now, I want to teach you something about
theology.
Regardless of what is taught today in the
church, theology is not for theologians.
It's for you.
You should be able to use the terminology
if you're going to be Christians.
Some of you are studying engineering, others mathematics,
others every other type or form of profession,
and you have your own terminology.
If God's terminology cannot be learned, then we
are a pitiful sort.
And there's one word you need to learn
that's always associated with the holiness of God,
and the word is transcendence.
The holiness of God transcends any idea that
we have of holiness, and it transcends any
aspect of holiness that anyone might reflect.
What does transcend mean?
It simply flies higher.
It has no mate, no running partner.
It goes far beyond all others.
It's the Himalayas.
There's nothing that goes higher than the holiness
of God, and there's no one holy like
the Lord.
It says in the book of 1 Samuel
2, there is none holy like the Lord.
And then Job says this in Job 15,
14, and 16, what is man that he
could be pure?
Are one born of woman that he could
be righteous?
If God places no trust in His holy
ones, if even the heavens are not pure
in His eyes, how much less man who
is vile and corrupt and who drinks up
evil like water.
So much for I'm okay, you're okay.
God is holy, and the church needs to
rediscover His holiness.
You know, there's two ways to discover the
holiness of God.
One is through renewing your mind in Scripture.
The other is the discipline that comes upon
the house of God, your generation.
It will require a lot of prayer in
order for you to escape the coming judgment
of God on the church in America.
You ought to tremble.
Because if we won't learn holiness, He'll come
and teach us.
God is holy, and His holiness transcends all
other aspects of holiness.
Now, today, in Christianity, we hear a great
deal about the presence of God.
Oh, the presence of God was here this
evening.
Oh, it was a wonderful time in the
presence of Almighty God.
Oh, didn't God move in a powerful way
tonight?
It was such wonderful time in the presence
of God.
Well, I want us to look tonight at
men who came into the presence of God,
and then I want us to compare our
experiences in the presence of God with their
experiences in the presence of God.
Start with Moses.
He's out there shepherding some goats.
He sees a bush that's burning, but will
not be consumed.
And he's drawn to it by God Himself.
He draws near to that bush, and the
first thing he comes to understand is that
he has to change.
That he has to humble himself.
That God has appeared, and he has to
take off his shoes because he's standing on
holy ground.
And he falls before that tree that will
not be consumed.
And it's a wonderful thing you need to
understand that God appeared to Moses in a
burning bush.
It's amazing to me today that God never
appears to anyone in a burning bush.
And we never sing about burning bushes.
We never sing at all about fire.
God always appears to us in a cool
breeze and in a flowing stream.
That's the way we always present Him, and
you want to know why?
Because flowing streams never hurt anyone.
We've got a tame God, we do.
But I want you to know when God
comes and visits a man, He doesn't always
visit him as a cool wind or a
cool stream.
He comes as a fire.
A fire that cannot be handled.
A fire that has no end.
And a fire that does not consume itself,
but can consume all that is unholy before
it.
A dangerous thing to be in the presence
of God.
Look at these seraphs.
Look at them in Isaiah.
Let's read verse 2.
Above them were seraphs, each with six wings.
With two, they covered their faces.
With two, they covered their feet.
And with two, they were flying, and they
were calling to one another, Holy, Holy, Holy
is the Lord Almighty.
The whole earth is full of His glory.
What are seraphs?
We really don't know, to be honest with
you.
You can read something about something that looks
sort of like a seraph in Ezekiel, and
you can go to the book of Revelation
and find something that might be a cousin
to a seraph.
We don't know.
It's difficult to nail these creatures down, but
there are some things we can say about
seraphs.
That is, they are the most majestic, the
most powerful, and the most holy of all
creatures God has ever made.
You say, well, how on earth can you
know that?
Their proximity to the throne of God.
They are closer to the throne of God
and the presence of God than any other
creature recorded in Scripture.
And from what we understand about other created
beings like seraphs, these are powerful things that
with the breath of their nostrils could wipe
out our universe.
With regard to holiness, well, look at these.
They are standing and flying even in the
very presence of Almighty God.
And if we were even to draw near
to a fraction of that glory, we would
be destroyed.
And yet they live in that glory.
And yet even though they are so majestic
and so holy, how are they in the
presence of God?
I'll tell you how they are.
They bow their heads and cry out, I
am not holy.
They cover their faces.
They cover their feet.
I've always asked myself, why on earth did
they cover their feet?
I mean, what does feet have to do
with holiness?
What does it mean?
I never could figure that out honestly until
one day I was listening to R.C.
Sproul and I think he hit upon the
thing.
He said, feet are always associated with clay
and clay with the creature, the dust of
the earth.
And these majestic beings, even in the presence
of God, were bowing their heads and covering
their feet, acknowledging that they were a creature
and they were not God.
And the place that they held was a
place not of rights.
It was not their right to be there,
but their privilege, graciously given to them by
God Himself.
Look at the way they act in the
presence of God and then look at you.
Have you ever heard the saying, fools rush
in where angels fear to tread?
Physician, heal thyself.
This is talking about us and the church
in America today.
There's a piano, a very important piano over
in London actually, in the museum.
And I forget for the life of me
what the man's name was who owned it,
but he was probably the most famous composer
in the world.
I don't know who it was, but he
was important.
You can tell he's important because if you
go by there, they've got the piano all
roped off and there's a Brit standing by
it, a captain of the guard.
He won't let you get near that piano.
But they tell me that one day a
young girl walked up there who had been
learning how to play the piano.
She could knock out some chopsticks and some
other things.
And she came up and she looked at
the captain of the guard and she said,
could I jump over the rope and play
a little?
And amazingly, the dry Brit said, well, yes,
you can.
So she jumped over the rope and she
sat down on the piano and she began
to knock out a few songs and then
satisfied with herself and so happy, she jumped
off the piano, jumped across the rope and
she said to the captain, she said, well,
I guess a lot of people have wanted
to do that.
And he said, well, actually, the two most
famous concert pianists alive today were here last
week.
And we asked them if they would like
to sit down on the stool and play.
And they both bowed their heads and said
they were not worthy.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
My friend, let me preach to you the
book of Romans.
I can talk to you about access into
the presence of God and dance in joy
before you.
Yes, we have access to God.
I know I'm sounding very unbalanced here, but
I want you to know something.
Until you know who God is and the
privilege it is to be in His presence,
you probably don't have any right to be
there.
You've got to know this God of yours
before you start doing foolish things before Him
and shame His glory.
One time I was in a meeting.
I get to preach in a lot of
places.
Presbyterian, charismatic, Baptist, the whole gamut.
One time I was in a church and
they said, oh, the presence of God is
here, isn't it?
And I knew the church well.
I said, no, it's not.
And they said, why?
I said, because half of you would be
dead.
You have to be very careful.
We've made God too common.
And it's not a wise thing that we've
done.
Now, look at Isaiah.
Who was Isaiah?
Was he a great man of God?
No, we've already settled that.
There's no such thing as a great man
of God.
But he was something in his day.
He preached more about Christ than any man
in the entire Old Testament.
He knew more about the revelation of God
than anyone.
And as far as dedication, Jewish tradition tells
us he was sawed in two with a
wooden saw because he would not denounce the
word of Jehovah that came through his lips.
So I'd say he was pretty much a
saint of God.
He comes into the presence of God.
And what does he do?
Verse 5.
Woe to me, I cried, I'm ruined, for
I'm a man of unclean lips and I
live among a people of unclean lips.
And mine eyes have seen the King, the
Lord Almighty.
The NIV that I'm using here does not
translate this strong enough.
What is Isaiah doing?
He's pronouncing a curse of death upon himself.
Woe is a curse.
And then he's saying, I am cut off
or let me be cut off.
Isn't it amazing?
We think we come into the presence of
God and we get all jittery and some
people break out in hysterics and fall on
the ground and others of us jump around
even though we know we're walking in sin.
But when this man of God comes into
the presence of God, the only thing he
can think about doing is pronouncing a curse
of death upon himself and confessing his sin
before Almighty God.
Now that ought to tell you that there's
something terribly wrong with our Christianity today.
Dr. Leif Blair at Southwestern Theological Seminary is
a very worthy man.
I've learned a great deal from him.
And he speaks about a balance in the
worship of God and what he says is
true.
He talks about the throne room experience and
the banquet room experience, the wedding experience, the
cana experience with Christ.
And we need to hold on to those
two things.
What I'm talking about is here we have
the throne room experience.
When God manifests His glory and men are
struck down before Him because of His great
holiness.
That should occur in your life.
There should be times when God manifests Himself
to you that you are thrown down and
you tremble before Him because of His greatness
and His holiness.
That's true.
But there are also other times when you
come before God and it's like that wedding
day that Jesus had in John chapter 2
with His disciples.
When you can worship God with joy and
even laughter and raising your hands and even
being childish before Him.
Or you can leap with joy.
You can have a good time in the
presence of Almighty God.
Yes, that's true.
But you need to see that there are
two types of manifestations here.
And in America today the only thing we've
got are children dancing before God.
And they remain children because they never draw
close enough to God to know the other
side.
When I'm in charismatic churches preaching I always
tell them, I say, most of you shouldn't
be jumping around.
They say, why?
I say, because you've never trembled.
You see, you don't just take the part
of God that is most comfortable.
Just like the Holy Spirit is not received
in parts because He is a whole, a
unity, a person.
God is not received in parts.
You don't take some attributes and reject others.
The glory and the beauty of God starts
with His holiness.
What makes God a wonder is that He
is totally, like the old Jewish theologian said,
He is totally other than us.
Totally different.
Totally unsearchable.
Totally holy.
And that's what I want you to learn
because you've grown up in a church, a
generation of Christianity that knows not holiness.
And because of it, many of you walk
in sin and don't even know it.
Now, if you've noticed, I preach a great
deal out of the Old Testament, don't I?
Theology professors that teach out of the Old
Testament just love me.
They invite me all the time to come
and preach because I'm always talking about the
Old Testament.
But you know what Christians tell me?
They say, Paul, you're always preaching out of
the Old Testament because God isn't like that
in the New Testament.
Have you ever read Malachi?
I do not change, therefore you're not destroyed.
Yeah, but everything's different because of Jesus.
Jesus is different.
You know, isn't it amazing that Christians, when
they talk about the promises of God, they
say Jesus.
The same yesterday, today, and always.
But when they talk about the attributes of
God, somehow He's changed.
Do you know who Isaiah is looking at
on this throne?
The Son of God.
Read John chapter 12, verses 41 and 42.
When Isaiah saw this vision of God, he
was looking at the Son.
There's a concept in theology that's not too
far ahead of you that you can't reach
out and grab it, and it's this.
Everything God the Father has ever done in
all of creation and in all of eternity
has done through His Son.
How did God create the world?
Through His Son.
How has God always revealed Himself to the
world?
Because no one has ever seen the Father.
How has the Father always revealed Himself to
the world?
Through the Son.
How has the Father redeemed?
Through the Son.
How does the Father reign?
Through the Son.
Who is sitting on this throne?
The Son.
And I want you to know you can
find Isaiah 6 in the Gospels.
You say, what on earth are you talking
about?
Yes, you can find Isaiah 6 in the
Gospels.
An exact duplication of Isaiah 6.
What on earth are you talking about?
I've never found something like Isaiah 6 in
the Gospels.
Well, you ought to go out on a
boat with Jesus sometime.
Do you remember when Jesus was preaching and
teaching and Peter had been fishing all night?
Jesus said, Peter, let's go out and cast
some nets.
Peter said, Lord, there's no use in doing
this, but You're Lord and I'm not, so
let's go.
He throws the net over.
And what happens?
It's filled up with fish, isn't it?
Alright.
We have Jesus.
We have the Son of God revealing Himself,
His glory to Isaiah in this vision.
We have the Son of God revealing His
glory to Peter with a miracle, filling nets
full of fish where no fish belonged.
Isaiah takes one look at the glory of
the Son of God on the throne and
he falls down before Him and he says,
Woe to me, I'm a sinful man.
I'm undone.
Peter takes one look at the glory of
Jesus when he reveals His glory on that
boat and he falls down and says, Depart
from me, Lord.
I am a sinful man.
When Isaiah made that confession, the Son of
God pardoned him and sent Him out as
a missionary.
Who will go for us?
Isaiah said, I will.
When Peter fell down at the feet of
Christ on that boat and said, Depart from
me, I'm a wicked man.
Jesus said, I'll make you a fisher of
men.
It's the very same thing because it's the
very same God.
And yes, God has not changed.
He's holy.
And we need a knowledge of the holy.
We most desperately do.
If we need anything in Christianity, we need
knowledge of the holy.
Now, have you ever read Revelation 1?
We have John the aged.
Tradition tells us they tried to kill him
by boiling him in oil and it didn't
work so they exiled him to an island.
John the beloved.
John the aged.
John who had laid his head on the
chest of Christ.
John who saw himself having only one claim
to fame.
He was the disciple, not the one that
loved Jesus, but the one that Jesus loved.
Don't sing so much about your love for
Him.
Sing more about His love for you because
that's what makes you outstanding.
Well, he's on that island and he hears
a noise behind him and he turns around
and he wasn't slain in the Spirit.
I've got news for you.
But he did see the glory of Almighty
God revealed in the Son of God and
he fell as a dead man.
The exalted, resurrected, glorified Christ before whom the
earth and heaven itself will flee away.
The unapproachable One.
The holy, holy, holy One.
And the One that we know so very
little about.
But the One that we need to know
about.
Now, with regard to holiness, you need to
understand something else.
Holiness not only means that God is morally
pure or that God is separate and distinct
from all other things.
Holiness also means that God has nothing to
do with sin, that God is not neutral
with regard to sin, but God comes in
holy hatred against sin.
He hates it.
You see, the Puritans...
I'm giving myself away here.
The Puritans, they divided the world up into
two things.
Pleasures for God and abominations to God.
They looked.
They searched out.
They found in the Word what is a
pleasure to God, what is an abomination to
God.
Let's cut ourselves away from all things that
God hates and let's do only that which
is holy and that which God loves.
We're going to be talking about that tomorrow.
But tonight we need to learn about the
holiness of God.
God cannot tolerate sin.
He simply cannot.
Go with me for a moment to Proverbs
15.
Verse 8 and 9 and 26.
The Lord detests the sacrifice of the wicked.
I can tell you how much you know
about the holiness of God.
How much did you prepare your heart before
you started the first worship song?
Do you see now how little you know
about the holiness of God?
You entered into worship without even thinking that
there might be sin that would make your
worship an abomination before Him.
Did you think about that?
Did you think about if you watched something
this afternoon that you shouldn't have watched?
That you said something that you shouldn't have
said?
Did you think about there might be ways
in you that were not pleasing to God?
No.
You rushed straight in to lifting up your
hands and rejoicing and singing songs.
You're not wise in doing things like that.
If I regard iniquity in my heart, He
will not hear me.
I hope you've seen yourself in a mirror.
Can you dance before the Lord?
Well, not this disco stuff they're doing nowadays,
but you can have a lot of joy.
Can you rejoice in God knowing that He
loves you and that you're safe in His
arms?
You bet you can.
But that's not what we're talking about tonight.
We're talking about the fact that the Lord
detests the sacrifice of the wicked.
And we need to take that seriously.
You prepare your heart to meet the Lord.
The Lord detests the way of the wicked.
Verse 9.
You see, let me tell you something.
And I say this because I love you.
Unbelievers, thirty years ago, acted more like Christians
and lived according to biblical principles more than
Christians do today.
As a matter of fact, if we could
send the church back thirty years, it would
be considered an abomination even to the unbelievers.
We do things, accept things, listen to things,
watch things and everything else that make us
detestable and make our worship detestable to God.
If your ways are not the ways of
Jehovah, if you're not seriously seeking the narrow
path, did you forget about that thing?
Did you forget about a narrow path?
It seems to me no one preaches on
it anymore.
You've got to go back 250 years and
find some Puritan running around England to even
hear about it.
But there is one.
And you're supposed to walk it.
Verse 26.
The Lord detests even the thoughts of the
wicked.
We are self-absorbed today in our needs
when we should be self-absorbed in the
desire for holiness, personal, unique and real.
Go to Leviticus 10.
Verse 1.
Aaron's sons Nadab and Nabiu took their censers,
put fire in them and added incense, and
they offered unauthorized fire before the Lord contrary
to His command.
So fire came out from the presence of
the Lord and consumed them, and they died
before the Lord.
Moses then said to Aaron, this is what
the Lord spoke of when He said, among
those who approach Me, I will show Myself
holy in the sight of all the people.
I will be honored.
Aaron remained silent.
Well, you know, it's just the thought of
the heart, isn't it?
I mean, God, after all, no one wants
to serve Him today, so if I run
by the church and give Him a little
song, at least He ought to be pleased.
I mean, I'm doing more than everyone else.
Here we go back to bad theology.
See, you think God needs something.
He doesn't.
He needs no acts of charity on His
part.
You see, God has prescribed ways in which
men must come to Him.
You say, through Jesus.
Yes.
But you need to read the whole counsel
of God, and not just little cliché parts.
You need to realize that here were two
men that came to God to offer a
sacrifice.
And most of us would have said, well,
those wonderful boys, I mean, after all, no
one's really concerned about serving God anymore.
At least they're doing something while God wasn't
much pleased, was He?
Fire came out from the presence of God
and consumed both of them.
I find it interesting that I can't find
God killing any bad preacher, but He kills
two bad song leaders.
There's one thing much more awesome than preaching
God's Word, and I believe this with all
my heart.
I know I take it from the Levitical
worship, but it's still there in the Bible.
It's one thing to preach to men about
God.
It's quite another thing to lead men in
worship before Him.
That's the most frightening thing I could ever
think of doing.
I'm glad God didn't call me to do
that because in my present state I don't
think I'm right enough.
You say, what, you fear God?
That just happens to be the beginning of
wisdom.
Did you forget?
The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom.
Who is the one, God says in Isaiah
66, that I esteem?
The one who's contrite at heart and trembles
at My Word.
When was the last time you trembled at
God's Word?
When?
When was the last time you trembled in
worship before Him?
We do need prophets today, don't we?
Because we are in the same state Israel
was in many times, aren't we?
We know not God.
Do you remember Uzzah?
Wonderful man.
David decided he was going to bring the
Ark of the Lord, which represented the presence
of the Lord, that he was going to
bring it, the Ark, to Jerusalem.
He brought it the wrong way.
Levites were supposed to bring it, carrying it
on poles, run through the rings of the
Ark.
David brought it in an ox cart.
So it's not just the intentions of the
heart that matters, is it?
It's obedient to the prescribed laws of God.
Well, he brought the thing close to Jerusalem
and the ox began to stumble.
The cart was going to tip.
And a wonderful man by the name of
Uzzah stretched out his hand and steadied the
Ark.
He threw his body between the Ark and
the ground so that the Ark would not
touch the ground and become defiled.
What a wonderful thing to do!
I mean, what a sacrificial act!
What an act of devotion!
I mean, what a splendid thing!
I'm sure God rewarded him highly.
He killed him.
Why?
Again, I learned this from Dr. Sproul.
Uzzah presumed something.
He presumed that his hand was holier than
the ground and he was wrong.
You see, the ground has never disobeyed God.
God sends rain.
Ground turns into mud.
God sends the sun.
The ground turns into hardened earth.
God's never had a problem with the earth.
It's this corrupt, depraved, reprobate man who hates
God that God's been dealing with all these
years.
Presumption is a terrible thing.
Playing marbles with God's diamonds.
I recommend you put them back in the
bag and give them to somebody who knows
how to handle them.
You say, but God's not that way anymore.
Let's go to Hebrews chapter 10.
I'm going to show you that Leviticus or
Hebrews chapter 10, we're going to see that
Leviticus chapter 10 is in the New Testament.
And it'll stay with me as long as
I live.
I was a 21 year old who knew
really nothing about God.
And I went to a meeting with a
couple of hundred youth.
And they were so vile, these youth.
They were so rebellious that the preacher preached
15 minutes.
And he stepped down out of the pulpit
and said, it's no use.
And no one wanted to preach.
So one of the pastors came to me
and said, young man, would you like to
preach?
No one else does.
And I said, give me a day.
Give me one day.
And I went out into a barn and
I prayed and I prayed all day and
I fasted and I prayed and I cried
out to God because I had nothing to
say.
I knew nothing about God.
And I went up there that night and
I got in the pulpit and I didn't
know what to do.
And God chose me.
Do you want to know why He chose
me and no one else?
Not because I was the holiest, but because
I was the unholiest.
Not because I was the wisest.
No, there were men of God there.
It was because I was nothing.
I didn't know how to preach.
I didn't know how to pray.
I knew nothing about God.
I had no degree.
I had nothing.
I was worthless.
And I stood up and I looked at
everybody and they started laughing at me because
I didn't know what to say.
And then all of a sudden I said
this, And
I walked out of the pulpit and I
went down into the basement of the facility
and I just started to pray.
I said, well, I made a fool out
of myself on one of my first sermons.
And all of a sudden I heard things
falling on the floor above me.
People running and screaming and crying and falling
down.
I thought, what on earth is happening?
And I prayed and all of a sudden
it was like God said, pray for missionaries.
Pray for missionaries from this group.
Boy, these are terrorists.
They're not missionaries.
And I walked back up into that facility.
I said, God, please, I've got to know
what's going on up there.
Can I go on up there?
And I felt the freedom to walk back
up.
And every person in that place was laying
on the floor.
They were covering their heads.
Some were hiding behind pews.
Others were laying over the pews as though
they'd been cut in two.
The pastors were laying on the ground crying
out in fear.
Then all of a sudden, some of the
youth had decided that they wouldn't be in
the service.
But that halfway through the service, they would
bust through the back doors and interrupt everything.
They busted through.
They made it about two yards.
And they fell down and they crawled to
the altar.
The next day, people followed me around all
day saying, are you sure that the wrath
of God will not come again?
Are you sure that we're saved?
And the comforting man that I am, I
said, no, I'm not.
I pray to Almighty God that that would
happen here.
Because I'm afraid if it doesn't, then what
else will save you from yourself?
I have nothing to lose because I am
nothing.
And I want you to know that judgment
comes upon America, and not because of our
president, but because of the church.
And if there is not a consuming fire
that burns through the church and heals her
of all her iniquity and idolatry, she's doomed
in America.
You say, well, the gates of hell will
never prevail against the church.
He can destroy the church in this country
and raise her up anywhere else.
He doesn't need America and he doesn't need
us.
And we need to realize this.
And you need to realize this because to
whom much is given, much is required.
I fear for you.
I fear for me.
I stay up at night crying out saying,
God, what will it be like for me
in 20 years in this place?
When will it come, God?
Because it is going to come.
And only prayer can save your generation from
it.
And I want you to know that even
if you pray and pray, and this generation
is saved from the discipline of God that
is coming, it will fall sooner or later
on this country and upon the church because
we know not God.
And even when I speak these words, you're
more interested in the people behind me than
you are the very Word of God.
We need repentance in this land.
We need to fall on our faces before
God.
I wish I could stay here for three
weeks and tell you about the joys of
God and about the pleasures of God and
about the security of God and about laughing
and singing in the presence of God.
But dear God, someone has to tell the
church in America that it is in peril.
We've got administrators and bureaucracy and everything else
and little boys running around.
But somebody's got to be a trumpet and
say, America, repent.
Baptists, repent.
Southern Baptists, repent.
Colleges, repent.
Get on your face and stop playing church.
That's what we've got to know.
And only then will God heal our land.
Before I came here tonight, up there in
the room with some of the other men
of God, I had to confess my sin
openly before them because I sinned against the
Lord today.
Do you know how I sinned?
I heard about Bill Clinton and all his
trouble and a bit of joy jumped up
in my heart because I thought, justice.
And I broke a command of God not
to rejoice over the failure and falling of
my enemy.
And I couldn't preach tonight until I repented,
not only in His presence but in the
presence of other men so I could be
humbled.
You see, God takes sin that seriously.
But then again, I'm just a raving fanatic,
aren't I?
Be careful.
Be very careful.
I might be.
But then again, I might not be.
I love you because you are the people
of God and God loves you.
But God will not tolerate.
Don't you think He will?
He will not tolerate idolatry or sin or
worldliness.
He wants to make your life a dance.
He wants to fill you with joy.
But you can't play.
You can't.
He's God.
Tonight, think about that.
Tonight in your dorms, think about it with
other Christians.
Ask yourself, is this man mad?
There's one way of knowing.
Read the entire Bible and if I say
something that no one else has said, then
I'm mad.
But if you can find the same thing
I'm saying all the way out through the
entire Bible, then maybe I ought to be
listened to.
You see, authority does not come from special
anointings and it does not come from calling.
If I have incorrectly preached the Word of
God tonight, then you are not bound by
anything I say.
But if what I say can be found
in the Word of God, you're bound by
every word and on the Day of Judgment
you'll be held responsible for every word that
is proceeded out of this mouth.
Now I'm going to leave you alone to
God, knowing that you love Him, but you
were born in a generation that did not
know Moses, did not know Joshua, did not
know the Puritans, did not know Spurgeon, did
not know Godly.
You grew up in a generation of church
growth experts and CEOs and big churches that
cost millions of dollars to build.
But it's still your fault if you don't
repent and seek out the ways of the
Lord.
Let's pray.
Father, there's so much more of You, Father,
than all these hard things I'm saying.
So many wonderful, tender things about You that
I've not been able to say.
But, oh God, I know that the church
needs to hear this word.
And I pray, God, that Your people will
hear it and evaluate what's been said tonight
by comparing it to the written word of
God.
And that if it is a word from
You and it is a correct interpretation of
Scripture, that they will obey it.
Father, I don't want all joy to be
taken out of this university.
And I don't want people to be afraid
to come to You, but, Father, I want
them to know whom they're coming to.
Father, reveal Yourself to me and to these
that You might be glorified, that You might
be glorified.
Now, Father, I pray one last thing, that
this word not be snatched from their hearts,
that there not be minute and superficial conversation,
but that all things in this room be
turned toward this great burden.
Lord, we ask for spiritual revival, but we
know not what we ask for.
Help us understand.
In Jesus' holy name, amen.
God bless you all.
If you feel the leading of the Lord
to go home, go home.