Isaiah 6:1-8 (2)

Hypocrisy

Reading of the Text

Holiness. My sophomore year of High School I found myself living in the lap of luxury in a third world country. My parents and 3 younger siblings returned to America and left my sister and I under the care of good friends from our local international church - Robin and Lauri Jasper. Two wonderful christian people, who were in Kazakhstan not just because of faith, but also because of fossil fuels - He was in the C-suite of the Asian branch of Chevron oil. To illustrate the change in my life, one week my dad was dropping me off at school in a Toyota Camry, but the next week I was being chauffeured in a Range Rover. We lived in a 20,000sqft house with 12 foot walls around it, 24 hr security armed with guns and guard dogs. Inside we had a large botanical garden with an indoor water feature. Heated floors, massage shower jets, an indoor pool and sauna, indoor movie theatre and game room, this new invention called Sling TV where we could watch live American television in Kazakhstan. Mr Jasper frequently went to Europe on the companies private jet and would bring us back essential America foods - Gatorade and Oreos. One time even Dr. Pepper. After two weeks of my new life of luxury I wake up to my laptop ringing. I just missed it and it was my mom. I see that I have 27 missed calls from my mom at all hours through the night. I immediately call back when my mom tells me that Schaeffer, my 8 year old brother, had been hit by a car and was at Intensive Care Unit at Vanderbilt.

They lived on the campus of the Free Will Baptist Bible College, now known as Welch College, located on West End avenue in Downtown Nashville. The campus was nestled in a small quiet neighborhood where a house was provided for my family to live in while back in the states so my dad could serve as a professor at the college. Schaffer had been riding his bike down the sidewalk and was crossing the street, but he could

Holiness

What does holy mean? At its core, “holy” refers to God’s separating from the world that He chooses to devote himself to. As the biblical story unfolds, “holy” is associated with the character of God’s separated people conforming to His revealed law. When Jesus comes, His redeemed people become known as “saints” (literally, HOLY ONES). Only the cross of Christ could make this possible, opening the way for God’s Holy Spirit to indwell His people.

Isaiah’s favorite name for God is “The Holy One of Israel.” To be holy is to be set apart, like no other. That is common parallel to saying “holy” is to say “there is no one like you.” Consider 2 Samuel 7:22 “Therefore you are great, O Lord God. For there is none like you, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears.” Psalm 86:8 “There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours.” Jeremiah 10:6 “There is none like you, O Lord; you are great, and your name is great in might.”

When you hear the word Holy, i dont want you to think perfection, but separation. To demonstrate this idea, you can see that holiness (being set apart) can apply to more than just God himself, but it also applies to those things God separate to Himself - those things become holy. They are objects of the Lord’s choosing and are set apart from the world.

For example: the tabernacle and the temple contain the “holy place” which is hidden from the eyes of the people, and also the “most holy place” (holy of holies) which is entered only once per year by the High priest after a blood atonement and a cloud of incense, or else he dies. Other elements of holiness: that which is holy can be profane (the opposite of holiness), but also contact with the holy transfers the holiness to the profane.

Another example is the people. Israel has a privilege to be “a holy people to the Lord God” and that carries with it the responsibility that they should keep his commandments.

God’s chosen people, in separation from the world, are called to live an ethical life that conforms to God’s revealed word. The command to “be holy; for I am holy” (Lev 11:44-45) Christ has not come to take away this command, but rather in the Christian community it should find its fulfillment (1 Cor 7:34; Eph 1:4; Col 1:22; 1 Pet 1:16). Christians are to perfect “holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor 7:1). If necessary, God will discipline the followers of CHrist for their own good so they “can share His holiness (Heb 12:10).

It is likely that you have encountered the word “holy” before. If you are married, you entered into “holy matrimony.” As some in here have, you can hop on a flight to Israel and tour the “Holy Land.” We watched a Chicago man named Robert Prevost become the Pope Leo XIV, leader of the “Holy Catholic Church”. The Quran, Tanakh, and the Bible are known to the world as “Holy Books” Roman ruled in Jesus’ day and its official language was latin. For this reason, you are more familiar with the term “holy” than you thought. Because the Latin translation for “Holy” is sanctus. The room we meet in for church is called a “Sanctuary” a Holy Room, because it is filled with Holy People - “Saints.” If something is “holy” it is set apart from everything else. When you hear Holy think separation. A Holy God is set apart from the world and his people are called to be the same.

The word “holy” appears frequently in the Bible. But the concept of “holiness” also appears in different forms. For instance, the Old Testament writers Samuel (2 Sam 7:2), David (Ps 86:8), and and Jeremiah (Jer 10:6) (who didn’t know each other and lived hundreds of years apart) all describe God’s holiness by saying: “There is no one like you.” In all of his attributes, God is unique, set apart, and incomparable.

The New Testament refers to it indirectly. Jesus says in John 15:19 “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” Jesus prays this way: John 17:14–16 “I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.” From these passages we derive the idea of Christians being “in the world, but not of it.”

Illustration of Outlier Statistics as a demonstration of Holiness

maybe using a graphic

Illustration of CIT

When I was 10 we moved to Union Mills, a small town of 1,300 people in the Southwestern corner of North Carolina.

Cross Reference to Rev 4

As John the Baptist is the New Testament’s Elijah, so John the Apostle is the New Testament’s Isaiah. At the beginning of the end of the Bible, the book of Revelation, Jesus shows John the same throne room and tells John to write down what he saw (Rev 1:11) and his description of the Lord and his throne room is much the same, though written around 800 years later.

Rev 4 describes the throne room and the creatures around it as follows: (2) At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. (6b) And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind…(8) And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”

Isaiah 6:1–8 ESV

And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for 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!” (Luke 5:8 “But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”” ) (John 12:41 “Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him.” ) (Exodus 33:20 “But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.”” ) (Judges 13:22 “And Manoah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, for we have seen God.”” ) Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” (Jeremiah 1:9 “Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.” ) And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”

(Genesis 1:26 “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”” )