The Holiness of God - A. W. Tozer Audio Sermon

I am to speak tonight on the holiness of God and I want to read some passages Exodus 15 who was like under the Oh Lord among the gods who is like under the glorious in holiness job 15 behold he putteth no trust in his Saints see the heavens are not clean in his sight for over 25 their whole even to the moon and it shine if not yay the stars are not pure in his sight how much less man that is a worm and the son of man which is a worm Psalm 22 of thou art holy old all that inhabit us the praises of Israel proverbs 9:10 the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the holy his understanding Isaiah 61 cried unto another and said holy holy holy is the Lord of hosts the whole earth is full of his glory they say that when the Nardo da Vinci painted his famous Last Supper that he had little difficulty with any of it except the faces then he painted the faces in without too much trouble except one he did not feel himself worthy to paint the face of Jesus he held off and kept holding off unwilling to approach it but knowing he must and then in the impulsive carelessness of despair he just painted it quickly and let it go there's no use he said I can pages in speaking on the holiness of God I feel very much the same way this last week I rather suffered through this wondered why today and tonight I was able to get around the ball but I think that same sense of despair is on my heart there isn't any use for anybody to try if it's an order he can play his oratorical harp but it sounds tinny and unreal and when he's through you've listened to music but you haven't seen God I suppose that the hardest thing about God to comprehend is his infinite you I know that intellectually that's the hardest thing to grasp but you can talk about the infinitude of God and not feel yourself a worm but when you talk about the holiness of God you have not only the problem of an intellectual grasp but to have a sense of personal violence which is almost too much there now the reason for this is that we are fallen beings we are fallen spiritually morally mentally and physically we are fawn in all the ways that men can fall being what they are and we're all and each of us born into a tainted world we're born into a tainted world and we learn in purity from our cradles we nurse it in with our mother's milk we breathe it in the very air our education deepens it and our experience confirms it evilly impurities everywhere and everything is dirty even our white is white is dingy gray and our noblest heroes are soil heroes all of them so we land we'll excuse and the water look and not to expect too much we don't expect all truth from our teachers and we don't expect all faithfulness from our politicians and we quickly forgive them when they lie to us and don't fall in the game and we don't expect on this day from the merchants and we don't expect complete trustworthiness from anybody and we manage to get along in the world only by passing laws to protect ourselves from not only the criminal element but from the best people there are who made in the moment of temptation take advantage up so fallen man being born in this kind of world living here breathing it in and gets into his pores gets into his lungs into his nerves into his cells until he has lost the ability to conceive of the holy but I would speak of the holiness of God or of the holy or of the holy one we cannot comprehend this and we certainly cannot define it because wilderness means purity but that isn't enough purity means merely means that it's unmixed there's nothing else in it but that isn't enough we talk a moral excellency but that is inadequate for we say to be morally excellent is to excel somebody else in moral character but about whom are we speaking when we say that God is morally excellent he excels somebody who is it that he excels the angels the Seraphim I suppose but that is still enough we mean rectitude we mean honor we mean truth and righteousness and we mean all of these uncreated and eternal God which is not now any holier than he ever was for he being unchanging and unchangeable can never become holier than he is and he never was holier than he is and he'll ever be any holier than now and it means self existent for he did not get his holiness from anyone nor from anywhere he did not go off into some vast the infinitely distant realm and there absorb his holiness but he is himself the holiness he is the holy he is the oil holy he is the only one he is holiness it's beyond the power of thought to grasp forward to Express beyond the power of all praise now language had expressed the holy so God resorts to Association and suggestion he cannot say it outright because you would have to use words that we don't know the meaning of and we would then of course take the word to use and translate them downward into our terms if you were to use a word describing as a little holiness we could not understand that word is the auditor you would have to translate it down into our unholy mess if he were to tell us how height he is we would translate it into terms of dingy gray so God cannot tell us by language so I say loses association and suggestions by showing how it affects the unholy Moses at the burning bush there before the worldly fiery presence knelt down cookies shoes from off his feet hid his face for he was afraid to look upon God then here is this 19th chapter of Exodus later where Moses the Lord said unto Him lo I come under the in a thick cloud but the people may hear when I speak with thee and believe me for ever and the Lord said to Moses go unto the people and sanctify them today in tomorrow let them wash their clothes and be ready dance the third day for the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of the people and thou shalt set bounds under the people round about saying take heed to yourselves that you go not up into the mount or touch the border of it whosoever touch of the mouth shall be surely put to death there shall not a hand touch it they shall surely be stoned a shot through but there'll be a beast a man it shall not live when trumpet sounded long they shall come up to the mouth Moses went down sanctified the people you see he did the best he could you went down and tried to whiten up a little their dingy gray and it came to pass on the third day in the morning that there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud upon the mount and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud so that all the people trembling Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God and they stood is another part of the mount Mount Sinai was all together on a smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire and the smoke there all descended as the smoke of a furnace and the whole mountain and the voice of the trumpet sounded long waxed louder and louder Moses answered God speak and God answered him by a voice and the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai on the top of the mountain and the Lord called Moses up to the top of the mountain Moses went up on the Lord said unto Moses go down towards the people as they break through unto the Lord Garry's and many of them perish now there was an effort on the part of God all this trumpet the sound of the trumpet and the voice of words and the fire and the smoke and the shaking of the mount it was an effort for God to say by suggestion and Association what he couldn't say in words now there are two words for holy there are more than two but there are particularly two words for holy in the old Bible in the Hebrew Bible and one word is used almost exclusively of God the Holy One well you ever of anything or a person except God the only one in that passage in proverbs 9:10 the knowledge of the holy that I read in your hearing where it says fear of the Lord's the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the holy is understanding this includes me in fact the book that I'm going to write on the attributes of God devotionally considered is to be called the knowledge of the holy well I have been grateful fascinated by this that it should occur in our Bible that this word that we should have it in the abstract the holy rather than the holy one and yet the Jewish Bible says the knowledge of the Holy One and in 33 of Proverbs that is 32 at the third verse would wear uses also the knowledge of the holy it says the knowledge of the Holy One or the all holy and lower the King James translators call this the knowledge of the holy they used exactly the same word more than 40 times and translated it the only one the Holy One of Israel so obviously this is God and yet there is a vagueness enough about it that the translators come free can put this into an abstraction to make it an abstract and call it the rule now there's another word and that's not used of God very often I think it is not a Thai word it is you the created things often it is something that so to speak is holy by contact or association with this other holy that is we hear a holy ground and when it says this is holy ground or holy Sabbath the holy city or holy habitation or people're holy works holy arm it's not the same awesome off the word that he uses when he says the holy or the holy one now in the New Testament and I have not read from the New Testament tonight but in the New Testament we have a word of course is a Greek word and we have taught we talk there about God being holy be holy for I am holy and I notice one thing about that Greek word it is that a definition of it is awful thing I think of that take this a bad word thing in capital letters the awful thing that's one meaning of the word holy the Holy One now let's talk a little about the Holy One and these creatures we see the presence of this Holy One allows only boy beings in our humanistic day our day of water down in Christianity our day of sentimental Christianity the berserk nose loudly and makes God into a poor weak weeping old man in this awful day the sense of the holy isn't upon the church I was just talking with other magnify we're talking about brother Matt we're being interested in European mission somebody else comes interested in the Hebrew wasn't working with the Jews somebody else working with the mountain you is somebody else concerned with with the memorizing scripture somebody else with foreign missions and I said well everybody seems to have something that he feels is tremendously important and maybe it could be that the constant preaching that I do on the person of God that I too should be seeing and only a part of the great truth that there's more but I said this if you're going to be now then I think we ought to be narrow on the right feeding and therefore if I'm going to emphasize God in the holiness of God and the awful unapproachable quality that could be called that also thing that that that one that holy I say that I am going to think I'm on the right track it isn't all but it's something we've almost lost in our day the thing is important depending upon how much what we've lost and how much of it we need and we have lost the sense of the Holy One almost all together take over in the book of Revelation that's seventh chapter look it says that the seventh chapter yes the angel stood around about the throne and about the elders and the four beasts they fell before the throne on their faces and worshipped God saying all men blessing and glory and wisdom and power and might be unto our God for ever and ever Monday elders answered saying what are these which are arrayed in white robes and whence came they and I said unto him Sir thou Louis he said to me these are they which came out of Great Tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb therefore are they before the throne of God and serving they denied him his temple he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them now there is God there's that there are people in the presence of God but they're there in the presence of God by by not only by a technical retention you see what I worry about in this power is that we're technically Christians and we can prove it we can prove that were Christians we're Christians technically and anybody can open and flip open a Greek lexicon and show you that you are saying but I am afraid of that kind of Christianity because look I haven't felt he sent some vileness by contrast with that sense of unapproachable and undestand describable holiness I wonder if I had ever been hit hard enough to really repent and if I don't reclaimed I wonder if I can believe now we're told just believe it brother just believe it now come on let me take your name of the dress here what's what you name it is what church would you like to go well we have it all fixed up my brethren but I'm afraid our fathers knew God was a different manner than that Bishop I sure used to go out by the riverbank and kneel down by a log and repent his sins are all Saturday afternoon older probably wasn't a holy man in all of roundabouts he felt how unutterably vilely was he couldn't stand the dingy gray which was the whitest thing he had said over against the unapproachable shining whiteness that was God go to the Book of Isaiah and you see the fiery burners there with twain he covered his feet there wasn't any engine these creatures before the throne wasn't any of the flippancy that we see now there wasn't any of a tendency to try to out hook poke and be funnier than the clown there was a sense of a presence and these holy creatures for they were holy creatures they covered their feet why they covered their feet in modesty and they covered their face in worship and they used their wing other wings to fly these were the Seraphim they're called fiery burners then there's is a Tier one and Tim and the egg we see their creatures coming out of a fire now God speaks of himself often as fire our God is a consuming fire it says in Hebrews and in Isaiah 33 these words who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings and this is sometimes used as it takes who of you is going to go to hell but my brother if you will read it in its context this does not describe hell this is not held at all and if you will go to almost any of the commentators they say this is not hell because the next passage says that he that has clean hands and if your heart doesn't act up his soul unto vanity and answers the question what is this devouring fire what is this everlasting burning it is not hell but the presence of God who among us shall dwell in the fiery burnings do you not know that if you were enabled to do it fire can dwell with fire and you can put the rail hot iron to the iron into the fire and the iron can learn to live with the fire by absorbing the fire and beginning to glow in incandescent brightness in the fire so we dwell in the fire these creatures in Ezekiel came out of the fire having four faces and they went straight ahead let down their wings to worship and it the word of God's command to do his will these awesome holy creatures about which we know so little and about which we often know more then there was God when he spoke to Moses out of the bush there was the God when he went with them in the pillar of fire what was God saying 4 it says in the thirteenth I believe is it of Exodus where it says that the Lord went before them by day and a pillar of cloud to lead the way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light by day and by night then he took not a way to cloud the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night that you might lead them in all their journey my friends this was God dwelling there in that awesome fire it was God dwelling there and then when the tabernacle was made in the cherubim of gold overshadowed the mercy seat what was it that came down between the cherubim wings what was it but only one man could see and once a year with blood he did not dare to him I wonder how many high priest ever looked at the Shekinah I wonder that that high priest with all the protection of the atoning blood than the commandment of God and the priest pulled away the male a great heavy veil it took four men to part the great tapestry they pulled apart and this man went in trembling into the presence I wonder if he ever dared to look at the fire I wonder if being a Jew as he wants and worshiping the Great God Almighty the Holy One of Israel I wonder if there was a high priest one in 20 that ever dared gaze on that fire he was not totally couldn't but I wonder if anybody ever dared do it I noticed that the very Seraphim covered their faces Moses hid his face for his afraid to look upon God and John fell down when he saw the Savior and had to be raised up again almost from the dead and every encounter with God had been such Litton man went flat down and went blind Paul went blind on Damascus Road what was the light that blinded him was it the cosmic ray coming down from some exploding body or from two colliding galaxies that tells about no no it was the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob the Grabbe 12 him the bush the God that dwelt in the Shekinah between the presence between the wings of the surfing and what was it that when they were all together in one place and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as the rushing of a mighty wind and the fire appeared and sat as a tongue a flame upon each one of them what did that mean and what could it mean but that God was branding them in their foreheads with his fiery willingness to say you're mine now the trick was born out of fire my brethren she was born out of her as the creatures in Ezekiel one came out of fire the trick was born out of fire but we have branches today but we were to wear to be men and women of fire for that is our origin and here are these last words these words that tell us how God shall someday unto the sky the heavens and the earth reserved are reserved unto fire the heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat and the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved but fair is that is that to be the atomic fire the tire of a hydrogen bomb don't allow yourself to be fooled by the silence don't allow your spiritual perceptions and concepts to be dragged down to Oakridge don't think in terms of scientists that awesome fire out of which the Seraphim moved and that fire that dwelt between cherry women that blazing like that not fall flat that's the same fire that shall dissolve the heaven and the earth you're awful presence of that holy thing that all up will be don't it only kills me because I say thing but of course I know it's a person he is God the Holy One of Israel but there's something about him that is that is awesome an awful so that one of the definitions are repeated of the word that we have in the New Testament is the awful thing now the Holy One and listener the Holy One and the sinner oh man oh my inner man you're going to decide when you'll serve Christ you are going to make the decision you're going to push God around you're going to accept Jesus or not accept Jesus receive him or not receiving obey Him or not obey me you're going to go loudly down the aisle with your chest out you're going to lay your head on the pillow tonight with a heartbeat between you and eternity and you're telling yourself I'll decide this question I'm a man of free will God is enforcing my will no know that I have words for you listen ours are not from everlasting or Jehovah my god mine only one thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil intense not look on iniquity Habakkuk 1 12 and 13 but thou not from everlasting old behold oh my god but they say now are your problems too much for you Jesus will handle your problems are you a trouble mentally Jesus and give you mental peace and do you guys have trouble getting on in the office Jesus will help you to get on in the office all this is true but all friends how far it is from biblical religion there was God in the midst and what was it that gathered the people together in the book of Acts they ministered unto the Lord and fasted and prayed and there in their awesome presence they heard the voice of the Holy Ghost say separate me Barnabas and Saul now were thrown back on our planning and our reasoning and our thinking when the Great and holy God is in our midst so I would recommend that you remember these words thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil you have evil in your life evil in your heart evil in your home evil in your business evil in your memory unconfessed in them forgiving and on cleanse remember that it is only by the infinite patience of God that you are not consumed for our God is a consuming fire and it's written here holiness without which no and shall see the Lord now look at them come see them as they come from everywhere these teachers with their dingy gray interpretations pulling this down and explaining it away and saying see notes on such-and-such pulling it down and destroying it but it stands my brother calling it Ness without which no man shall see the Lord now if you can't interpret that you can go home without being bothered I wonder if your eyes have ever gazed upon that little thing I wonder if you know Howard do have the knowledge of the Holy I wonder if that's it's of the overwhelming crashing holiness of God has ever come upon your heart it was a common thing in other days when God was the center of human worship when we came to him and worship God it was common for men to kneel at an order and shaken tumble and weep and perspire in an agony of conviction and they expected it in that day we don't see it now because the god we preach is not the everlasting awesome God mine Holy One who is a purer eyes than to behold evil then cannot look upon iniquity and we use the technical interpretation of justification by faith and the included righteousness of Christ to water our spirits the wine of our spirituality down until we're what we are God help is in this evil hour so we take into the presence of God this tea soon we come into the presence of God with with the our concept of morality having learned it from the books and gotten it from the newspapers and gotten in school we come dirty with everything that we have dirty in our whitest white dirty and our churches dirty and our thoughts dirty we come to God dirty and do nothing about it if we came to God dirty but tumbling and shocked and awestruck and when the levees pray in his presence and at his feet and cry like I say I am undone I'm a man of unclean lips then I'd say all right I can understand but we skip into his cousins and somebody who turkey comes with a book seven steps to salvation and gives seven verses underline and gets a fellow out of this problem and out of this trouble dear God that's why we're going down each year each year more Christians more people going to church more Christians more people going to church more turf building more money and less spirituality and less holiness we're forgetting that without holiness no man shall see God I tell you this standing here tonight that I want God to be what God is and I want God to remain what God is the impeccably holy unapproachable holy thing holy one all holy one I want him to be and remain the holy in capital letters I want him to be that and I want his heavens of and I want his throne to be holy and I don't want him to change or modify his requirements even if it shuts me out I want something early left in the universe you can join almost any church now I've heard recently have a certain Church well it's about this church and not all true Baptist churches I preached some pretty strict Baptist churches and I'm more or less of a Baptist myself or not the baptistry back there but I'll say this to your brother that this particular about the church and they tell me there are many of them they say now at the closing hymn we'll open the doors of the church and they can common anybody can join again surgeon John I say never never never never never for if they can't get into heaven they wantin to get into our churches and the problem with us is that we keep our let our churches stay dingy gray instead of pleasing leading for holy whiteness as soon as anybody begins to plead we Christians ought to be literally somebody comes along and says now my brother don't get excited about this and don't become a fanatic for don't you understand that God understands our faith he knows where the dust whoa he knows where but does but he says thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil intents not look upon iniquity and without holiness it's impossible to please God comes Benny wrote this I think it's one of the most awesome wondrous things ever written eternal life eternal life how cure the soul must be when placed within thy searching sight it shrinks not but with calm be like look can live and look on thee the spirits that surround I throne can bear the burning bliss but that is surely there is alone where they have never never known a fallen world like this how shall i whose native sphere is dark whose mind is dim before the ineffable appear and on my naked spirit bear the uncreated beam how shall I whose native sphere is dark mind is dim before the ineffable appear and on my naked spirit bear the uncreated being that fiery beam out of which come the holy burners sing holy holy holy is the Lord God Almighty how can I bear it and you don't know when oh you really just helps all your mark Bibles all your jolly Christian friends all your sham eating sweet potato eating joke-telling banquet tearing Christians by hand to incidentally are not against ham but we make banquets and tell jokes and have one-man band but one of these times each one of us will be called before the ineffable to appear and on our naked spirits there the uncreated be how are we going to do there is a way for man to rise to that sublimable an offering and the sacrifice of holy spirit's energies and advocate with God these these prepare us for the sight of holiness above the sons of ignorance of night can Braille the eternal light through the eternal love I think that's one of the greatest things ever written by mortal men we don't sing it much it's too awful we're afraid of it spirits that surround the throne Seraphim cherubim angels Archangels principalities powers unfallen creatures they can bear the burning bliss but that's because they never never have known the fallen world like this but how can I pigeon enough for somebody to mark a New Testament rub my nose and try to comfort me no I don't want any comfort it I don't want to be comfortable I want to know what it'll be like in that hour when I leave my wife and my children and my grandchildren and my good friends in my 15 year warm friend McAfee and all who'd give blood for me I've got them here in this city to give blood for me I can go to cities all over the United States it's nothing to Canada and they'd give blood for me but there is not a one you can help me in that awful hour when I appear before the initial and the uncreated being impinges on my negative then I want to know where we came there is a way it's through the offering and the sacrifice they advocate with God but don't take that lightly don't take that lightly my brother conversion used to be a revolutionary radical wondrous terrible glorious thing but there's not much of it left it's because we've forgotten that God is the Holy One Kaiser Oh God crime is running a running like a frightened flying like a frightened bird the bird of time is on the wing and has a little way to flutter wine of life is losing drop by drop in the leaves of life or falling one by one soon before the the ineffable every man must appear to give account of the deeds done in the body let's pause now for please in our prayer remain in an attitude of prayer and I'll finish praying by praying for somebody if they want me to who would say mr. Kozar I'm troubled too about this and I I may have made some sort of religious profession but oh I want to know that I'm shielded by the advocate by the blood I want to know that by the grace of God in the indwelling Spirit I can bear the burning this I want God to do something new for me to revive my spirit to change my dingy gray to white to make me sick of compromise weary of this checkered living pray for me brother Tozier that I might become a holy man of holy woman indeed by the blood of the Lamb and the fiery predation of the Holy Ghost hey funny who say pray for me when we pray we're going to have this understanding with you if you're going to do something about this if you're not going to say well the pastor paid for me if you're going to thank God and you're going to expect him to answer but you're going to work with him cooperation surrender confession if necessary restitution straightening out of your life determination that you're going to cooperate with God in all this let's pray father we pray for these friends who ask us to pray dear father we pray that thou through thy Son Jesus Christ will help every one of these that they might drive a stake down and say as Israel said when she crossed the river this is a marker I crossed here something really happened oh we pray that this decision made the night may not be the careless decision but that it may be a determination this is biggest life strong and deep as all their faith that they will they will seek to meet all requirements that they may in that day rise to that divine abode that the sons of ignorant and light and night may dwell with the eternal light because of dying eternal love practice then first those who bidden some who didn't that should have full follow keep upon us the sense of holiness that we can't sin an excuse it but that repentance will be as deep as our lives this we ask in Christ's name Amen

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Keywords: god is holy sermon, A. W. Tozer (Deceased Person), holiness sermons, holiness of god, sermon on holiness, The Holiness of God, god's holiness, sermons on holiness, holiness sermon, tozer sermons, holiness, a w tozer sermon, holiness preaching, aw tozer sermons, a w tozer, Holy Spirit (Deity), Jesus Christ (Deity), Book Of Exodus (Book), Preacher (Profession), Christianity (Religion), God (Deity), aw tozer, Sermon (Literature Subject), a.w. tozer, tozer

Id: RkAeq4lHSt8

Length: 47min 32sec (2852 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 17 2015