How Does The Bible Describe God?

It is important that we learn all we can learn about God from the scriptures.

Why?

• Because we really cannot WORSHIP GOD unless WE KNOW HIM.

• Because we really cannot SERVE GOD unless WE KNOW HIM.

• Because we cannot BECOME if we do not know what kind of God He is.

You see, a lot of folks do not know the God of the Bible. The god they know is a figment of their imagination and that means they serve a FALSE GOD.

Today we want to look into the scripture and see what kind of God He is.

We want to concern ourselves with what some refer to as one of God's attributes, and that is, HIS HOLINESS.

If you ever have to do a Sunday school lesson or a sermon on "The Holiness of God" you will discover something immediately - that there are not many resource materials available on the subject.

Probably the reason this is because MANY DO NOT KNOW THE GOD OF THE BIBLE.

So that we might know about the GOD OF THE BIBLE let us look at...

I. THE HOLINESS OF GOD IN THE SCRIPTURES.

We all have different ideas about what the word "holiness" means.

For example:

• If you were reared in a formal church when you think of holiness you think of a holy sanctuary where people meet to worship.

Why?

Because that is considered to be a holy place, where people worship God, and out of reverence for God everyone whispers.

• If you come from a holiness background you think of holiness as a denomination in which the women dress in long dresses with long sleeves, wear no makeup, and wear their hair stacked high on the top of their heads.

I mention these things only to show you that people have different ideas about what holiness is.

But the fact is, the way we define "holiness" does not have anything to do with the holiness of God.

For example:

• You can have a church building that cost millions of dollars, and you can whisper all you want to and could have the most corrupt gathering of people in any building in town.

• You can have every woman in the church wearing long dresses with long sleeves and no makeup and there might not be a holy woman in the building.

• You may belong to a denomination that calls itself "Holiness" and still not be holy.

• The word "HOLINESS" has been replaced by some today with the word "SEPARATION,” Still the fact is, you can separate yourself from the world completely and still not be holy.

Illus: Suppose we go out on the street and find a prostitute.

As vile as she may be…

• We buy her long dress with long sleeves

• Give her a hairdo with her hair stacked up on top of her head.

• Suppose she joined a holiness church

• And out of respect for the house of God, she whispers

HAS SHE BECOME HOLY?

Of course not!!!

She is as unholy as she has ever been!

She does not become holy just because she separates herself from the world.

I mention these things, not because I am trying to be unkind to anyone, but to show you that folks have all kinds of ideas about holiness, but so often, not only are they not holy, but they do also not know what the word "holy," according to the Word of God, means.

Let's go to the Word of God to see what it tells us it means to be holy so we can understand that the God of the Bible is a HOLY GOD.

The holiness of God as defined in the scriptures.

The root meaning of the Hebrew word translated "holy" comes from a verb that means, “To cut off."

In order that we might understand this, we need to go to the scriptures for an accurate definition.

For example,

Look at Exodus 35:2, “Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you a holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the Lord: whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death."

The Jew's day of worship was on Saturday; this was their Sabbath.

Did that mean Saturday was different from any other day?

That is, would that always be a day when the sun would shine and there would be a soft breeze as people went to worship God on that very special day?

Absolutely not!

Illus: If you notice, our day of worship is just like any other day during the week.

Sometimes the sun shines, but also often we have to come to church in the rain, and sometimes even in the snow.