In The Presence Of A Holy God

In the presence of a Holy God

Exodus 3:1-5 and Acts 9:4-8

In 1961 A.W. Tozer was given the opportunity to speak to a group of ministers on a subject of his choice.

Not surprisingly he chose to speak to them about the holiness of God. During that talk he said the following words: “I believe we ought to have again the old biblical concept of God which makes God awful and makes men lie face down and cry, ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty.

That would do more for the church than everything or anything else.”

Quoting the English preacher John Daniel Jones: He lived from 1865-1942, this is from his sermon The Sovereignty of God

In our absorption in the thought of God as Father, we have almost lost sight of the fact that He is the Holy Sovereign, ruling the world in righteousness. The result has been that to a large extent, we have lost the sense of religious awe, of reverence, and of godly fear.

To make our religious life deep and strong we need to recover that lost sense of awe. We need to be taught afresh the fear of the Lord. And to recover that lost sense of awe, to create a feeling of reverence, we need a fresh vision of God as the Holy Sovereign. The Lord reigns, let the nations tremble. Why (should the nations tremble)? He is holy. We have only to realize that God is the Holy Sovereign, and the awe is bound to come back. The will that rules is a holy will. The power that governs is a holy power. All who sin bring themselves into collision with the sovereign will and power of the universe.

If the realization that a Holy God is sovereign fills us sinful men and women with awe and godly fear, that same realization of God as sovereign ought to fill those of us who love goodness and long for the triumph of Christ with a happy confidence.

Psalm 97:1 The LORD reigns, let the earth be glad; let the distant shores rejoice.

The destinies of the world are not, for instance, at the mercy of fleets and armies. The Lord reigns. To know that God rules – to realize His sovereignty – is to be delivered from fear and despair.

"The Lord reigns." This is the ground of our confidence in the triumph of the church. The church has not, in recent years, been in a triumphant frame of mind. She has been depressed, nervous, harassed, and anxious. She has been conscious of strained resources and inadequate powers. My brethren, what we want for a recovery of our courage and confidence is the recovery of our faith in the sovereignty of God.

Our lives get broken and harassed just because we forget that it is the Lord who reigns.

Our God is Holy, and once we have had an encounter with our Holy God , we will never be the same.

Exodus 3:1-5

Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. [2] And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. [3] And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. [4] And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. [5] And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.

We sometimes forget, that our God is Holy. That is one of His main attributes.

We hear the word holy used in a lot of different ways today.

Holy cow, holy smokes, holy Toledo, and we make light of the word, holy.

God doesn’t make light of it.

The prophet Isaiah didn’t make light of the word Holy.

Isaiah 6:2-3

Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. [3] And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.

Our God is Holy, meaning that He has no flaws.

Our God is blameless, He is perfect, His character is spotless, and sinless.

God is called Holy, many, many times throughout the Bible.

Isaiah 12:6