God, What’s He Really Like?
Psalm 145:8-9, 18-21
Theme: Examine man’s view of God vs. How God has revealed Himself in Scripture.
“How do you know there is a God?”
Because somebody told you there was one.
A young man was asked if he ever thought about dying and what he expected to be doing when the time came. This young man smiled confidently as he leaned back in his chair, folded his arms and said, "Just lying there like this with a smile on my face, thinking about God."
Holy men of the Bible have trembled at the thought of meeting God and this young man plans to barge right on into eternity without even thinking about what might be required of him after he is dead.
Survey after survey reveals the same paradox. Nearly everyone believes in God. Nearly everyone believes he is going to heaven. Yet three-fourths of them fail in their ethics. One study found that seventy percent of the people surveyed believed that it is "very important to do what God and the Scriptures say when choosing between right and wrong," yet two-thirds of this group rejected the idea of moral absolutes. Figure that out!
We have created a subjective God, who like the "scarecrow in the cucumber field" (Jeremiah 10:5), can be safely into certain areas of our lives and out of others. This God is the god of good feelings and high ideals. He is the politically correct. The new God loves the homosexual, but hates the moralist. He=ll tolerate abortion, but never child abuse. He is honored to have us take His Sacraments in the sanctuary, but hardly notices moments later when we take His name in vain in the parking lot.
Our own modern Deity is kinder, gentler, and more tolerant than the heavenly tyrant of the last century. He is the perfect country man. He espouses every view, all at once. He is all grace, so no grace is necessary. He is love without discrimination, mercy without law, power without intimidation, knowledge without conviction, truth without an attitude. He might even be a "she."
Like a mother whose children have outgrown her and moved away, He waits for us to call Him on Sundays and holidays and flatter Him with sermons and doxologies. He is proud of His children, but He no longer controls them. They are big now and have minds of their own. And as such, they are free to define Him in any way they please.
* three out of every ten adults, some whom identify themselves as "Christian," believe God is only "the realization of all human potential . . . a state of higher consciousness that a person can reach."
* "God is not perfect" say a growing number of Americans, according to George Barna. While most still believe Jesus was the son of God, forty-two percent of them say He committed sins while he was on earth.
* a gay rights conference in Washington gathered under a banner which read AIf Jesus were here, he’d march too!"
* a prominent leader of the men=s movement scolded the church for insisting that men follow a code of moral conduct, rather than "appropriating the love and forgiveness of the Father-God."
When did the "Holy One of Israel" become the jolly good fellow He is today?
The God of the Bible is very different. He is merciful and slow to anger. But He is holy and just. He is uncompromising. He is unapproachable light, exposing our sins and condemning whatever sin He does not cleanse. This makes us feel paranoid, like someone is watching us through the keyhole while we carry on with acts we think are done in private. It strikes fear and trembling, neither of which have much place in modern religion. Actually, a vision of God=s holiness has many effects, but it never allows me to sit there "with a smile on my face, thinking about God."
A clear vision of God has a profound effect on any culture, so a cloudy vision of God=s holiness has its implications as well.
One tragedy peculiar to our modern culture is that low views of God have slipped into the mainstream of Christian thought. Even among believers we references to "the man upstairs" or "Big Daddy" or, more commonly, "the good Lord" which is proverbial pat on the head.
We have come a long way from earlier days when people trembled and the earth shook at the mention of God=s name. Nobody I know shudders at the thought of mispronouncing Yahweh, and the fact that some from an earlier day did shudder seems like mere superstition to us who claim to be enlightened. The result has been a society in disarray, running here and there to cure the symptoms of a terminal disease we refuse to admit. But consider for a moment, some of the logical consequences of any culture that forfeits its doctrine of the holiness of God. It is a perfect description of our present condition which, at best, is critical.
Where there are low views of God, there is no law, for law is based on a commonly accepted morality. The United States Constitution calls this an "inalienable right." Lawyers call it "natural law." today we call it "common-sense morality." it is the assumption that there are certain absolutes which are true for all people, during all times and in all places. These are nonnegotiable presuppositions which underlie every other law. These are basic principles built into every human being regardless of age, culture, intelligence or environment.
But such absolutes are always founded on a "standard," which the idea that there is someone, somewhere who already embodies what the rest of us want to become. In this sense, improvement is measured by whether or not one is moving closer to the standard.
Now, if God is not holy, then He is more like us and less like a standard. He is "in progress," the same as we are. And if God is not the standard there is none. If there is no standard, we are moving neither closer nor further away from the truth. Friedreich Nietzsche an agnostic said this, "in the absence of God all that is left us is power."
So there can be no laws unless there is Someone fit to make them. Perhaps this is why God first established His own holiness before laying down the laws in Exodus or Leviticus.
Humanization of God is that there is no sin, but only Aalternative lifestyles@ and minor deviations from goodness. For if God is like us, sin is an opinion, rather than a transgression of the law; and guilt is only a roadblock, rather than the ditches on the road to happiness and freedom.
Where God is not holy, there is little incentive to change our behavior. We merely accept whatever we have become. There is no reason to change. Our lifestyles and opinions are as good as any others’.
If God is not holy, there is no gospel. If there is no law, no sin, and no incentive to change, the church has nothing to offer the world. We are not Aa chosen people and royal priesthood@ if we are not Aa holy nation@ (1 Peter 2:9), for we will be just like everybody else.
What do we tell the recovering alcoholic or the decrepit old man dying in the shadows of a convalescent home? What hope do we have for those who have ruined their lives up to now? Are we not only the blind leading the blind? Isn’t our opinion only one among many in the marketplace of ideas, if god is not holy? For what, then, makes His message any better?
If we would reach the world with a gospel that is still Athe power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes@ (Romans 1:16) . . . if the world is going to take us seriously again . . . we must offer them something worthwhile and better than themselves.
If we forfeit the doctrine of the holiness of God, there is a lower level of commitment among those who would be Christians. If God is not holy there is nothing out there impressive enough to demand our time and attention. If God is not a Aconsuming fire@ (Hebrews 12:29), the He will have to take His place next to the Girl Scouts and the PTA as just another resource to help I, prove our community; and the church will have to jockey for the interest of a society that is equally devoted to all of these organizations.
The Devil does not need to make atheists of us in order to win the day. He only needs to remove the idea of the holiness of God from our platforms, bookshelves, seminaries and consciences, and we will soon after make atheists of ourselves.
The whole doctrine of God disintegrates if His holiness is diminished.
The early Puritan writer, Stephen Charnock, pointed out that the holiness of God is the one attribute behind every other. According to Charnock, God’s holiness was first on God’s mind, for it was the only attribute repeated in threefold succession –"holy, holy, holy is the Lord God the Almighty" (Revelation 4:8); it was the only one He swore by – "once I have sworn by My holiness" (Psalm 89:35); it was the very essence of God, Himself – Abe holy; for I am holy@ (Leviticus 11:44); and this is the first virtue He desires to re-create in us.
His holiness is what makes Him "God." It is the moral center or nucleus to everything else about Him. If we lose or diminish it, we are left not with another kind of God, but with no God at all.
To say God knows and sees everything has little significance unless His holiness allows Him to judge everything. And His omnipotence is tyranny in the absence of holy character, since it is subject to temperament or moods.
So God’s holiness is the double-edged sword which brings fear into our fascination of Him. It is the one attribute that makes Him perfect. Complete, Untamed. It is no wonder that those who see it recoil and come to loathe themselves.
Whenever a man stares into the holiness of God, it is man who blinks first. The one thing he does not do is sit there "with a smile on his face, thinking about God."
He sits there in solitude. Isaiah did it in the Temple. Daniel, three weeks by the river. John, a season on Patmos. Bunyan, years in prison. Finney, a day in the woods. Brengle, a week in his bedroom.
