OFFENDING THE HOLINESS OF GOD

OFFENDING THE HOLINESS OF GOD

“And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory...Then said I, Woe is me! For I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.” ISAIAH 6:3,5.

Isaiah’s reaction to the holiness of God, should stand as an example to us all for our own on-going responses to the presence of God! Sadly it is not always so!
My personal experience over the last twenty five years has been to observe a sharp decline in many churched people’s understanding of just Who it is they ‘worship’!
The “Holiness of God” is, it seems, a subject which seldom sees the light of day. Better perhaps, in the minds of many preachers, is the exhortation of the hearers to become successful, rich and over-comers of every adverse situation in which we may find ourselves.
Appealing as this message might be, any student of the Scriptures will quickly tell you that this is not the message of the Bible! To come to Christ to seek riches or glory for one’s self is a perversion of the Gospel and recipe for eternal loss.
Beloved, the Bible attracts the sinner to true repentance through God’s Holiness and Grace, not through a ministers “promise” of healing or deliverance or any other temporal blessing!
God’s love and forgiveness of sin is proffered only through the finished work of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, and to think that any of the temporal things of this life are His end goals for us is to miss-read the heart of the Heavenly Father and to do a great disservice to the Holy Spirit!

After all, is not the primary function of the Holy Spirit on earth today, to show mankind God’s Holiness, His Judgment and the absolute sinfulness of man? “And when He (the Holy Spirit) is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: Of sin because they believe not on Me; Of righteousness, because I go to My Father, and ye see Me no more; Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.” John 16:8-11.
Despite the manner in which many Christians treat the Holy Spirit, that is, like something akin to treating Him as their own personal servant, the Holy Ghost remains the instrument of God, working at the command of the Lord Jesus Christ to glorify Himself, the risen Son of God!

The Holiness of the Godhead remains the central most important concept that God has ever revealed to man and to ignore, or worse blaspheme, His holiness, will reap death unto all who venture down this course.
To display a lukewarm-ness, or a rebellion to the very things which God has declared to be an “abomination” is to tempt the Lord far beyond that line, a line which no Christian should ever cross. When the Lord God declares something to be
an abomination, it is because that thing or action offends His Holiness! That which God sees as “something utterly repulsive” must also be seen by His children to be utterly repulsive. To be anything less than repulsed by that which to Him is repulsive, is to deceive oneself into believing that you are a Christian!

It makes no sense to think that one can accommodate any of those things which are offensive to our Lord and then think it does not matter. Where a Christian has moved into sin, he must repent of his actions and turn away from them. Beloved, a Christian cannot repent a sin, only to continue in that sin! We must turn away from it as the Lord shows us something to be sin.
Some might argue that one man’s conviction may not necessarily be their own. This is so! But beloved, when the Bible declares at least thirty six things to be abominations, there is no room for personal decision making - just obedience to the word of God! Others might declare the Old Testament to be non-binding upon present day Christians, contending that the old laws have been nailed to His Cross! Again, we can agree. We see many instances where Christ and His apostles issued over-riding commandments for the Church to behave differently to the People of Old, but dear reader, I ask you to show me even one time where God changed His Moral standard? What offended Him then, offends Him to- day, what pleased Him then still pleases Him today! Dare we bend the rules and then try to bend God’s will to conform to our standards of morality? I think not!

Our Lord has called His people to be conformed to the image of His dear Son. In fact He has destined us so! Please read again Romans 8:28-30, and does not the apostle Peter take great pain to draw upon the Old Testament to confirm Paul’s teaching? In the first chapter of 1 Peter, verses 15-16, he writes; “But as He which hath called you is Holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation: Because as it is written, Be ye holy; for I am Holy.”
Does God make unreasonable demands upon us as weak and feeble human beings? If we are meant to conform to this call in our own strengths and weaknesses, then yes He has! But dear soul, He has not called us in such a position, impotent to fulfill His demands, for He has left us His Blessed Holy Spirit - through Whom we can do all things!

Beloved, such a Spirit, holy as is the Father holy, and holy as is the Son holy, He cannot but be grieved by the behaviour of God’s holy children when we live in the flesh!
As we grow in the spiritual things of God, we must grow in the knowledge of Him and the things which offend Him will, and must, offend us!
As God said to Israel: “..I am the LORD, I change not..” and as it is written of the Lord Jesus “..Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and forever..” we can be certain that the holiness of the God-Head will never change!
Beloved, it is we who must change!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Rod Rowland

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