Message by Kurt Jones
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Dear saints,
Holiness is important to God! Is holiness important to you? Did you know that:
In the name of the holy One,
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The Writing is on the Wall -
The Holiness, the Justice, and the Wrath of God
Daniel 5
But the God in whose hand are your life-breath and your ways, you have not glorified. Daniel 5:23
"You have been weighed in the balance and found deficient." Daniel 5:27
1. What qualifies God to judge? - His Holiness
God is holy! Psalm 99:2
God's name is holy! Isaiah 57:15
God's habitation is holy! Psalm 20:6
The sabbath was holy to the Lord! Exodus 16:23
Israel was to be holy because God is holy! Lev. 19:2
HOLINESS (Heb. qodesh; Gk. hagiosune; in both cases "separation," or "setting apart," holy, from Saxon, "halig," "whole," "sound"). Holiness is a general term used to indicate sanctity or separation from all that is sinful, impure, or morally imperfect; i.e., it is moral wholeness.
hagios (hag'-ee-os); from hagos (an awful thing); sacred (physically, pure, morally blameless or religious, ceremonially, consecrated):
"There is none holy like the Lord" (1 Sam 2:2);
"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." Isaiah 6:3
Deut. 5:22ff - the glory of the LORD appeared and God spoke to Moses and appeared that the mountain was on fire, a cloud, thick gloom, darkness, and if they saw it or heard it, they'd die.
"Thou alone art holy" (Rev 15:4).
We cannot grasp the true meaning of the divine holiness by thinking of someone or something very pure and then raising the concept to the highest degree we are capable of. We know nothing like the divine holiness…
Holy is the way God is. To be holy He does not conform to a standard. He is that standard. He is absolutely holy with an infinite, incomprehensible, fullness of purity that is not capable of being other than it is. Because He is holy, all His attributes are holy.
The man thus confronted is brought down and overwhelmed and can only tremble and be silent. - tozer EX: ISAIAH AND EZEKIEL
Exodus 24:17 - the glory of the LORD appeared as a consuming fire…
2. WHY does God judge? - His Justice
How many like a nice crackling fire in a fire place…. Get near and get cozy with a cup of warm hot chocolate… This is not the kind of fire used to describe God.
Is there anything God cannot do? Yes! He cannot violate His own nature.
The really amazing thing is that God lets any of us in on heaven!
Gen. 18:25 "Shall not the Judge of the earth do right?"
John 3:18. "He that believeth not is condemned already.
Matthew 12:36 -- But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. 37For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.
One of the things that fires does is it TESTS - It purifies - anything not pure gets burnt up…
The subject of the divine wrath of God has become taboo.
Yet, "A study of the concordance will show that there are more references in Scripture to the anger, fury, and wrath of God, than there is to His love and tenderness." Packer
Clearly the theme of the wrath of God is one about which the biblical writers feel no inhibitions whatsoever. Why, then, should we?
a. We think that wrath is somehow unworthy of God. - Red faced, rage, wounded pride, bad temper… EX: me with kids.
But God's wrath is never the capricious, self indulgent, irritable, morally ignoble thing that human anger so often is…. God's anger is always righteous.
b. We think that wrath is somehow cruel.
But God's wrath is always just. It is giving out precisely what is deserved. Romans 2:5 who will render everyman according to their deeds.
God's wrath is also something men choose for themselves. "Before hell is an experience inflicted by God, it is a state for which man himself opts, by retreating from the light which God shines in his heart to lead him to Himself…." Packer, Knowing God p. 138
C.S. Lewis - "Sin is a persons way of saying to God throughout life, "Go away and leave me alone." Hell is God's finally saying to that individual, "You may have your wish."
There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. --C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
3. HOW does God judge? - His Wrath
CH Spurgeon - "When you speak of heaven, let your face light up, let it glow with a heavenly gleam, let your eyes shine with His reflected glory. But when you speak of hell - well, then your ordinary face will do."
Actual church bulletin announcement - Next Sunday Mrs. Vinson will be soloist for the morning service. The pastor will then speak on "What will Hell be like?"
Rom 2:5-8 - But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, 6who will render to every man according to his deeds: 7to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; 8but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation.
TO WHERE? The lake of Fire
In Bible college; movie creatively titled "Burning Hell"
Outer darkness - Matt 8:12
Furnace - Mat 13:42
Weeping and gnashing of teeth - Matt 13:42
Eternal fire - Matt 25:41
Eternal punishment - Matt 25:46
Terrible punishment - Rom 2:5
Everlasting destruction - 2 Thess 1:9
Hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched - Mark 9:47 (Is. 66:24)
Bottomless pit - Rev. 9:1,2
Tormented with fire and burning sulfur - Rev. 14:10,11
The lake that burns with fire and sulfur - Rev. 21:8
Finality, Eternality, Separation - "…forever separated from the Lord and His glorious presence" - 2 Thess. 1:9
Jonathan Edwards "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"
"The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.
O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment."
for full text see www.reformed.org/documents/sinners
4. WHAT is your response to the holiness, the justice and the wrath of God?
"And now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein Christ has thrown the door of mercy wide open, and stands in calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners; a day wherein many are flocking to him, and pressing into the kingdom of God."
"Until we see ourselves as God sees us, we are not likely to get much disturbed over conditions around us as long as they do not get so far out of hand as to threaten our comfortable way of life. We have learned to live with unholiness and have come to look at it as the natural and expected thing. " Tozer, Knowledge p. 110
Separation from God does not result directly from disbelief in Jesus as savior. Belief in him provides extraction from our desperate situation.
"Yea, God is a great deal more angry with great numbers that are now on earth: yea, doubtless, with many that are now in this congregation, who it may be are at ease, than he is with many of those who are now in the flames of hell." Sinners
Heb 12:28-29
28Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; 29for our God is a consuming fire.