Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / January 25th, 2015 | Route 66 - Leviticus

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January 25th, 2015 | Route 66 - Leviticus · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: How are you?
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Good to see you this morning.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you are visiting today, we are in a uh through the Bible series called Root 66.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: There are 66 books in the Bible, and we're gonna take one per Sunday.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Two weeks ago we took the book of, first book of the Bible is Genesis, second book of the Bible, Access.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: So today we're taking no just shoot me.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: There were times this week where I said, Lord, feel free to come now.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm really looking forward to this, and it's uh great to have you here.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Best introduction to this message is a bad joke.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: It really is.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Did you hear about the uh couple that was uh traveling through cannibal country?
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: True story, stopped by a cafeteria, had a cafeteria in deepest, darkest Africa, had a cafeteria, they sat down at the table, opened up the menu, and there they were surprised to see underneath the entrees fried hunter, five dollars.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh actually happened.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um boiled missionary, ten dollars.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Sauteed safari guide, twenty dollars.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Baked politician, a hundred dollars.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, call over the waitress and said, Well, excuse me, can you explain to me why these others are like normal prices, five, ten, twenty, but the politician's a hundred dollars?
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: She said, Wow, I don't know.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'll I'll get the chef.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: She got the chef, chef came out and they said, Could you explain to us why these others are like five and ten bucks or something, and the politician's a hundred dollars?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Have you ever tried to clean one of those things?
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Told you it was a bad joke.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna talk to you today out of the book of Leviticus about the fact that we're all politicians.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: How in the world can we get clean?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: How in the world can we be clean before a clean God?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: How can we unholy people ever approach a holy God?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Father Heaven, uh Heavenly Father, Father of the Son Jesus Christ who died for our sins, Holy Spirit, we come to you, holy, holy, holy, acknowledging that you are the Trinity of holiness, begging you for insights into your character and insights into ours.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Begging you to answer the question: how can we be pure?
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: How can we approach you?
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: How can we have fellowship with you?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: For we know down deep that we are really unworthy of that.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Help us today in Jesus' name.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, we are in the book of Leviticus.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And my title this morning is God Lives with Holy People.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Leviticus is, well, let's just admit it, it's a little bit uh, I think of it uh like the Galena along Route 66.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Galena, did you know the Route 66 actually went to southeast Kansas for 10, 11, 12 miles?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh less miles than any other of the Route 66 states, but there were some happening places down there back in Alf, Governor Alf Landon's day.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it was a beehive of activity there in Baxter Springs in Galena.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Galena is the Latin word for lead, and Galena was, as you can see from the postcard, I uh old postcard I have up on the screen, it was a just a beehive of activity because of the lead mines around there and some silver as well.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, the uh see a little gas station there, a white gas station, they always had a little truck and they had eyes.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: That that actually was borrowed for the children's movie Cars, that little funny little truck with the eyes in it, in case, in case you want to impress your kids.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: But but that was Galena back then.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And uh Galena today is uh more like I call it Leviticus root 66, once adored, now ignored.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now it has very little happening in Galena, Kansas, and much the same as Leviticus.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Leviticus once was a beehive of activity.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: It was the first book that Jewish, or shall we say, Hebrew parents assigned their children to memorize.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm kidding.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Kid you not.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: It was the most read, it was the most followed, it was a book in ancient Israel.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: It actually described all of their worship.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: It was their worship manual.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: It it and more than any book in the Bible, by the way, it is dictated by God.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Chapter after chapter after chapter begins, and the Lord spoke to Moses and said, Say this to the people.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of it is just like word for word for word from heaven.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, there's a there's a famous Jewish commentary.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: It consists of many books, called the Talmud.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if any of you have heard of the Talmud.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: It is the collection of a thousand rabbis' comments on the Torah, Genesis Deuteronomy.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And more than half of the Talmud is on Leviticus, on these laws of for priest and sacrifice, purification, holiness.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's how busy this book once was, along Route 66.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: But today, how many of you have tried to read through the Bible?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Said, I'm gonna read through the Bible, and you got to Genesis, no problemo.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Cool stories.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And Exodus got to the Mount Sinai and the Red Sea and everything, and it got a little slow in the last half of Exodus.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Then you came to Leviticus, Bermuda Triangle.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: More people reading through the Bible have gotten lost in Leviticus and just given up.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Am I right on that?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you got through Leviticus, Leviticus seems to have seeped over a little bit in the numbers, so you know you're going, oh right, new book.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh dear.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you just die.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: But Leviticus, I'm telling you this morning, should not be ignored.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: You should stop there along roots to six.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Extremely important because it answers one of the great questions asked by uh cultures, societies down through the millennia.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that is, how can I, being unholy, approach a holy God?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that question is often asked using the word purity rather than holiness.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because many, many societies have purification ceremonies.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: You can even go to the Indian country, Navajo Indian country today, and you can go, uh you make an appointment to go into a purification lodge, sometimes called a sweat lodge, where they have a blazing fire in there and extremely hot.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: You sit around and then they have a sort of the Navajo priest, and he's chanting and singing, and he's going around the fire, and you're sweating, and you're sweating all those impurities out, which is which is a good thing.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's a really, really, you know, hot sauna there.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then he plucks, you know, this sort of a wooden poker out of the fire and starts touching on your legs with it.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Out, ow, you know, but that's singing off the impurities, and it gives you a bowl of something to drink, which makes you vomit, and and you you have to vomit, or they don't let you out of there, because then you're getting rid of some of that stuff, okay?
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's a purification ceremony, so that you can then you will have the right to approach the sacred, right?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: But all societies have something like that.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: They have washing ceremonies or fire ceremonies, purification ceremonies, and we come to the Bible and we find yes.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Here we find rules for approaching God.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And since God is unfathomably holy and pure, question is how then can you approach a God like that?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: How can you, and here's the key word of the book, how can you be holy?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Take your study sheet for a second, if you have one.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh titled God Lives with Holy People.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: The key verse, chapter 19, verse 2.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Say these words, uh, if you would, these 10 words with me.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Get ready.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Go.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Other verses from this book, it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: And believe it or not, this is the book that gives us you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: So don't let anybody tell you the Old Testament is mean and nasty and wrathful, and the New Testament is all love.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's where Jesus got this statement.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, reading from the paragraph below, the theme of Leviticus is holiness.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: The book of Exodus concluded on a high note.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: God himself and his kind of glory swept into his holy tent, his home in the heart of his chosen and saved people.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: But how can the sinlessly holy, pure God live with unholy people?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Leviticus explains, it says to the Old Testament saint, here's how you can have fellowship with a holy God who's come to live with you.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And Yahweh promised, if they kept these rules, I'll make my home among you, and I won't abhor you.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'll walk among you and be your God, and you'll be my people.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now the actual rules have changed since then, right?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to go bring your cat or dog or your sheep or your lamb or your goat or cow or whatever to be sacrificed.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Rules have changed since then.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: But our holy God still requires holiness in those with whom he's come to dwell.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing less will do.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: The outline there at the bottom, chapters one through seven lists the five kinds of sacrifice: the burnt offering, sin offering, peace offering, so forth.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Then you have the priesthood established, chapters eight through ten, the rules for purity, 11 through 16, the rules for holiness, 17 through 27.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Turn over the sheet.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I need to share with you three absolutely fundamental principles about Christianity, which, if you do not know them, you will never understand anything beyond them about Christianity correctly.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: These are absolutely fundamental.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: You need to understand them, and they start with this word holy, this word which has been drugged through the dirt.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: So that today, when we don't like people, we call them holier than thou, right?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: And holy is attached to words like smoke, holy smoke, or cow, holy cow, or it's sort of the first word of the Spirit, Holy Spirit.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And uh like Rodney Dangerfield, it don't get no respect today, this word holy, but it is one of the great words of the Bible.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: It in Hebrew, the word is kadosh.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Say that with me, it's on the screen.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Kadosh.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that word still used commonly today in Israel, and the word Greek is hagias.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Say that with me.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Hagias, that's a New Testament word.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Kadosh is the Old Testament word in Leviticus.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: In Latin, uh, again, Latin translations, the word is sanctus or sakir, from which we get sanctifier, sanctification, or sacred, all the same word.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: The word's used a thousand times in the Bible.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: A thousand and a hundred and fifty of those times in Leviticus, more than in any other book.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's the key word.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And even though that word gets very little respect today, it's such a key word that it could be called the primary attribute of God Himself.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to share with you three things about God and about holiness so that you'll understand how in the world we can approach him.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the first one.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: You've heard it before, God is holy.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: All right, our theme today is God lives with holy people.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: The first thing to say is that Leviticus starts with a principle, God is holy.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: You find it again and again.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Leviticus 11, 44 and 45.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: I am Yahweh your God.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Say these next words with me.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Be holy because I am holy.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Yahweh who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: So you must say it with me.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Be holy because I am holy.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: 19, 2, say it with me.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Be holy because I, Yahweh your God, am holy.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Same thing, 2026, you are to be holy to me because I, Yahweh, am holy, and I've set you apart from the nations to be mine.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I ask you a question on the front of the bulletin today.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: How would you fill in the blank if someone said to you, God is blank?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, before this morning, chances are that you, like I, would normally answer that God is gracious, God is sweet, God's kind, God's merciful, God's loving.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: But if you had asked anyone in the Bible who had seen God or even seen an angel, their answer would have been, God's scary.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: God is terrifying.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: God is holy, God is completely other.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we need this balance today.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because in the church, I'm not being critical of the church, I'm part of the church.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like when people criticize the church.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: The church is Christ's bride.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: So let me catch my words this way.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think, I think that we have slid off to one side a little bit too much.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that we talk about, we love to talk about the love of God.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a good thing.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: We needed the love to talk about the love of God.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: But we talk about God in a way that leaves him being our boyfriend, or our homeboy, or little Mary Sunshine, or uh, who's the guy?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Morgan Freeman.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: I like that picture of God.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he's played God.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: And and we sort of have lost this other scary side, the terrifying side.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, if if if you talk to people in the Bible, I mean, here's Daniel, he could look lions in the eye, but when God appeared, he falls in a dead faint.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: He swoons.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Here's Ezekiel, this crusty guy who is astoundingly courageous, but when the chariot fire, you know, God there, when that lifted up from the earth like a 747 with a jet engine noise or whatever, he swooned.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: John in the book of Revelation, when he saw the glory of God, they thought he was dead, fell on his face.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Solomon dedicating the temple, God comes down in a Shekinah glory.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: The priests couldn't even get off the ground to offer sacrifices.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Job, he's dialoguing with God.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's not fair what you're doing to me, and so forth.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Then God appears, he repents in dust and sackcloth, ashes.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody in the Bible who got close to seeing the glory of God absolutely shook uncontrollably.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why it seems to me that we have to, an accurate picture of God is one that includes, yes, both his incredible love and his infinite holiness, but I would go farther than that, say, I'd say, if if you focus on the love of God, you lose both love and holiness.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: You must start with the holiness of God because only then will you truly appreciate his love.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because the single primary attribute of God in Scripture is not even his sovereignty, it is his holiness.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that that and there's I I think of it uh as I look at all the verses of holiness as sort of three different ideas.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: His being separate, set apart, distinct.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Second, brilliant light being.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, that he's pure.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Let me share that with you, because according to a Barners, recent Barness survey of Christians, very few of them could define at all what holiness was.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm telling you, it sort of consists of these three ideas.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the first is that he is set apart.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: He is distinct, he's utterly distinct from creation.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Other opposed to all the ancient and modern religions like Hinduism or American religion or Canaanite or Egyptian religion, God is not part of nature.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: He's not part of nature.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: According to Genesis, one of the great lessons of Genesis 1, God created the universe, but is set apart and above it.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: He's distinct from nature.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: As far as the heavens are from the earth, so different is he than you and me, just naturally.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: But primarily, he's different or set apart from sin.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: He's absolutely morally pure.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: As distinct as light from darkness, God is utterly set apart from sin.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: So when he says to you, be holy, for I'm holy, he says, I want you to be set apart to me.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's why throughout the book of Leviticus, you have holy vessels, you have a holy building, you have a holy place, you have a holy bush, you have a whole everything that gets close to God is holy.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: The issue is not how many things can I stop doing that are nasty and dirty.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: The question is how close am I to God?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Am I closer to God so that I'm set apart toward him?
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: If so, then I imbibe some of that holiness that surrounds him, and I myself am holy.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, he's in brilliant light.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is a this is a picture on your screen of the largest nuclear bomb ever tested, okay?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: 1961.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: When a nuclear bomb goes off, everything just turns brilliantly light.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I picture when I read in 1 John 1:5.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: God is light and in him is no darkness at all.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's a brilliance of light there.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a scariness about that too, because God is like, he is uh he is like toxic, radioactive.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: If he came down to earth, he'd be like plutonium, which is even stronger, you know, more toxic than uranium.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, everybody would die.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: He is that that bright, that dangerous, that toxic.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: But he's in brilliant.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you or I will ever see God the Father, even throughout eternity, but we will see where he is at least, and what we will see is that he dwells in unapproachable light.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Third, he's pure.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: He's absolutely morally pure.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what you and I sense constantly, because we know we're not, and we know we need to be pure.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what this book is telling us.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: How can we be pure and set apart from the sin which God cannot stand?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe the best story about this in the Bible is in Isaiah 6.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: The greatest prophet in the Bible, Isaiah, he gets his call in this way.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: He goes into the temple there in Jerusalem, 700 BC, has this vision.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, the train of his robe, that is his glory, filling the temple.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Seraphim, these special angels, stood above him, each with six wings, with two covering their face, with two covering their feet, with two they flew.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And one of them would call out to the other and say, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: The whole earth is full of his glory.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now there's no time in the Bible you find mercy, mercy, mercy.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Never find kind, kind, kind, never find love, love, love.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: But you will find this one attribute.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: God is holy, holy, holy.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I love that we we ignore the second part of that line, which is the whole earth is full of his glory.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that remarkable?
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: That God would say, that heaven would say, the angels would say, Seraphim would say that this auditorium right now is full of God's glory.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: That God in his set apart brilliant moral purity inhabits the earth.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: And if his people will just sense it, he is right there with them, and he is there with them in his glory.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: In his glory.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: And amazing, amazing.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that's the first principle.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, by the way, we need that principle because as I said, we we are out of balance.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: We think of God as being our buddy, as being our homeboy, as as being sort of our boyfriend or lover, right?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: And and so we need this sharp balance that he's holy.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: We also need it in our worship.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: We need our worship.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: Millions of dollars are spent on church worship every year.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Conferences, songs being written, atmosphere, you know, machines and so forth.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: And yet I'm gonna tell you something now that you already know, but I'm just gonna remind you that you've never had a great worship time without transcendence.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, what does Matt Redman say?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Worship is never worship without a sense of the otherness of God, his holiness.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: We have loads of worship songs today that literally drip with romance.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not criticizing those.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: There are a number of articles you can find nowadays, Christina Day World Magazine, criticizing how romantic we've gotten about God.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: My lover, my boyfriend, my kissy face, stuff like that.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm not criticizing that for a moment.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how far we should go with that, but what I'm criticizing is that we've just we've we're staying too much over on the side of him being my friend, my lover.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: And we need to remind ourselves that if you ever the best worship experiences you ever have are the ones where, you know, all of us were 300 people standing, raising their hands, saying, How great is our God.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: How great is our God, right?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Am I right?
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the greatest worship experiences because you have a sense of the otherness, the transcendence, the holiness of God.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: We have to make sure we don't forget that in this move that we have today toward the romantic, toward the love of God.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Stay with the love of God.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 3 14.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: We need to know the love of God.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: Christians don't understand the love of God like they should, but you know what?
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: We really need to start with the holiness of God.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, God insists that you and I be holy.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: God insists that you and I be holy.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's not an option, it's not an elective.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Leviticus 11, remember that be holy because I'm holy.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: So he's always saying, This is the way I am.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm demanding that you be that way as well.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: Peter comes along and says, You thought that was just Leviticus?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Peter chapter 1, as the one who called you as holy, you're also to be holy in all your conduct for a church and be holy because I am holy.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm going to admit something right now, and that is that you could care less.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I could care less.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe not, but you know, there's something inside us in 2015, especially according to the surveys, young people, that with morality being fuzzy nowadays, more than ever, whether it's marriage, whatever it is, that more and more the truth is we not only say, I don't even know what holiness is, but we say, I'm not sure I really care.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Less than half of the people that Barnes surveyed, of thousands of Christians, less than half of the Christians agreed with the statement, God has called me to be holy.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Less than half.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: And most of them, when asked, what do you think holy is, said, Well, I don't know.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a sense there of, I'm not sure I care.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: So Barnes survey concluded the results portray a body of Christians today who do not understand the significance of holiness, do not personally desire to be holy, and therefore do little, if anything, to pursue it.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm thinking about that.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: I was driving to Texas this week, and I was thinking, and I'm critical, you know, going, those jerks, those Christians, don't they understand?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, I felt as though an optrametrist in heaven was going, tell me, which of these two do you would you prefer?
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: Jim, would you rather be a holy or be funny?
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I go, funny, because my jokes are so bad.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, really?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: I've never told you in the Bible I want you to be funny.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I have told you I'd like you to be holy.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Would you rather would you rather be a holy or b athletic?
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: God, I'd really like to be athletic.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, it's too late for you anyway.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: I said, okay, I'll go with holy.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, but would you rather, you have to ask yourself, would you rather be holy or handsome?
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Would you rather be holy or pretty?
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you know, honestly, we're all in the same boat here, aren't we?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: We're not really even sure that we want to be holy.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm telling you, God insists that you and I be holy for one reason because he saved us out of the opposite.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: That saved us out of the Egypt of unholiness.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: And he brought us to Mount Sinai.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I want you to be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: I got all the nations on earth, I own them all, but I want you to be special to me, set apart to me, distinct to me, a holy nation.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: And now in Leviticus, he says, I'm Yahweh your God.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Don't follow the practices back in the land of Egypt or the ones you're going to, Canaan, where I'm bringing you.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Romans 12, 2, don't be conformed to this role.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: I saved you out of that.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: You used to be there, but I mean, I've plucked you out of there.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: I need you to be different.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: I insist that you be different.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: And number two, because I'm not going to live.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to fellowship with unholy people.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Unless you get serious about this, unless you care about becoming like me, you can forget about it.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Leviticus chapter 10, one of the few refreshing stories in this book, Nadab and Abihu, Aaron's own sons.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: They knew better.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Sons of the high priest, famous people in Israel.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: They're in the top five, you know, of best known people in Israel.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: They each took their own fire pan.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: They put fire in it.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: I guess this is a breakfast.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they're fixing their breakfast and they stick their own fire in it.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Don't do that.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to get your fire, God says, off of the off of the altar, off of that great altar when you go in.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's to save us some time.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: We'll just put our own fire in here and the incense.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: They put their own fire in it and take it before the Lord.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then fire came from the Lord when they went into the tabernacle and burned them to death before the Lord.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, Lord, that's a little strong, don't you think?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Moses said to Aaron, this is what the Lord meant when he said, I'll show my holiness to those who are near me, and I'll reveal my glory before all the people.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's their dad Aaron must have been heartbroken, but the next line is, and Aaron did not speak a word.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: He realized that God insists that you and I be holy, and he will not live with unholy people.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not just in the Old Testament.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: Remember the grim tale of Ananias and Sapphira and Acts chapter 6, where they lied to the Holy Spirit.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Or 1 Corinthians 11, these wealthy people who are bringing their own food and wine and getting drunk before the Lord's table.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: And God says that's why they're sick and dead.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: You see, the truth is that God's a consuming fire, and if you forget that, and if I forget that, then we will never understand why he would insist that we be holy and why that would matter.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: We won't be a little scared of him like he wants us to be.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: But because God saved us out of unholiness, and because he won't live with unholy people, he insists on our worship being holy, first half of Leviticus, and our living being holy.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: But unfortunately, that leaves us so depressed, leaves me so depressed, I go, well, how in the world can I, being so unholy, approach a holy God?
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer is so happy.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: The answer is so happy and such a relief that God Himself will make you holy.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, are you kidding me?
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Charlotte Elliott, desperate, years ago, was desperate to become a Christian, asking an old man, but she says, just how do I become a Christian?
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: He said, You just come to God and you believe in Jesus Christ.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: And she says, But I'm such a sinner.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, You just come to him as you are.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: She said, I can come to God exactly the way I am.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Exactly the way you are.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: She said, Well, if you'll take me just as I am, I'll I'll come.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: And went home and she wrote a song, Just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: That thou biddest me come to thee, O Lamb of God.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: I come.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: I come.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's how you become a Christian.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: You come just as you are.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: And God says in the book of Leviticus, you know what?
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's how, that's how you come for the rest of your life, because you can't atone for your own sin.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Each sin that you commit is a cosmic, is a cosmic sin against me.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's huge.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: It tilts the whole universe.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's much more serious than you think it is.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's no way that you personally can atone for it.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's why since the beginning I've I've had them bring an offering, because it requires blood.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: It requires death.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: But I'll take care of it for you.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'll make you holy.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: So step number one is you come to Him through the blood.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's the way it's always been.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Leviticus 1.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Bring your offering from the herd of the flock, he says in chapter 1 of Leviticus, an unblemished male.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: Lay your hand on the head of the offering so it can be accepted on his behalf to make an atonement.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, you put your hand on it and say, This is in my place.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: I know my sin, Father, is so serious it requires death.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: It requires the shedding of blood.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for taking this lamb instead of me.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Slaughter the lamb, it gets singed or burnt.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then the joy of it all is, by the way, they always take the offering off, and then you have a big party.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's to have a Thanksgiving feast.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: You get to eat the meat.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you knew that, but it's just amazing.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: So slaughter the bull before the Lord, Aaron's sons, the priests, sprinkle the blood upon the altar.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: Leviticus 17, 11, for the life of a creature is in the blood, and I've appointed it to you to make atonement on the altar for your lives, since it's the lifeblood that makes atonement.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: What do you and I do?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: We're not sacrificing animals.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: The answer is Jesus is that lamb that died for the rest of time for all of us.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: So 1 John 1.7, the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us, keeps on cleansing us from all sins.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: He had this big altar in the Old Testament.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, my first archaeological dig, way back in the early 70s, it was remarkable.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: We found the first four-horned altar from the days of Isaiah.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's just astounding down there in Beersheba.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now they found a half a dozen of them.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: But there it is, you can see them today.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: You can imagine worshipers taking their lamb, taking their bull, taking their offering, and getting it sacrificed there.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can think ahead to the Lord Jesus Christ.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: John the Baptist, thinking of Leviticus, says, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that sacrifice, that blood sacrifice that is our substitute that you call upon when you go to Him.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: You confess your unholiness.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's what you did in Leviticus when someone sins, Leviticus 5.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: He's to confess that sin.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: Same is true today.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: 1 John 1:9, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: You confess your sins.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: You come to him and you say, Lord, I blew it.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: I blew it again this last week.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: And the third step is God does it.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: God does it.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: He cleanses you.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: He makes you holy.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Four times in this book.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: Leviticus 21, 15 and 23, 22, 9 and 16, I am Yahweh who makes them holy.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: You mean I don't have to do it myself, you know, by avoiding the nasty nine or the dirty dozen or the filthy five sins, you know, sidestepping.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'll take care of it.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: You just come to me.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: My blood, the blood of my son, has already cleansed you from sin.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm faithful.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: I am righteous to forgive your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: Stop why.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: Stop walking through life, you know, going, How in the world can I approach a holy God?
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're like that.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: We're like that man who never would wash his hand, he never did any laundry, decided he had a favorite t-shirt, a sweatshirt he wanted to wear.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: So he takes a sweatshirt down, goes in the laundry room, and takes it off.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: And yells up at his wife.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: He says, uh, what setting do I put this thing on?
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: And she yells back, What does your shirt say?
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Kansas Jayhawks.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you didn't laugh at that, then you've never done laundry.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: I've learned there's this little tag there and it tells you what to do.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: So many Christians are utterly, utterly ignorant about how to get clean, about how to get their soul laundered, how to come to God, this pure holy God.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer is you simply come to Him through the Bible.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for dying for my sin.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you confess your sin.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, this is I just, I'm so sorry that I did this.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then God is just to forgive you your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to call on you in about three minutes to take advantage of this golden opportunity to do that and to become holy before you walk out of this room.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: We've got excuses.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: We've got reasons, things that make it hard to do that.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: For one, my sin isn't that bad, because you can look around this room and go, you know, whatever I said this last week, that person I know.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: They used a much worse word than I use.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: Or that jealousy or that envy or that anger I had, there's lots of people who are worse than I am.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: My sin really doesn't seem that bad.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: Or, for example, you can say, you know, I got an excuse.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: If my boss, if if I didn't get underpaid the way I am, I I wouldn't have to steal a few, you know, just those little things.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: Or if my wife did this, or if my husband acted that way, then I wouldn't have to, you know.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, friend, God can't forgive excuses.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: He can only forgive sins.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: Or it's just flat out hard to say I'm sorry.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: A couple of times this year I've been around grandchildren where the oldest grandson or the oldest granddaughter has whacked the younger one, and the younger one cries or knocks over their blocks, and then you spend the next 15 minutes, dad or a mom or grandparent, doing what?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: Say I'm sorry.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: Please say I'm sorry.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'll move your lips.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: Just please say I'm sorry.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's so hard to say I'm sorry today, isn't it?
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: Hard for me to say I'm sorry to someone in my family that I'm wrong, that I've wronged.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's really, and you know what's really hard?
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to say I'm sorry again to God.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't it hard?
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: You go, you're asking me, Jim, to bow my head and say I'm sorry to God to confess my sin, but I mean it's the same sin that I committed the previous week and the previous 50 before that.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, Whoa, whoa, hold it.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about you.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: You're not making the atonement.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's my son.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: His blood is eternal.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: His blood covers all sins.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're going back to his blood.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: His death takes care of it.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: Just come to me.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: Your sin is not something I don't know about already, but your sin is the abyss between you and me.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: But if you'll confess that sin, it becomes the bridge between you and me so that you and I can have fellowship with each other, so that unholy people can get close to a holy God.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: Will you please confess your sin so that I can wash you clean?
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Will you do that?
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: Let's bow our heads right now.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: I want to give you the opportunity.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: Since God lives with holy people, since God says that he will make us holy himself, let's stop for a moment.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: Look up to a holy God in a holy heaven in all your unapproachable light, Heavenly Father, completely set apart.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you that you call us to yourself, that you want to make us holy, that you want to clean us.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so we think back over these sins that we have done for which we have no excuse.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: No excuse at all.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: We have guilt honest, Heavenly Father, a great guilt, a very great guilt.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: We understand that we have in a sense tilted the universe by our rebellion against you.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: We have thought things, we have said things, we've looked at things, we've done things that we know are wrong.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I wish I hadn't.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being faithful to forgive us our sins on the basis of the blood of your Son and to make us holy.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: We acknowledge, Heavenly Father, that you are loving and you are faithful, but more than anything else, you are holy, holy, holy.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: In the name of Jesus we pray.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: Holy holy Lord God in the morning, our song shall rise to thee holy, holy whole mercyful and three person, bless trinity.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: Holy holy all the saints casting down the golden cross around the glass and send them down me for the wish and more shall we pass bless.