Holiness

In two weeks we'll be getting into the spring holy days. Passover will be observed here, and the night to be much observed, and the days of unleavened bread. We call this season a holy season in one sense, because we have holy days. We have two holy days, first and last day of unleavened bread that we will be observing. And we will be focusing on holy things. We're going to be focusing upon Christ's suffering. We're going to be focusing upon Christ's sacrifice, His shed blood, the resurrection. We're going to be focusing upon a life without sin that is essentially that life without sin that we picture is a holy life. If we would ever, any of us, attain to a sinless, perfect life, we would look at each other and pinch one another to see if we're still in the flesh, but we would be on the verge of being a holy person if we ever got to that level of accomplishment spiritually. But it is a holy season. It is a holy days. And there are holy things upon which we focus during the days of unleavened bread, in a sense a little bit more so than even the other festivals that come through the year because of the solemnity of the Passover service, the symbols that we take, the bread and the wine. As I've said before, when we come to Passover service and as we keep the days of unleavened bread, this is the time of year that we have more symbols in play in the church than at any other time throughout the season with foot washing and with a piece of bread and with a vial of wine. Those are symbols that we, those are the major symbols, if you will, of our Church of God culture. We don't have a lot of other things that we, tangible things that we look at to symbolize our faith and our walk in that sense, and rightly so. But that, those things we do focus on during this particular time of year. So my focus in late and recent days has been doing a lot of thinking about holiness and how to understand it, what it really is, and how to certainly try to live a holy life, which I think we all understand is a daunting process, virtually impossible. We don't necessarily even talk about and think about ourselves as living holy lives, but the Bible does in many ways. And we should, we should think about living a holy life and attaining to that and thinking about holiness. You know, if we do much thinking about holiness, we might recoil a little bit, especially if we associate holiness with the traditional images from traditional Christianity of people who try to live a holy life, the Roman Catholic faith. Certainly they have people who retire to monasteries, monks, nuns, others who take certain vows and will spend their whole life in certain orders living away from the world, living a holy life, a life dedicated to prayer, to fastings, in some cases even to silence. There's one order that will, they don't talk. And they do good works and they do various things and they live apart from the rest of the world to demonstrate and try to, in a sense, live a holy life. That's not what I'm talking about. That's how, again, we would look at that and it might cause us to skew our perception of what holiness really is and should be as we are told about it from the Scriptures and what we should strive for within the church, especially as we focus on the Days of Unleavened Bread. Because we are called to a holy life and to be holy.

Let's turn back to 1 Peter chapter 1 and notice where that is. 1 Peter chapter 1. And let's begin in verse 13. 1 Peter 1 and verse 13. Peter writes, Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, in other words, get your mind together. Focus. Pay attention. Be sober. That's not just teetotaling, staying off the bottle. That's having a very serious, be serious. Understand, have a certain seriousness to these matters and to our calling. 2 Peter chapter 13. And rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

As obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts as in your ignorance before we were called, before God called us and brought us to the revelation of Christ. But as He who called you, verse 15, is holy, God is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. You also be holy in all your conduct. Because it is written, Be holy, for I am holy. That's a very strong directive. Can't get around that. God, through Peter, is telling us to be holy in all of our conduct, to approach our life, our words, our deeds, our actions, and make them holy. Now how do we do that? If you call on the Father, verse 17, who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear, knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He, indeed, was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, who through him believe in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are in God. So we're called to be holy, walking in the way that we learned from the example of Jesus Christ. How do we attain that holiness? And what exactly is the nature of this holiness? It's a very large subject. I'd like to focus down, in my sermon here this morning, to one example from the Old Testament that can help us to kind of get our mind around this concept of holiness and how we are to approach it and begin to understand it and, with God's help, have a measure of it more in our life.

The story I'd like to focus on is back in the book of Leviticus, beginning in chapter eight of Leviticus. The entire book of Leviticus really is a story about holiness and how Israel was to be holy. And there is a great deal of teaching from the book for us today to apply, but I just want to focus on a story here regarding the priesthood and Aaron and his sons and what happened and what took place to teach us something about holiness. Let's look beginning here in Leviticus chapter eight and verse one. This is in the wilderness.

This is after the setting up of the tabernacle. Aaron and his family have been set aside than to be priests of this. The first two chapters of Leviticus outlined really the offerings, various offerings that the priests were to give at the tabernacle. So you had the tabernacle in place. You had the offerings in place through the first few chapters of Leviticus. And now God begins to consecrate and set aside the family of Aaron and his sons to be the priests, the one who were to officiate at the tabernacle and to take care of the offerings and to basically give life to or make things happen in this whole setting of the tabernacle.

With God's presence and the offerings and all that they were to do in terms of the people's relationship to God and all of that that was to be taught there. And I will say just before jumping into this story, the first five, six chapters of Leviticus, in looking at every one of those offerings is a whole study in itself that helps that when you we do understand what those mean, what they mean, that they are the first five chapters of Leviticus.

And when you look at what those mean, what they mean, they point us to Christ and to his sacrifice and so many dimensions that it really does open up an understanding there. And it's a fascinating study in itself. But here in chapter 8 and verse 1, the Lord spoke to Moses saying, Take Aaron and his sons with him. And these two sons that we're talking about are Nadab and Abihu, his two eldest sons. And the garments, the special garments of the priesthood, the anointing oil, holy oil, a bowl as the sin offering, two rams and a basket of unleavened bread, and gather all the congregation together at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.

And so Moses did as the Lord commanded him. The congregation was gathered together at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. And this, and Moses said to the congregation, This is what the Lord commanded to be done. And Moses brought Aaron and his sons and washed them with water. This washing of water, again, is a action that you see throughout the offerings, the priests, and their work of service at the tabernacle and the altar of this washing of water, this washing with water.

It was a ceremonial washing to cleanse them for service to God for the people. You might recall a couple of weeks ago in my last sermon, I talked a little bit about the washing of the water of the word from the book of Ephesians. And the application, in a sense, for you and I, as we understand God's word, washing over us and washing out our life and our minds.

So keep that in mind as we go through this subject. But Aaron and his sons were washed with water. And the clothes were put on, the tunic, sash, and the robes, and the ephod, and they were all put on the breastplate with the urem and the thumb and the turbans. And they were anointed with oil down in verse 10 and consecrated down there. And they were set aside.

They were holy priests to do a holy work for a holy people before a holy God. And in verse 12, he poured some of the anointing oil on Aaron's head and anointed him to consecrate him. And so they were done and an offering was given and prepared.

And down in chapter 9, let's turn over to chapter 9. And let's just note a few verses here in this chapter because it came to pass then. On the eighth day that Moses called Aaron and his sons and the elders of Israel. And then there were instructions to take another bull as a sin offering and to be offered before the Lord. And all of this again in verse 5, the congregation drew near and stood before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle. And various instructions and Aaron went up on the altar to make various offerings here with a calf.

And verse 9 says, the sons of Aaron brought the blood to him and he dipped his finger in the blood and put it on the horns of the altar and poured the blood at the base of the altar. This was the main altar in front of the tabernacle that received all the offerings. And he goes into the details of it and the washings of it and how this burnt and brought and things that were done.

And down at the end of chapter 9, verse 22, it says, Aaron lifted his hand toward the people, blessed them and came down from offering, the sin of offering. It came down off the altar, the burnt offering and the various peace offerings. Moses and Aaron went to the tabernacle of meeting into it and came out and blessed the people. Then the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering, the fat on the altar. When all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces.

And so this miraculous event took place of fire coming out from the tabernacle, from God, and consuming what had been prepared and placed on that offering altar by Aaron and his sons.

And it was a remarkable demonstration of God's presence, God's glory, God's holiness. And even these men, acting as holy agents for God, giving holy offerings before the people. And it would have been an awesome sight to see. We would love to see anything equivalent to such a miraculous intervention by God at any point in time in our personal lives or in the life of the church to demonstrate God's presence, favor upon us in some way. This is what this did. It showed them that God was there. His presence was in that holy of holies, and this was a dramatic expression of it. And all had been prepared. Days and weeks and months had come up to this very moment when that offering was consumed and the priests had been consecrated. And the preparations and the planning, it was all culminated in this miraculous exhibit of God's presence. Then in chapter 10, we read a very interesting development, verse 1. Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer, which was an instrument that was to hold fire and a coals from the altar. And they put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. Profane fire, not holy fire, not proper fire, irregular fire, if you will. Profane fire before God that He had not commanded. And what happened in verse 2 then was another dramatic event. So fire went out from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord. And again, they were struck dead by the fire. Instead of the fire coming out and consuming the offering, which this is a separate incident. We don't necessarily have a knowledge given to us as to how much time had transpired from the end of chapter 9 to chapter 10. It could have been a few days. We don't know exactly, but it would seem that it was another time. And this fire, instead of consuming the offering, was directed to the two priests, Nate, Abba, and Abba, sons of Aaron, and they were fried to a crisp. We've all probably seen literally, or at least pictures, maybe some have seen literal bodies burned.

The pictures I've seen, I've never seen that literally, but the pictures I've seen are rather gruesome. And you can well imagine what they may have looked like. They were not totally consumed. They weren't cremated, but they were charred. And they were there. And in verse 3, Moses said to Aaron, the Father, watching this, This is what the Lord spoke saying, By those who come near me, I must be regarded as holy, and before all the people I must be glorified.

And Aaron held his peace. In other words, suck it up, Aaron. Don't cry. Don't mourn. Hold your peace. There's no objection. There's no appeal here. It's done. And Moses said, as God had told him, I must be regarded as holy by those who come near me. Wow. Talk about an unfair God. Talk about an unjust God. They didn't even get a second chance.

They didn't get a warning. They didn't get an opportunity to learn. Cut right off. And their Father, don't mourn. How awful. God. Can you imagine what some of the people who had witnessed this were saying, and what they went back to their tents thinking? How can a gracious God, how can a loving God do this to His own people, to His own ministers, to the sons of Aaron, the nephews of Moses?

How can this be a God we want to worship? You can hear the chatter for days, weeks, probably for years among some people as they tried to understand what had happened and what had taken place. I think some did. I think some never did. Knowing human nature, knowing the proclivities of human beings. You read on through this, and you see what... They were not permitted to mourn. They were to be carried out. Verse 6, they were said, Do not uncover your heads, nor tear your clothes, lest you die, and wrath come upon all the people.

But let your brethren, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which the Lord has kindled. So there was no question that this was of God. You will not go out from the door of the tabernacle of eating, lest you die, for the anointing oil of the Lord is upon you. They did according to the word of Moses. And so, the holiness of God was demonstrated here. The devil must be regarded as holy. Now let's try to draw a few lessons from this example as to why and what happened here.

The first one is this. These two men somehow treated God's commands lightly. They did something wrong. They brought profane fire. Now let's hold your place here and turn back just a few pages to chapter 8 and verse 36.

Well, you don't have to. At least not my Bible. It's right there on the other side of the page. Probably yours, too. It says, So Aaron and his sons did all the things that the Lord had commanded by the hand of Moses. They did all the things. At this point in their training, their development, they carefully did all that God had commanded. They were zealous. Kind of like you and I, maybe at times when we've been very zealous in our life for God.

We want to get things exactly right. We want to make sure we've got the holy days lined up, time off from job, plans made to get things, kids out of school. We treat the Sabbath with a reference. We treat all the aspects of God's law and teachings with a desire to learn more and to put it into our life. We want to do all the things that God commands us. And this is what Nadab and Abihu and Aaron were doing at some point in their training and in their preparation.

But at some point, they grew careless. At some point, they let down and didn't adhere to the rules of righteousness. Because that's what God had killed. They offered profane fire. And so they treated God's commands very lightly. We never want to do that. We never want to approach God, His way of life, His teaching, and teach it and treat it as something that we can just pick and choose or do when it's convenient, when we want to.

Or decide, well, I've done this enough years. Maybe this year it doesn't matter. Or maybe I can slough off here. And there are times when we do grow tired and weary, and we get caught up with the affairs of life, and our love does wax, can wax cold for any number of reasons. And it's when we allow that to cause us to treat lightly God's teaching, God's way of life, that we are beginning to get on thin ice.

I'm very grateful that I've had the, given the opportunity to teach the doctrines at the Ambassador Bible Center, to go back through those, because they have given me an appreciation for the doctrinal truths that we have. Not from a rigorous, legalistic point of view, because as I've gone back to, at least teach the ten that I did teach this year, it's helped me to understand, not just, again, as a review of what we believe, but also to see their application in our life. Doctrine is more than just a rigorous, you know, listing of scriptures to prove something. Doctrine has to be translated into love, into application. Why do we do this?

What does it teach us about God and our life? In us, there's a story that is woven into. We never want to treat God's way, God's teachings, lightly. We want to adhere to the rules of righteousness. At some point, these two men didn't. There's a second point to learn. Nadab and Abihu were priests in training, just like us. Aaron was the high priest.

And as you understand the nature of the priesthood that was given to Israel, only the descendants of the family of Aaron would be priests. And that was carried through all the way through the entire period of the tabernacle and later the temple. Levites were another category. But those who officiated as priests were always from the family of Aaron. And these were the, this was the first class that was being trained. And they were, but they were in a sense priests in training because one of them, probably the oldest, would have been the high priest upon the passing of Aaron at some point. And so they're just like us. They were being schooled in service to God and to His people.

These men, the priests, they had to get it right all the time, every day. All the time, every day. They had to execute things correctly. Every day there was something for them to learn. Actually, I would imagine being a priest was a lifetime learning experience. Life for you and I, priests in training, every day in our life is a learning experience. And we never want to take that lightly as well. We never want to let that slip away from us. A third lesson is what we read in verse 1 of chapter 10, that they offered strange fire, profane fire before God.

Now, why was this profane? Why was the fire that they brought different and not acceptable to God? Well, let's understand something. The fire that was on the altar was a fire that could never go out. When that altar was set up and consecrated for service, that fire that was kindled never went out. It was kind of like an eternal flame. We've all seen the pictures of the eternal flame at the grave of John F. Kennedy in the Arlington Cemetery. If you've been there, you can see it. Never gone out since the day they lit it in 1963 when he was buried. The idea of an eternal flame is quite interesting. Well, this fire was to never go out.

It always had to be tended, stoked, and kept burning before God. And it may be...if you turn back to Leviticus 6, verse 12, it says this. The fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it. It shall not be put out. And the priest shall burn wood on it every morning and lay the burnt offering and order on it. And he shall burn it on it the fat of the peace offerings.

The fire shall always be burning on the altar. It shall never go out. If you ever see pictures, artists' depictions of the temple in Jerusalem later on, and what the temple would have looked like in Solomon's day or the day of Jesus, you will see a fire always smoke rising off out of the temple area.

Every picture that I've ever seen trying to render what that would have looked like shows that. That's because the altar had a fire going on all the time. And only one fire. And it never went out. Now, it may be that Nadab and Abiyu brought fire from another source. That's why it was profane. That's one of the explanations as to what happened. We're not given a lot of the details. But if it was profane, it wasn't holy because God had started this fire on this altar.

And it will never go out. And just as there was always to be one tabernacle, one altar, one offering in one place, and not in five places or fifteen places, there was one priesthood, one altar, one temple, where God was and where He was worshipped by His people in Israel, there was one fire. And it never went out. Now, why would you think that it never went out? Why would this fire have always been kept going perpetually when it was set up? Well, we've already seen that fire came out from the Lord and consumed the offering there in chapter 9.

This fire represented God's presence and the presence of His system among the people. And for the fire to be kept going continually showed God's eternal presence among the people. That's why it was never allowed to go out. It showed the people that only by God and His grace could any sacrifice that they brought to that altar be acceptable. And it would seem logical that for whatever reason and purpose, nadab and abai, you brought a fire from another location with incense to do it before God.

And God stopped it cold and clearly did not allow that to go on. When we look at this fire and that it was from God eternally before the people, it shows us something about the Holy Spirit because this fire is a representation of God's Holy Spirit today. And that Holy Spirit is in us.

It shows God's eternal presence, if you will, with us and in us. God puts it there. God grants it to us when we repent and are baptized and have hands laid upon us. This afternoon in Indianapolis, we're going to baptize a lady, Angie Stevens. Some of you may know Angie, who's been up here visiting a time or two with the others from the Muncie area.

We're going to baptize her today and we will lay hands upon her. And if all the other conditions are met by God's knowledge and wisdom, He will give her His Holy Spirit, just as He has done to any and all of us that have been baptized. That's God's presence in us. And that is a down payment of eternal life. God puts it there and He tends it along with our care as we grow in grace and knowledge.

And it is always in us, in a sense that fire, if you will, representing that, of life, godly life, that energizes us and drives us and needs to be nurtured, needs to be tended, needs to be kept going. And God will do that and we will do it as well. And that Spirit is holy because it is God's essence.

And in the great mystery that is God, He does impart to us a measure of His divinity. That is an amazing concept that we never want to lose sight of. And by that we have a holiness within us, if you will. Not because of what we have done, what we are, but only because of God's presence through His Spirit in us. It's the Spirit that is holy. We're not, but as we submit ourselves to God and to the working of that Spirit, as we saw back in Peter, we are to live a holy life.

That's a responsibility. That Spirit is holy and we don't want to offer any strange fire. We don't want to do anything that is different from what the lead of God's Spirit and its direction in our life would give us. We have to stay close to God for the sustaining strength that flows from the Spirit. Knowing that by the Holy Spirit God lives in us, we have confidence that we can go to Him for help, for strength, that we can go to Him for forgiveness, that we can go to Him for restoration and renewal. Nadab and Abihu brought a sacrifice that was not acceptable in God's sight, and he was swift to show that he would not tolerate this loose approach, and it stands as a very hard lesson for us to learn.

A very, very hard lesson. Because when we look at chapter 10 of Leviticus, this is one of those stories that people look at in the Old Testament, especially in the Old Testament, of a God of judgment, of a God of exactness, and because they don't always see it, they can't equate a God of love with the God that they read about here in this particular story, and other stories too, but this is one example about it. God wants sacrifices for us today of deeds and actions.

We don't bring a goat, we don't bring a bull to be offered today. Our offerings are ourselves. And deeds and actions that come from a pure motive and intent.

Notice over in Psalm 19 what we're talking about. Psalm 19.

Verse 12. It says, Who can understand His errors? Cleanse me from secret faults. That's a good prayer sometimes for us to pray, for God to cleanse us from our secret faults, the ones that we don't even know about ourselves, that He would show us what some of our faults might be, and then, or even cleanse us from those things that we don't even know about and be forgiven.

Keep back from your servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, and I shall be innocent of great transgression.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength, and my Redeemer. Verse 14 is talking about the type of an offering you and I give, our words and our thoughts.

An offering had to be acceptable to God for it to be received. It had to be according to a procedure. It had to be a certain type for a certain offense. In the psalmist here, David is saying, let my words and my thoughts be acceptable. In other words, pure, holy, so that they are pleasing to you.

God wants the sacrifices of deeds and actions coming from a pure motive and a pure intent. In Psalm 51, that great psalm of repentance, verse 16, David said here, Psalm 51, verse 16, For you do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it. Even at this time he knew that there was not a bull or a goat or a lamb that was going to remove this sin. You don't desire sacrifice of that nature. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart.

These, O God, you will not despise. That's what is the sacrifice that we are to give. Those are the sacrifices that God will accept that will not profane His way, His presence, and will help us to cleanse our way so that we're not offering strange fire, if you will, something that shouldn't be there upon God.

A fourth lesson from this example of Nadab and Abihu is that worshipping God His way shows respect. It shows respect for God. It's very easy to grow careless in our lives before God. Let's turn back to Leviticus 10.

As I said earlier, we can think we put in time, or we don't need to be quite so diligent. We don't need to come to church every week, or if we just decide to do something else, or keep the Sabbath a different way as a pattern and as a habit.

I'm not talking about being sick, I'm not talking about traveling at times and you can't find a church, or you would keep it on your own under those circumstances. But I'm talking about where we grow into a pattern where we periodically just take a pill. We take a seltzer.

We decide we're going to do something a bit different for reasons that maybe we don't even fully appreciate and understand. It grows into a habit where we don't go when there are certain speakers, or there are not certain speakers. I have people tell me that they won't come when I'm speaking. I have people tell me they won't come when somebody else is speaking. You know what I tell them? You should come every week if you're going to be a part of the church. You should come when I'm not there, and you should come when I'm there.

Sometimes you'll listen and you might get something from me, and sometimes you won't. Sometimes you'll get something from someone that you don't think you'll get something from if you just listen. Because when we ask a prayer at the beginning of every convening, don't we ask for God's presence to be there? Is inspiration to be upon the speakers, or the speaking and the hearing we often say?

And don't you pray through the week for inspiration upon the ministry, or those who will be speaking, Deacon, or a layperson that may be giving a message? Don't you do that? Then if you do, don't you believe that by your presence you're showing faith in your prayer and your words and petition to God?

That he will do it.

I've been just as guilty as anybody who's said those things to me, because there are times when I have to sit in the audience and listen to a sermon, usually to feast, because I don't speak every day. And I can get, I can listen. I put together hundreds or thousands of sermons over the years. And I can tell when a speaker hasn't done his homework. I can maybe tell it quicker than you can, and that may be a fault of mine, because I can be supercritical.

I had one such occasion at the Feast of Tabernacles last year. And yet I listened to what he had to say, and I learned, I did learn something. I did learn something from it.

Not as much as had he been fully prepared and engaging with me and got my respect, but I still learned something. And there are times when it's just the fellowship or the song service or just your presence that will show support and respect for God, support for the congregation, and love for each, for everyone else, by your presence.

And that's what it's all about. It's not about me, whether you like me or you despise me or any other personality. It's about God. It's about God. It's about His people. It's about you and your relationship with God and your faith. That's what it's about.

It's not about any personality. People are too quick to latch on to the personality, and it's been a part of our problems, especially in this recent current crisis.

The one personality we should be concerned about is Jesus Christ, God the Father.

And show respect for that because they are holy. And by our careful attention to what we should be doing as a holy people, we learn something about holiness.

And we don't allow ourselves to grow careless.

Here in chapter 10 of Leviticus, verse 9, God spoke to Aaron, and He said, Don't drink wine or intoxicating drink when you or your son is with you when you go into the tabernacle, lest you die. They had to abstain from alcohol when they went in to do their job.

You know, if an airline pilot has even a trace of alcohol in him when they get behind the cockpit of a plane and is discovered, their license is gone. They're fired.

They have certain hours before there's no tolerance of alcohol that they cannot consume a certain number of hours prior to their flight.

That cannot be tolerated for obvious reasons. A priest, one ministering to and handling the holy things of God, cannot be having any amount of strong drink, according to this. Why, verse 10, that you may distinguish between holy and unholy and between unclean and clean, that you may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord has spoken to them by the hand of Moses.

By your actions, your reverence for what you're handling, you teach people the difference between holy and unholy, between unclean and clean.

Worshiping God his way shows respect, and it's very easy to grow careless.

One of the keys to knowing God and Christ is that they are holy, and that we should maintain that holy contact we are given with them by and through the Holy Spirit.

Leviticus, as I said earlier, was given as a practical follow-on from the law of Exodus 20.

God's law has practical implications for creating holy conduct, and Leviticus is really a full exposition of how that practicality is accomplished. The book of Leviticus and all of its details that we get bored with were to teach holiness. It has to be translated into our modern vocabulary and actions today.

Chapter 11 of Leviticus is a whole chapter about the food laws, clean and unclean meats.

The major reason on top of all the other reasons not to eat pork or shellfish or the other stuff, the major reason is because of holiness.

The overarching reason, God was showing you're going to be separate from the other peoples. Even down to how you eat, you're going to be clean. You're going to be different. You're going to be set apart and sanctified. A major reason, not the only, but a major reason for the food laws then and now is to teach this distinction.

When God says to do it, you do it. And there are physical reasons for it, but most importantly, there are spiritual reasons for it.

And in the end, it teaches us holiness.

Fifth reason, or fifth lesson that we can learn from this example, the story.

Sin has deadly consequences.

It takes a horrendous debt.

Isaiah 59.

Isaiah 59.

In verse 1.

In verse 1.

Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, nor is ear heavy, that it cannot hear.

God can save. God hears everything.

But your iniquities have separated you from your God, your sin.

Your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he'll not hear.

Your hands have defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken lies.

Your tongue has muttered perversity.

And as if that was not enough for the separation, he goes on in verse 4.

No one calls for justice.

So because of the sin, it numbs a people, a culture, a society, to where justice can't even be done.

It can't even be discerned, much less called for, or arrived at, by clear-thinking people who can distinguish between the clean and the unclean, the holy and the unholy.

Nor does anyone plead for truth. They trust in empty words and speak lies. They conceive evil, bring forth iniquity.

They hatch viper's eggs and weave the spider's web. He who eats of their eggs dies, and from that which is crushed a viper breaks out.

Isaiah is describing what happens when sin pervades an entire culture and people, as it did with Israel and Judah, and as it does to our modern culture today.

This is what the result of sin is. And it's because of that God doesn't hear, or He...

You see a vast gulf opening between God and mankind.

Their webs will not become garments, nor will they cover themselves with their works. Their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands.

Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood.

Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, wasting and destruction in their paths. The way of peace they have not known, and there is no justice in their ways.

They have made themselves crooked paths. Whoever takes that way shall not know peace.

And so the cycle of human misery and suffering goes on and on generation after generation. They do not know peace.

They cannot bring about the conditions. There is no justice. There is a continual search for justice. And it is... Why? Because of sin.

And this vast separation between God and His creation.

Therefore, justice is far from us, nor does righteousness overtake us. We look for light, but there is darkness. For brightness, but we walk in blackness.

We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes. We stumble at noonday as a twilight. We are as dead men in desolate places.

Imagine the movies of zombies coming up out of graves with no eyeballs in their sockets, kind of stumbling around, not even knowing where they are. We've all seen those depictions.

This is what God is describing about all of mankind.

As dead men walking, stumbling around at noonday, can't see where to go. We growl like bears, and moan sadly like doves.

We look for justice, but there is none. For salvation, but it's far from us. For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins against us. For our transgressions are with us, as for our iniquities, we know them.

And He uses animals to describe, and dead people and animals to describe the condition.

Sin separates us from the holiness of God and creates a vast, vast gulf.

Separation involves a lack of understanding of God and of His purpose in His life.

And this separation is at the heart of the answer as to why God allows evil and suffering in this world.

The greatest question of philosophers in religion, and the greatest attacks upon faith, God, the Bible, is that why does a just God allow suffering and evil?

And why would a just God breathe fire out and consume two men like Nadab and Abihu?

Or why would a just God say to Israel that when they went into the land, kill everyone if they don't cooperate?

How do you align the idea of a loving, merciful God with what you read in some of these episodes? It causes people to reject the Bible. It causes people to turn to...it's a favorite ploy of atheists and agnostics.

It has been for a long, long time.

Well, the answer is right here in Isaiah 59. It's sin that causes this vast separation.

Let me give you an example. Imagine a wild animal caught in a trap, can't get out, and you come upon it, and you see it, and you try to go up and let it out, get it out.

They'll pry open the trap. But you can't get near, because it's snarling at you. And if you get too close, it's going to bite you.

And so you can't. And so you have to step back. And you have to watch it suffer.

And then you have to watch it die, because you can't help it. You know the answer. You know the solution. You could do it, because you have the intelligence to do it.

That animal doesn't have the intelligence, the consciousness, to do it. You do, because you're a human being, and you think.

You see the vast gulf between you and that animal? You can help it. You could set it free. You could give it life, but it won't let you.

Because it can't think as a human. It doesn't know that you only want to help. They see you as a threat.

Now, you just have to understand the difference in the big gulf between God and mankind. Mankind is caught in a trap. Mankind cannot get out.

There's a way out, and God can do it. But because there's sin, and man acts like a growling bear or an animal, and can't even grow up in the broad daylight of noonday, there's this big gulf between humanity as it is without God and the mercy and the love of God. And he can't do it until all the other conditions are met within his plan of salvation. And so mankind suffers needlessly. But because of choice, because of free will, which God gave to us all the way back in Genesis, we have evil because evil is a result of choice.

Just as Adam and Eve had the choice to make of two different ways of life, symbolized by those two trees.

And the cumulative effect is a life described by Isaiah here in chapter 59 of sin that has separated man from God. God has the answers, and God can provide the relief.

But we have to allow him to open that trap and let us get our leg out so that we can heal. It's called the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It's called the blood of Christ. It's called Passover. And that bridges the gulf when God calls when we respond in his plan.

Understand that, and you understand why there is evil and there is suffering in this world today, and why there is this vast gulf.

And then you understand why God breathed fire upon these two men, frying them to a crisp.

And then you can understand what God was doing with his plan and his purpose. Then you can understand the love of God.

But look at it only from human eyes, and you think, this is a cruel Old Testament God. I don't want to worship him. I don't want anything to do with what he says.

And then you throw out and you question every other aspect of the scripture.

Holiness is the gulf between mankind and the divine. That is the gulf.

It's why God says, my thoughts are not your thoughts. In Isaiah 58, verse 8, My thoughts, he says, are not your thoughts. My ways are not your ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than yours, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

And it's not until God gives us his Holy Spirit that we have the ability to begin to bridge the gulf and close it up and have a relationship with God.

But without that, mankind struggles with the things of God and the evil in this world.

So how do we become holy? Well, let's look at Colossians chapter 1.

Colossians chapter 1.

Verse 19.

It's only through Christ that we are made holy and able to appear before God.

In John 17.

In verse 17.

Christ in his prayer before his death.

He said, Sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth.

The process of sanctification is a setting apart for a holy purpose, for a holy work.

He says, Sanctify them, meaning his disciples, you and I, by your truth. Your word is truth.

Now you can understand better the need for the washing of the water of the word over us in our life.

We don't wash physically when we come in the door of church or, you know, to go through any type of ceremonial preparation. We wash ourselves in the Word of God, in the Scriptures.

We read them. We study them. We drink them in.

And through that, they point out sin.

God's spirit interacts and convicts us. It shows us where we need to curb our tongue, sharpen up our thoughts, feel a bit more sober.

God's Word motivates us to confess our sins, to confess, to acknowledge, yeah, I fell short on that this week, or in this episode with so-and-so at work, or my brother in the church.

I fell short. I'm sorry. And it motivates us to confession, to God and to an individual, if necessary.

It renews a relationship with God, that study of the Word, that washing of the water of the Word, renews a relationship with God.

And fourthly, it guides our path to right living. It shows us how to live, how to stay close to God, how to be holy, how to be pure of thought, word, indeed.

How to indeed be the pure of heart that Christ spoke of in the Sermon on the Mount.

Then how to be completely single-minded for the Kingdom of God.

This is a holy season. Holy days. We will handle symbolically the symbols of holiness with the bread and wine.

Let's be holy as God is holy.