6/17/12 - Hezekiah 2 - 2 Chron. 30:18-20

JUST ASK

“Yes & “No”

            The apostle Paul once prayed to the Lord that what he called his “thorn in the flesh” would be taken away from him.  In fact, Paul prayed that prayer three times.  The Lord said no.  King David pleaded with God that he would spare the life of his newborn son.  The Lord said no.  Jesus himself, as a real human being, prayed passionately to his Father in the Garden of Gethsemane that another way could be found for the salvation of all people instead of the intense suffering he was about to experience.  The Father said no.  Now God loved Jesus and David and Paul of course, but sometimes God says “no” to the prayers of those he loves.  Because sometimes “no” is the most loving answer he can give.  

            But God loves to say “yes” to our prayers as often as possible!  Think about these same three men: Paul prayed that the door would be opened for him to spread the gospel.  The Lord said yes at many different times.  David prayed that he would be delivered from the hands of his enemies.  The Lord said yes on numerous occasions.  Jesus prayed that his Father would protect his disciples.  His Father said yes to that prayer for years.  Our Lord loves saying “yes!”  If you would read through the Bible and keep track of all of the times that the Lord answered “yes” to  the prayers of his children compared to the times that he said “no,” you’ll notice that the Lord gives what is asked for on far more occasions than he does not.  Because as long as it will benefit his children in some way, the Lord is thrilled to give his children what they want.  What father wouldn’t?

            This morning King Hezekiah provides for us a few more wonderful examples of how the Lord loves to say “yes” to the prayers of his people.  We read that Hezekiah was under pressure from the King of Assyria when he prayed to the Lord for help.  The Lord answered that prayer with a “yes” and rescued Hezekiah and his people in a truly miraculous way that we will talk about again in three weeks.  When Hezekiah was sick and at the point of death he prayed to the Lord for healing.  The Lord once again said “yes” and added 15 years on to the end of Hezekiah’s life.  And the last of Hezekiah’s prayers that we looked at this morning was also answered with a “yes” by his Lord.   But this prayer, prayed for the people during the celebration of the Passover, was different than the other prayers Hezekiah prayed.  Because this prayer was the most important prayer of all; and it was a prayer to which the Lord will never say “no.”

The Most Important Prayer of All

            Most of the many people who came from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun had not purified themselves, yet they ate the Passover, contrary to what was written. But Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, “May the Lord, who is good, pardon everyone who sets his heart on seeking God—the Lord, the God of his fathers—even if he is not clean according to the rules of the sanctuary.” And the Lord heard Hezekiah and healed the people.

            The prayer that Hezekiah prayed was for a prayer for pardon, a prayer for forgiveness.  And he had to pray that prayer because he had just led the people back to the Word of God, instituted worship practices that had fallen out of favor over the last few decades, and had organized a nation-wide celebration of the Passover festival unlike anything that had happened in the land of Israel for the past 200 years.  And yet, there were still some Israelites who failed to perform the necessary cleansing rites that the Lord has prescribed for them.  We don’t know if they did it simply out of ignorance (maybe they just didn’t know what was required of them) or if they did it out of carelessness and disregard for God’s Word, but we do know what Hezekiah prayed on their behalf: “May the Lord, who is good, pardon everyone who sets his heart on seeking God.”  It was a simple prayer but an important one.  A prayer that the people desperately needed a “yes” answer for; a prayer that the Lord was pleased to give a “yes” answer to.

We are in Desperate Need of the “Yes” Answer

            There are many prayers we pray in our lives that we can survive a “no” answer to, aren’t there?  We can pray for rain next week, we can pray that our hip stops hurting, we can pray that our family life improves, that the dog stops barking at two in the morning, that tomorrow is better day than today.  And if the Lord decides to say “no” to any one of those prayers for any reason, we’ll survive, we’ll move on, we’ll still be just as richly blessed by our God than if he had said “yes” to those prayers.  But there is one prayer that we must have a “yes” answer to if we want to survive; and that is the prayer that Hezekiah prayed: the prayer for pardon.

              Have you ever done something so awful to a person that you had to almost beg for forgiveness?  Have you ever had to profusely apologize for something that you could not make any excuse for, something that almost forced you to your knees in regret?  When that happens you are at the mercy of that person you have hurt, aren’t you?  You humbly place your good standing in their hands and hope that they are compassionate enough not to hold your sin against you.

            Have you ever had someone beg you for forgiveness?  Have you ever had someone do something so awful that they placed their good standing in your hands and hoped that you would be compassionate enough not to hold their sin against them?  Imagine yourself in that situation and that you forgive that person.  But what if that person did the exact same thing the very next week and asked for your forgiveness again.  I would assume that you would be a little more hesitant to forgive the person the second time around.  But what if that person did it again the week after and again the week after that and again the week after that - asking you for forgiveness each time?  Wouldn’t you start to doubt the sincerity of that request?  Wouldn’t you start to become a little angry with this individual?  Maybe you’d even try to avoid that person altogether.

            Consider how similar that is to our relationship with our God.  Every Sunday we gather together for worship here and publically confess our sins together, pleading for the Lord’s grace, humbly placing our lives into his compassionate hands.  And he forgives.  But then we do the exact same thing again the next week.  And the week after that and the week after that.  And I would guess that if you are like me, many of the sins that you bring in front of your Father are the same sins that you commit week in and week out, repeating your faults, duplicating your evils, doubling up on the sins the Lord had just forgiven the week before!  What nerve we have coming before our heavenly Father expecting him to immediately forgive us once again!  What audacity to show our faces in his house carrying the exact same sins with us that he had so graciously pardoned 7 days ago!  What makes us think that he will forgive us again?  What makes us so bold as to try his patience one more time?

The Lord Loves to Answer That Prayer

            He does!  Our God gives us the courage to come back to his house each week even when we have a whole slew of sins in our wake.  Our God encourages us to place our sins before his throne for them to be wiped away.  Our God makes it possible for us to expect a “yes” answer to that prayer for forgiveness no matter how many times we have to ask it.  Because he loves to hear that prayer!  He wants to hear that prayer!  Regardless of the number of times we come before him and plead with all earnestness for him to be gracious, he loves it!  And he loves to answer with a “yes.”  In fact, he answers that prayer of his people for pardon with a “yes” every time.

            It certainly wasn’t the first time a prayer for forgiveness had been prayed on behalf o the Israelites when King Hezekiah went to the Lord for the people.  They had been praying that prayer to the Lord for hundreds of years!  If you read through the book of Judges for example, you see just how often the people had to ask the Lord for pardon because they kept falling into the cycle of sin over and over again.  But you’ll also see that the Lord forgave them every time.

            Isn’t that amazing?  Our good Lord never gets tired of that prayer.  He never gets frustrated with that prayer.  He never becomes pessimistic or gets angry or holds something against us when we approach him with sins in hand.  He welcomes us, invites us, listens to us, and immediately answers with a resounding “Yes!  Yes I will forgive you!  Yes I will pardon you!  Yes I do still think of you as my child and your soul has been completely healed!”  Our God never says “no” to that request.  He immediatley forgives you.  He pardons you.  He heals you.  Just ask.

Just Ask

            Just ask him to forgive you.  He’ll do it!  You don’t need to cry, you don’t need to fast, you don’t need to pray a long drawn-out prayer to show how serious you are; your good Lord doesn’t require you to do anything to gain his forgiveness.  He just wants you to ask him.  King Hezekiah asked that God would pardon the people who had sinned against him.  Did the Lord tell him that each person would have to come before him, get down on his knees, and express how sorry they were?  No!  Did the Lord say, “Well, I’m still a little bit angry so I’m going to hold off for a little while and come back when I’ve calmed down”?  No!  Did the Lord ignore Hezekiah’s prayer since the sins of his people were no different than they had been for the past thousands of years?  Of course not!  The Lord simply forgave them!  Hezekiah asked; the Lord said yes; the people were healed.  And you can count on that exact same outcome every time you pray that prayer yourself.

            I hope you pray that prayer often.  I hope you pray that prayer every day.  And when you pray that prayer for forgiveness, you can list all of the sins you can think of, you can mention some of the sins that are really bothering you, you can simply refer to your sins and your sinfulness in general.  But however you word that prayer and whenever you ask for forgiveness, what does your Lord say?  He says “yes.”  Not begrudgingly.  Not because he feels obligated.  But because he actually wants to, he loves to, he eagerly anticipates giving you the forgiveness that he won on the cross so long ago.  There is no other gift that he is happier to give.  And there is really no other gift that we actually need.  Make a habit of confessing your sins to your God.  Make it a point of throwing your faults at the foot of his cross.  And ask him to pardon you for whatever you’ve done.  And I promise you: you will never be disappointed with his answer.  Just ask.

            Amen.

“To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father - to him be glory and power forever and ever.  Amen!”  - Rev. 1:5-6

6/10/12 - Hezkeiah: Worship - 2 Chron. 29:1-3

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

The First 100 Days

            The first 100 days for the President of the United States is considered very important to his entire term.  Even though it’s a period of time that lasts for only a little over three months, for some reason those initial 100 days after any President takes office hold more weight than almost any other time as leader of this country.  Maybe it’s because those first 100 days start to show what kind of changes he is going to make, how aggressive he is going to be in certain areas, what issues are the most important to him.  Now, realistically no president will be able to get too much done in that short amount of time, especially as he adjusts to the new job and figures out what to do and how to do it.  But those first 100 days are still considered an accurate indicator of what the citizens can expect from there on out.

Hezekiah Did Not Hesitate

            Public opinion worked a little bit differently during the age of monarchy for God’s people in Old Testament times.  The kings of Judah (that lower section of the Promised Land) were born into that role, not elected.  And once they received the throne from their fathers they didn’t just have a four year window to work in, they ruled until their deaths.  And so the first 100 days of a king’s reign back then wasn’t really as important as it might be for our leaders now.  Those kings of Judah didn’t have anyone to impress after all!  They didn’t have constituents to please.  They didn’t a have re-election to worry about.  And they didn’t have a real time constraint on what they wanted to do either: they weren’t in a hurry at all because they had job security until the day they died no matter what they did or how fast they did it.

            But this morning we are looking at a king named Hezekiah.  He did care about the first few days of his reign because he was a man whom Scripture says “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.”  And that was exactly what God’s people needed.  Because Hezekiah inherited a kingdom that had been spiritually devastated by his non-Christian father and grandfather.  And although Hezekiah was relatively young when he took the throne, he understood exactly what needed to be done for the good of his faith and the faith of his people, and he did not hesitate to do it.

            Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah.  He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done.  In the first month of the first year of his reign, he opened the doors of the temple of the Lord and repaired them.

            Hezekiah was only 25 years old when he became king and he would end up ruling for 29 years.  But even though he had plenty of time to do the things he thought needed to be done, “in the first month of the first year of his reign, he opened the doors of the temple of the Lord and repaired them.”  The temple had been neglected for the past 32 years.  Worship of the one true God had almost completely died out.  Idols and images of false gods were everywhere.  Hezekiah even says that the doors of the temple had been shut, the lamps that were supposed to be continually burning before the Lord had been extinguished, no incense was offered, and not even a sacrifice was made on the altar for over three decades.  The Israelites living in the nation of Judah were in the middle of a serious spiritual drought, and Hezekiah did not waste any time.

            Hezekiah gathered all of the priests and Levites - those who were responsible for the care of the temple and the worship of the people - and gave them specific instructions.  He had the temple cleaned out, the sanctuary purified, all of the articles of the temple cleansed, and the priests themselves ceremonially cleaned for the first time in years.  He stationed singers and instrumentalists in their places for a grand day of worship, he sacrificed various animals for sin offerings and burnt offerings, Hezekiah himself knelt down in worship as the music played, 3600 more animals were sacrificed afterwards, and Scripture says that “Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced at what God had brought about for his people, because it was done so quickly.”  Hezekiah did not wait.  He knew what was right, he knew what was good for their faith, and so Hezekiah did not procrastinate, he did it - immediately.

What Are You Waiting For?

            Procrastination gest the best of all of us sometimes, doesn’t it?  Some of us may be more apt to get things done right away than others are, but there are always certain jobs or tasks or appointments or arrangements that all of us have a habit of putting off, things that we fully intend to get to but just never do.  And that’s OK for some things in this life, but it’s not OK when it comes to your faith.  Your faith in Jesus needs to continually be fed with the Word of God.  There is no other way that the Lord promises to strengthen your faith, solidify your faith, even keep your faith at the same level it’s at right now!  Nurturing your faith is an on-going process in this life, but it’s not something we can really do ourselves, it’s something the Holy Spirit only has the power to do.  And so we as Christians want to give the Holy Spirit as many opportunities as possible to work through that Word of God in your hearts.  We cannot put that off.  We cannot wait until later.  We cannot procrastinate when it comes to our faith.  That is damaging to the gift the Lord has given you.  That is detrimental to the only connection you have with Christ.

            What are some of those things you have been putting off?  Maybe for you it’s going to church every Sunday: you have good intentions, but you just haven’t gotten around to it yet.  Maybe it’s attending a Bible study on a regular basis: you know it’d be good for your faith, but you just can’t quite seem to make yourself go.  Maybe it’s reading your Bible faithfully on your own every day: you think it’s a good idea but it’s so hard to get into the habit.  Maybe it’s studying a biblical topic in depth that you have always been interested in.  Maybe it’s picking up one of the People’s Bible books or something else in the church library.  Maybe it’s something as simple as asking that question that’s been bugging you for a while or finding that answer that’s eluded you for years.  What are you waiting for?  What’s holding you back?  What’s more important than feeding your faith with what you know the Holy Spirit is going to work through?

            And, believe me, I have similar spiritual things that I procrastinate about!  There are plenty of items on my list that I have every intention of getting to but I keep putting them off for one reason or another.  Do I have a good excuse?  No, not really.  Is it harmful to my faith when I don’t give my faith a chance to be fed with the Word of God as often as I should?  Sure it is.  And the devil loves that.  He thrives at those times of spiritual procrastination.  Because if we’re not constantly in contact with God’s Word, we’re doing half of Satan’s work for him. 

Your Lord Hesitates for Your Good

              Our good Lord has been dealing with the spiritual procrastination of his people for thousands of years.  He has seen the entire gambit of ways Christians can make poor spiritual choices when it comes to their faith.  And, thankfully, he counteracts that spiritual apathy by hesitating himself.  I want you to think of all of the different ways that the Lord has provided for his people throughout the centuries by his hesitation.  1) Adam and Eve sin in the Garden of Eden, death is the promised penalty, but the Lord hesitates carrying out that decree.  Instead he comes down to them, talks to them, gives them a chance to admit their sins, and then he promises them a Savior.  He did not immediately carry out their deserved punishment because he loved them too much.  2) King David sees a beautiful woman one day who happens to be married to one of his trusted soldiers.  David sleeps with her anyway, gets her pregnant, tries to trick her husband, and then ends up ordering the husband’s execution under the guise of a battle formation.  But the Lord hesitates carrying out his wrath on the leader he had appointed over his people.  Instead he waited and waited and waited for almost a full year until the baby was born.  Then God sends a prophet to David to point out his sin.  David repents, God relents, and even though the Lord took away the life of David’s son, he forgave David’s sin and remained faithful to him.  3) How about Jesus’ patience with Peter, with Judas, with most of his own countrymen around that time?  What incredible restraint the Lord showed by not instantly striking down those he could have (and maybe should have)!  Instead he spends 33 years in this sinful world doing everything he can for everyone he can.  He spends all night being tried and tortured.  He spends hours suffering up on the cross.  He spends days dead in a tomb.  4) What about now?  Jesus promised to come back to this earth some 2000 years ago.  Where is he?  Why hasn’t he come back yet?  What’s taking him so long?  The apostle Peter addresses that very question: “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.  He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).  The Lord is patient, he is careful, he is hesitant to pronounce judgment because he loves you too much.  He not only wants people to be brought to faith in his Word, but he wants to strengthen the faith of those who are already his own.  And so he puts off judgment, he delays the sentencing, he hesitates to cut off.  But there is one thing he never hesitates to do: he never hesitates to show us his love.  He never hesitates to forgive us.  Completely.  Every time.  Without question.  The Lord hesitates to bring judgment on us when we deserve it and never hesitates to show us his love when we don’t.  What a great God we have!

The Next 100 Days

            I’m going to take a wild guess and say that none of us in this room will ever be the President of the United States of America.  Maybe, but probably not.  And so you will never have to experience the pressure of the first 100 days in office and everything that you would like to accomplish before that time period is up.  But as a Christian you have the next 100 days right in front of you.  Almost three and a half months to stop procrastinating with your faith and get yourself into contact with the Word of God more than you ever have before.  And so what are you going to do?  Maybe ask yourself this: How can I be like King Hezekiah - the man who did all of those things for the faith of his people in the very first month of the very first year of his reign?  What different ways can I find to give the Holy Spirit as many opportunities as possible to work over my heart with that gospel about Jesus?  There are plenty of things you could do.  And there are plenty of ways you can go about it.  You have until September 18^th.  I’ve counted up the days for you and if you would start tomorrow, Day 100 would land on Tuesday, September 18^th.  There seems to be a lot of time between Day One, June 11^th, and Day 100, September 18^th.  But you know as well as I do that it will come quickly.  And so what kinds of things are you going to read?  What Bible studies will you attend?  What reading lists will you get into the habit of using?  What schedule will you begin to keep? 

            Use the sheets that are provided for you in your bulletins.  They are meant to give you a form that you can fill out and monitor as these next 100 days go by.  I’m not going to check them!  I don’t even need to see them!  These are just for you to guide you in your attempt to let your faith be fed.  It’s important.  It’s crucial!  There are so many things in the Word of God that your faith can digest.  There are so many ways with the Word of God that your faith can grow.  There is no time to lose.  There is nothing more worthwhile.   What are you waiting for?

            Amen.

Jesus prays to his Father about us, “Sanctify them by the truth.  Your Word is truth.” - John 17:17

6/3/12 - Holy Trinity Sunday - Isaiah 6:1-8

HOLY, HOLY, HOLY!

What Does It Mean to be Holy?

            “Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty!  Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee; holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty, God in three persons, blessed Trinity!”  That is the first verse of the first hymn we sang this morning.  In fact, that hymn is probably being sung by countless other congregations this morning because it fits perfectly with Holy Trinity Sunday. “Holy” is a common way of referring to our God, isn’t it?  The holy Father, the holy Lord, the Holy Spirit, the holy Trinity.  But what does it really mean to be holy?  Perfect, sinless, spotless, pure, untainted, unblemished, completely clean, pristine in every respect…  If someone is “holy” that means that he makes no mistakes, no errors, no slip ups; he never forgets, he never lets down, he never is wrong.  “Holy” means that there is not one fault, there is not one weakness, there is not one thing out of place at any time in any way.  “Holy” is 100% unchanging, unfading “good” to the highest degree.  God is certainly “holy.”  But now with that extended definition in mind, listen to what our holy God demands of us: “Be holy because I the LORD your God am holy.”  That’s a frightening thought, isn’t it?  Because it means that we are supposed to be like God, we are supposed to be someone we cannot be.

            I bring this up because the prophet Isaiah was faced with the same problem.  While he was serving the people of Israel, he was given a special vision in which he saw the holy God himself.  This is how Isaiah tells it, “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.  Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.  And they were calling to one another: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.’ At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.  ‘Woe to me!’ I cried. ‘I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.’”

              Isaiah understood what the word “holy” meant.  “Woe to me!” he cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”  He realized what the seraphs (a special class of angels) were saying when they called out to each other: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty.  God was perfect; God was pure, God was powerful; and there would be no way that this perfect, pure, and powerful God would ever tolerate sin or the sinner.  And Isaiah was right.

The Holy God Does Not Tolerate Sin

            Isaiah remembered how this God had demonstrated his hate for sin throughout history.  This was the God who struck dead the High Priest’s two sons because they offered fire on the altar when they were not supposed to.  This was the God who instantly killed a man who did nothing more than touch the ark of the covenant when they were carrying it from one place to another.  This was the God who did not allow man or animal to even set foot on the mountain where he was talking to Moses - and if they did, they would die.  This was the God who wiped out entire chunks of his own chosen people with various plagues, poisonous snakes, and enemy attacks throughout the years simply because they disobeyed him.  Isaiah was well aware of what this holy God could and would do to sinners.  And Isaiah was scared out of his mind!  He did not deserve to be in the presence of such an overwhelming being.  He did not even belong in the same realm as the Almighty Lord!  And so as those special angels, the seraphs, were chanting, “Holy, holy, holy,” Isaiah was trembling in fear because he knew he was not.

            We don’t see those kind of visions of our holy God anymore that Isaiah and the other prophets saw.  We don’t experience the holy God himself descending in clouds and fire and smoke over his house of worship as in the past.  We don’t witness the wrath of our holy God destroying hundreds of thousands of people in a single day with the snap of his fingers as he did back then.  But the fact still remains: God is holy.  We are not.  And he hates that we are not.

              “Hate” is a strong word, but it’s an accurate word when it comes to the holy God’s attitude about sin.  I wonder, thought, if we really realize the gravity of our sins at times.  The faithful believers in the Old Testament like Isaiah probably did because they were confronted with the visible power of their holy God all the time.  But I think that we probably tend to pass our sins off as something trivial and insignificant more often than not.  Because we live in a society that ignores sin altogether.  And even when someone admits that they might have done something wrong, their response is: “Well, nobody’s perfect.”  And you might have even said that yourself a few times, “Well, nobody’s perfect.”  Implying, of course, that it’s not really that big of a deal, you can’t blame me too much for what happened because everybody slips up every once in a while, so let’s forget it and move on; I’m sure not going to lose any sleep over it!

            That’s a dangerous mindset.  It’s a dangerous habit.  Because although our holy God might not open up the earth and swallow you like he did during the time of Moses; and although our holy God might not open up the sky and rain down fire from heaven on you like he did with Sodom and Gomorrah; and although he might not open up the woods and call bears to maul you like he did to a few dozen children during the time of Elisha; our God still hates sin.  And he hates those who commit the sin as well.  This is what King David wrote about the Lord in Psalm 5: “You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with you the wicked cannot dwell.  The arrogant cannot stand in your presence; you hate all who do wrong.”  God hates all who do wrong.  He might allow people to sin at times and he might not always stop sinful things from happening, but he does not tolerate sin or sinners in his presence.  Nor will he ever.

The Holy God Loves to Make Holy

            So there is the prophet Isaiah standing in the presence of God himself.  A God who has gone on record saying that he hates sin.  A God who hates sinners.  A God about whom six magnificent angels are singing: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty!”  No wonder Isaiah was scared!  He was sinful man in front of a God who does not tolerate sin!  What was going to happen to him?  What was this God going to do?  Isaiah tells us what happened next, “Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.  With it he touched my mouth and said, ‘See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.’”

            I’m not sure this is what Isaiah expected!  Because there was no condemnation.  No demand.  There was no command, no directive.  God did not say to Isaiah, “Reform your life.  Get rid of all of those evils inside of you.  Pray longer; try harder; put some effort into being the person you are supposed to be and then when you feel as if you have reached the level I expect you can come back and stand in front of me.”  No, the Lord did not give Isaiah a list of “do-it-yourself” tasks.  The Lord did it himself.  He took away Isaiah’s guilt.  He atoned for Isaiah’s sins.  In a very real way he made Isaiah “holy” when Isaiah had come to him far from it.  And the way he did that in this vision was with a coal in a pair of tongs from the altar.

            At the temple complex in Jerusalem that King Solomon built in Old Testament times, the altar of sacrifice stood outside in the courtyard.  It was 15 feet tall, 30 feet wide and 30 feet long.  It was a huge place of sacrifice made out of wood and overlaid with bronze.  And Solomon built it that big because he planned on and actually did offer many sacrifices on that altar throughout the years.  In fact, for the entire nation of Israel, every burnt offering, sin offering, guilt offering, fellowship offering, and every other special offering for the various festivals was to be sacrificed to the Lord on that altar.  A lot of blood was spilled there.  A lot of animals were burned there.  A lot of sin was forgiven there.  It was a burning coal from this altar that an angel in Isaiah’s vision took and touched to the lips of the prophet.  And so this is more than just an indication of a cleansing or a ritual purification of some kind.  This is a vivid picture of forgiveness.  Because every single one of those sacrifices that had been offered on the altar along with every single drop of blood that had been sprinkled on the alar had always been pointing the people to Christ: the ultimate Sacrifice, the one-time Offering that would take away the guilt of all people of all time.  “See, this has touched your lips;” the angel said to Isaiah.  “Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”  That word “atone” means that the broken relationship Isaiah had with his God was mended.  He was now “at one” with his Lord: “At-one-ment.”  And so Isaiah no longer had to fear the wrath of a holy God because he had just been made holy through the sacrifice of the coming Christ.

            That doesn’t change our God’s tolerance of sin.  Our holy God still does not tolerate sin, but that also means he loves to save.  Because he is not a mean, vengeful, domineering God; he is a loving, merciful, compassionate God.  And because of that, he has already done everything necessary to make those who were not holy to be holy in his sight.  And he did that by giving up his own Son.  Jesus experienced the wrath of a holy God.  Jesus underwent the punishment of a sinner.  Jesus suffered as if he were not holy so that you would be seen as exactly that.  Our holy God still hates sin and the sinner, but you are no longer a sinner as far as he’s concerned.  His Son was the sinner - and his Son paid for it!  You have been made holy and so you are now allowed to enter the presence of the majesty of the Lord Most High.

Loving a Holy God

            “Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty!  Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee; holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty, God in three persons, blessed Trinity!”  You didn’t sing that this morning in fear, did you?  No, you sang it with joy!  We sing this song with excitement and passion because we love our holy God.  We love our God because he is holy.  He does not frighten us with his power; he does not scare us with his glory; he does not terrify us with his holiness.  Instead we praise him for it.  We are grateful for his holiness and hold that characteristic up as one of the indispensable attributes of our Lord.  Because on account of his holiness, we know that he will always be faithful to us.  A holy God cannot lie to you; he cannot trick you; he cannot let you down.  If he promises something to you, as a holy God he has to carry it out.  He has no choice: he must follow through.  And he has promised you a cleansing, a purification, a forgiveness.  Your holy God has promised you that because of a coal from the altar on your lips he has made you holy through faith in the Word about his Son.  And if your holy God has promised you that, you know it to be true. 

            “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty” we sing with the seraphs.  The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is perfect, sinless, spotless, pure, untainted, unblemished, completely clean, pristine in every respect.  Through faith in Christ you have that exact same status before your Lord.  You are perfect, sinless, spotless, pure, untainted, unblemished, completely clean, pristine in every respect.  Is that status well-earned?  No.  Are you due that honor because of how hard you’ve tried?  Not a chance.  But your holy God considers you to be holy anyway because he treated his Son as if he were not in order to treat you as his Son.  What a loving God we have.  What a holy God we have!  And we could have no other way.

            Amen.

“You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” - 1 Cor. 6:11