Your teenage daughter comes home from church and says “Dad, the pastor talked to day about being “entirely sanctified.”  “What’s ‘sanctified’”?  “Sanctified. . .sanctified. . .well. . .uhh. . .go call Pastor Tim.”

    You’re having coffee with a buddy.  You were instrumental in his coming to church.  He recently has given his life to Christ.  He’s really growing in the Lord and both of you are excited.

    “Hey” he says, “You know the pastor has been speaking a lot about stuff like ‘holiness,’ ‘sanctification,’ and ‘being sanctified.’ I’m so excited about my life now that Jesus is in my heart—is this holiness stuff anything I should be concerned about?”

    What do you say?

    A Young couple with two small children are heading home after church.  They stop at a stoplight and start talking about the worship service.  The husband says: “What did you think about that hymn we sang ‘Called Unto Holiness?’  The Seniors in the back were really singing it!  But the kids in the front row didn’t seem to know it!”

    “I know” she said  “But the preacher was sure singing it at the top of his lungs.  When they got to the chorus:

“Holiness unto the Lord” is our watchword and song.
“Holiness unto the Lord” as we’re marching along.
Sing it, shout it, loud and long,
“Holiness unto the Lord,” now and forever.

I thought he’d bust a gut.

    “I know” he said “I expected him to stand up like it was the National Anthem or something.”

 “What’s up with that?” she asked.

 

Holiness

          Entire Sanctification

                   Saved and Sanctified

                             Holiness of Heart and Life

All these were terms once familiar in the Church of the Nazarene.  We are a “holiness church.”  Sanctification is our “distinctive doctrine” we’ve been told.  But the terms and concepts hardly spark our imaginations anymore.

    When I first became a Christian I began attending Sunday evening services because I didn’t know any better.  As I sat under the preaching of Winston Ketchum at Olympia First I heard the words holiness, entire sanctification and sanctified for the first time.  In fact during the altar call the preacher’s kid came up to me and asked “Do you want to get saved?”  Incredulously I thought “If I weren’t already saved what would I be doing in church on a Sunday night missing The Wonderful World of Disney?”  But, I told him I already was saved.  Then he proceeded to ask if I wanted to get sanctified.  I told him again I already was “sanctified’.  On the way home I asked my dad “What’s ‘sanctified?’”  To which he responded with a definition I’ll never forget:   “’Sanctified,’” he said “Is something no two preachers agree upon, nobody in the church understands and is confusing to everybody.”  Therein was my first theological lecture.

I don’t know if my dad was right or not. . .but it was easy to get confused.  

One Sunday you might hear holiness as Rules and Regulations “we don’t smoke and we don’t chew, and we don’t go with girls that do.”  The next Sunday you might hear that sanctification was Purity or Perfection “if the dog pulls the clothes off the clothesline we don’t get mad but shout ‘Glory!” and praise the Lord.”  And young people are going home asking “whatsa clothesline?”        

    One Sunday we’d hear holiness is   Separation from the World “we are in the world but not of it.”   The next it might be Total Commitment “lay your all on the altar-especially the unknown bundle.”

     One Sunday it might be Christian perfection—emphasis  on Christian but all you heard was “perfection.”  And another Sunday you would hear preached Perfect love, and you began asking “love for what, whom, directed where?”

It was a little difficult sometimes to grasp what “holiness” was or what being “entirely sanctified” meant.  Perhaps that’s where you live today.  Or perhaps the terms and concepts are so vague and unfamiliar to you you just haven’t given them any thought.

 It can be a bit confusing at times .Baffling.  Puzzling.  Perhaps we are like the men in the poem “The Blind Men and the Elephant (see poem).  Possibly, perhaps, just maybe some of us are just unfamiliar with the elephant!  Or perhaps others of us are only familiar with bits and pieces the elephant.  What I propose we do over the next few Sundays is take a look at the elephant again and see if we can get the six blind men to come to a meeting of the minds, an agreement and consensus or better understanding of this elephant of holiness. 

 

I would like to begin today  looking at the Holiness of God.  I firmly believe if we are going to grasp a better understanding elephant of Holiness of heart and life it will begin with  somehow the heavens cracking open and  shedding a bit of light  on the Holiness of God!

 

Exodus 15:11

"Who among the gods is like you, O LORD ?
       Who is like you—
       majestic in holiness,
       awesome in glory,
       working wonders?

Job 25:5

If even the moon is not bright and the stars are not pure in his eyes, how much less man, who is but a maggot— a son of man, who is only a worm!"

Proverbs 9:10

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,    and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

 

 

It is difficult for us to appreciate the holiness of God because we are blind--blind morally, spiritually, physically, mentally.  We are fallen creatures.  His holiness we cannot even imagine.  Tozer, that  leathery old saint, said “it stands apart, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible and unattainable.”

 

But God gives sight to blinded eyes!  The Holy Spirit of the Holy One can impart to our spirits a knowledge of the holy.   He can illuminate the heart and open our eyes.  When he does, when the heavens crack a bit and the Light of heaven shines, we will see ourselves for the first time and understand our need of holiness first time.  Our lives will be transformed.

 

 

One day the heavens cracked open and the light of God’s holiness shone on Moses. 

God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!"       And Moses said, "Here I am."   5 "Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground."

 

One day the cracked open and the light of God’s holiness shone on John the Revelator.

 

On the Lord's Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone "like a son of man,"]dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: "Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.

 

One day The heavens cracked open and the light of God’s holiness shone on Isaiah.  Isaiah experienced a transforming,  unforgettable moment when he found himself in the temple and discovered for the first time in his life the meaning of the holiness of God.

 

It was probably just a routine visit to the house of God.  He had been there many times before.  He was a

regular attender—a regular worshiper, as committed and dedicated as anyone could hope to be.  But on this occasion, blinded eyes opened.  Something happened. Holiness was made real to him in a way that had never happened before.

 

When he became aware of the holiness of God

 

He gained A New  PERSPECTIVE (1-5)

In a moment of blinding revelation everything became different.  He saw things differently.

 

• He saw the king differently

 

King Uzziah had sat upon the throne of  Judea for 50 years.  He led the nation in peace and affluence. 

He was the hero. He was the great  hope of all who desire great leadership.  But in a moment he was gone as we will all someday be gone.  “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne”

 

• He saw God differently

 

“I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.”

 

The temple exploded with the presence of God.  Seraphim began crying out “"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;   the whole earth is full of his glory."  The doorposts shook, foundations swayed, smoke filled the room.  Isaiah saw God in an overwhelmingly new way

 

•  He saw himself differently

 

 "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."

 

It is amazing when you see God differently How you see yourself  differently.  No longer was he the self-sufficient diplomat.  No longer was he the educated intellect who could survive on talent and skill.  He was stunned by the beauty of God.  He was shocked by the holy whiteness of God. His personal filth and depravity struck him like a lightning bolt:   "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lip”  He saw himself a new light.

 

IT IS AMAZING WHAT CAN HAPPEN IN A MOMENT WHEN BLINDED EYES ACTUALLY CATCH A GLIMPSE OF GOD. ISAIAH GAINED A NEW PERSPECTIVE.

 

That was not all .  Not only did Isaiah gain a new perspective but

 

He experienced A New  PURITY  (6-7)

 

We really don’t know what he meant by having “unclean lips.”  Maybe he was a curser.  Perhaps he

cussed like a sailor and swore a blue streak.  Even good people can get lax in tongue control.

 

Maybe he was convicted that he never used his power of speech to speak out against injustice--

especially the social oppression and wrongdoing found in Isaiah chapters 1-5.  Maybe he was faced with the fact he had been too quiet for  to long about the sin, wrong,  and  ugliness that was all about him. 

 

Maybe he came to the realization that all of his life up to now he had talked a good talk but failed to walk a good walk and all of his religiosity up until now “lip-service.”

 

WHATEVER IT WAS IT REDUCED HIM TO SIMPLE CONFESSION: "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips.”  And in response to this acknowledgment, this admission, this “fessing up” the temple, already throbbing with the presence of God, already crammed with the power of  seraphim,  comes to greater life.  A seraph picks up a burning coal, red hot from the altar, flies to Isaiah and places it on his lips then says "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."

 

AND ISAIAH EXPERIENCES A NEW PURITY

 

 

He gained new perspective.  He experienced new purity. And something else too:

 

He Received a New  PURPOSE (8)

 

“Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"
      And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"

 

This experience of face to face holiness Isaiah found, was not for himself.  It was for others!

 
Dr. Alex R.G. Deasley was one of my seminary professors.  I am indebted to him for so much of the burden of this message.  Dr. Deasley writes: “Holiness is not given to us for ourselves.  Holiness is given to us for others.  Holiness is given to us so that we may give ourselves to others with unselfishness, completeness, a compassion  and a concern that we could never otherwise know.”

 

"Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"        And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"  Isaiah surrendered himself to be a mouthpiece for the Lord even without knowing that —his role would be the greatest 7^th  of century prophets.  Nor was it to be an easy job.  Giving ourselves for others never is.  Unselfishness and compassion and concern never are.

 9 He said, "Go and tell this people:
       " 'Be ever hearing, but never understanding;
       be ever seeing, but never perceiving.'

 10 Make the heart of this people calloused;
       make their ears dull
       and close their eyes. ^[a]
       Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
       hear with their ears,
       understand with their hearts,
       and turn and be healed."

 11 Then I said, "For how long, O Lord?"
      And he answered:
       "Until the cities lie ruined
       and without inhabitant,
       until the houses are left deserted
       and the fields ruined and ravaged,

 12 until the LORD has sent everyone far away
       and the land is utterly forsaken

But Isaiah  never shrank.  He never shirked duty.  In experiencing the Holiness of God he discovered a new purpose.

 

CONCLUSION:

One day heavens cracked open and the light of  God’s holiness shone upon Moses and John the Revelator and Isaiah.  When that happens, everything changes.  God desires for our blind eyes to be open. 

May that be our prayer.