So in Exodus 3, if you look there in verse 1, it says,
God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said,
Moses, Moses, and he said, Here am I.
And he said, Draw not nigh hither, put off thy shoes from off thy feet,
for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.
Moreover, he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
And I want you to pay attention here where it says,
And Moses hid his face before he was afraid to look upon God.
You have to remember, Moses isn't this weak man.
But here he is, hiding his face.
He's afraid to look upon God, and he's basically cowering.
Now obviously, it's because he's in the presence of God.
But you have to remember that Moses was a very bold man.
He's not exactly a bashful person.
He's not a very timid man.
If you remember the story leading up to this,
he was so bold as to go out and slay the Egyptian.
And he was separating his Hebrew brethren.
And of course, we see him becoming a great leader
and leading the children of Israel out of Egypt.
We see here Moses, a very bold man,
being humbled very quickly when he comes into what?
Into the presence of God.
And this is going to tie in with this morning's sermon
where we talked about the presence of God.
Look, when we come into the presence of God,
this is a natural reaction.
This is something that we should learn from Moses,
is that there should be an element of fear
in our Christian lives.
So many people today want to act like God
is just their buddy.
And God truly is our friend, and God loves us,
and we can have fellowship with Him and all of that.
But we have to remember that we're dealing
with the holy God, right?
And we're dealing with somebody that is to be feared.
You know, part of the series that we're preaching,
the part of the reason for the series on the Sunday morning
is about the concepts of God and the nature of God,
is so that we can begin to understand
who it is with whom we have to do.
The holy God, a God that is worthy to be feared.
And you see that Moses recognizes this very quickly.
As soon as he comes into the presence of God,
he is cowering, he's hiding his face.
Why?
For he's afraid to look upon God.
And say, well, I don't know,
maybe that's just the way Moses reacted.
But notice that the Lord didn't seek to abate that fear.
He just went right on letting Moses cowering
and being afraid.
You know, if you read the rest of the story,
he begins to tell him what's gonna happen
and take what's gonna happen next.
He doesn't say, it's okay, Moses,
there's nothing to be afraid of.
He says, no, you know what?
You're right to be afraid.
You're right to be afraid of God.
That was his take on it.
He didn't stop him.
And the Bible says that it is a fearful thing
to fall into the hands of a living God.
It's a fearful thing when you're going to
come into contact with the true and living God.
That's what we have to do with.
Now go over to Deuteronomy chapter number 10.
Deuteronomy chapter number 10.
In Deuteronomy chapter number 10,
we're gonna look at verse 12.
The Bible says in Psalms 2,
we read this this morning,
Be wise, now therefore, O ye kings,
be instructed, ye judges of the earth,
serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling.
Look, we wanna serve God and we wanna rejoice, right?
But there's the ways to do it.
We do it with fear and we rejoice with trembling.
This is a proper attitude to have a God.
We should all have a healthy fear of God.
And not just, and some people today
wanna misconstrue this as,
well, that just means respect God.
Just have a reverential fear for him.
Just be respectful.
It's fear and trembling.
I respect a lot of people,
but they don't make me tremble.
And there's a lot of people that I respect,
but I'm not going to wanna hide my face for them
and fall down as a grown man and be afraid,
like Moses was.
But that is how we are to have,
that is the reaction we should have towards God.
And look, if that's not there,
I wonder, do we really have an understanding
of who God really is?
And the more we learn about God,
the more we know about God,
the closer we get to God,
we should have a fear of God.
The Bible says in Deuteronomy 10, verse 12,
that now Israel, what doth the Lord thy God
require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God?
So it's not just a natural reaction,
but it's something that God actually requires, right?
Is that what it says?
What did the Lord thy God require of thee,
but to fear the Lord thy God,
and to walk in all his ways,
and to love him, and to serve him,
and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart
and with all thy soul?
Notice how it's fear that starts all of this.
It's the fear of God that begins.
And look, you just look up that phrase in the scripture,
the fear of the Lord.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of instruction.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
It's the fear of the Lord is where we start, right?
The fear of the Lord is what leads us
to walk in all his ways.
Look, why would you walk in somebody's ways
if you're not afraid of them?
Why do my children obey me?
Because they fear the repercussions of disobedience, right?
It's the same way with us.
We should fear the Lord thy God,
then we'll walk in all his ways.
And we say, well, I'm having a real hard time
keeping the commandments, of living for the Lord,
of living a godly life.
Well, maybe there's just a lack of fear there.
Maybe that the fear isn't present.
So I don't know if I really love God.
I don't feel that love and that affinity for God.
Well, where's the fear?
Because the fear is where it begins.
You start with the fear of the Lord,
then you walk in his ways, right?
And that's kind of like the starting point.
We begin to fear God.
We begin to walk in his ways.
And you know what?
We walk out of fear.
We obey out of fear.
But does it mean that that's the way it's always going to be?
My children are always going to obey me,
but it's not always gonna be because they fear me, I hope.
And they're right to fear me.
They should be afraid of a punishment.
They should be afraid of upsetting their parents.
But they should grow to a place
where they want to obey us out of what?
Out of love.
They want to walk in their ways,
not just because they fear the repercussions,
because they love us.
That is the formula that we see here in Deuteronomy.
It's the fear that starts out, then we walk in his ways.
And as we walk in his ways,
we begin to see how good God truly is.
He begins to work in our life,
and we appreciate it, and we come to appreciate God,
and we're at the place to where we love God.
Where we want to serve God because we love Him.
And then it goes on to say,
and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul.
You're not gonna serve Him with all your heart,
and with all your soul,
without these elements of fear and love.
Love's important.
You gotta love God, but you know what?
It's never gonna show up without the fear of God.
And again, Moses was sent cowering,
just drops to his feet, and God, it doesn't correct him.
God doesn't reassure him.
God just lets him stay there and begins to speak to him.
And this is something that comes up.
That scene is something that kind of replays itself
throughout Scripture.
When men come into contact with God,
usually a lot of times,
one of their initial reactions is that of fear.
And if you would, go over to Revelation chapter one.
Revelation chapter one.
Another example of this would be Peter.
You remember when Peter, in Luke chapter five,
when he saw the miracle of fishes that Jesus did,
when he let down the net,
and he had that great draw out of fishes,
and he had to call his partners over
to help him drag in that net because it was about to break,
and he realized that he was dealing with God,
that only God could have done this.
And he realized that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, right?
And what did he do?
It says, when Simon Peter saw it,
he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying,
"'Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.'"
I mean, that was his reaction.
He's saying, I'm not worthy to be in your presence.
I'm not worthy for you to have done this miracle.
And he's asking him to depart.
To me, it speaks of fear.
He's feeling unworthy to be there.
And here's the thing.
When we come into the presence of God,
we have to understand that we're standing on what?
Well, as it said in Exodus,
I should have had you keep something in chapter three
if you want to put a bookmark there
if you've already moved away,
but that we're standing on what?
Holy ground.
When Moses came into the presence of God,
God said, take thy shoe from off thy feet.
Why?
For the place whereon thou standest is what?
Holy ground.
When we're coming into the presence of God,
it's not just an ordinary experience.
It's not just like meeting up with your buddy.
It's not just you're just meeting some random stranger.
You're meeting the God of the universe.
That's a very special thing.
And we're coming into holy ground
when we're coming into the presence of God.
So fear should be a part of that equation.
When we realize that, when we understand that,
there should be an element of fear there.
And that's not something that we should try to dismiss
or talk away and say, well,
we don't have to really be afraid of God.
Look, the people that have no fear of God
are the people that do not live for the Lord.
They're the people that,
they're very loose in their living.
They don't want to keep the commandments.
There's no fear there.
And as a result, there's also no love.
They also don't get to see a lot of God's working
in their life.
They never grow to that place either.
You're there in Revelation,
and another example of somebody who feared
and felt unworthy in God's presence would be John.
And you can kind of see why,
especially when you read Revelation 1,
it begins in verse 12.
And I turned to see the voice that spake with me,
and being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks
in the midst of the seven candlesticks,
one unlike the Son of Man,
with soft, gentle, blue eyes,
and long, flowing hair, and a dress,
and a little lamb just laid over his shoulders,
and this doful look on his face.
That's what a lot of people would want to describe
Christ to you as, this borderline hippie look.
To come into the presence of living God,
this is who we're talking about.
You can see why John has the direction he has.
It's this fearful sight that he sees.
It says, in the midst of the seven candlesticks,
one unlike the Son of Man,
clothed with a garment down to the foot,
and girt about with paps with a golden girdle.
His head and his hairs were white like wool,
as white as snow, and his eyes were as flame of fire.
I mean, that alone, I mean,
I saw somebody with burning eyes,
like their eyes were like fire.
I mean, that's gonna be a fearful sight.
But you know what?
This is exactly what John saw when he saw who?
When he saw the Lord.
He saw a very frightful thing.
He saw a man with the eyes where his flame is fire,
and his feet like undefined brass,
as if they burned in a furnace.
I mean, his feet are just these glowing feet, like brass,
and his voice as the sound of many waters, right?
And saying what?
That it was very loud.
You know, a lot of times,
waters is like, you know, to people in the Bible, right?
It's a voice of many waters.
It's like, it was just a very loud
and just overwhelming sound
that was coming out of this sight that he saw.
And his right hand seven stars,
and out of his mouth when a sharp two-edged sword,
and his countenance was as the sun that shineth.
I mean, he's just beaming, just glowing bright.
I mean, get the picture
that John is trying to describe to us.
Don't just read over these words and, you know,
let them fall flat.
Think about what he's seeing here.
Eyes like fire, feet like brass,
just as glowing, like the sun
that's coming from his countenance.
And when I saw him, it says,
I fell at his feet as dead.
I didn't just go, oh, hey, how's it going?
Nice to meet you, Lord.
Nice to finally meet you in person, or see you again.
I guess it would be for John, right?
And he said, I fell at his feet as dead.
And he laid his right hand upon me,
and saying, fear not.
So, you know, in this instance,
the Lord does come to him,
unlike in the burning bush,
where the Lord is just like,
you just stay right there, Moses.
I got a few things to say while you're down there.
This time he comes to him, you know,
and he says, fear not, and he lays his hand upon him.
Fear not, I am the first and last.
I am he that liveth and was dead,
and behold, I am alive forevermore.
Amen, and have the keys of hell and of death.
Go to Isaiah chapter six, Isaiah chapter six.
You know, another example of this would be Job.
When Job, you know, when the Lord responded,
and spoke, and replied to Job,
and then Job answers the Lord in chapter 42,
and said, I know that thou canst do everything,
and that no thought can be withholding from thee.
Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge?
Therefore, I have uttered that I understood not things
too wonderful me, which I knew not.
Here I beseech thee, and I will speak,
and I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.
I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye seeth thee.
Wherefore, I abhor myself, and repent, and dust, and ashes.
That was his response, just this feeling of unworthiness,
this feeling of fear.
That is a common reaction for people, you know,
who have a healthy fear of God
when they come into the presence of God.
And again, if you, you know,
were here for this morning sermon,
you'd understand that that is something
that we get to do as Christians.
We get to come into the presence of God.
Now, how do we come into his presence?
I know we're to come boldly, like I said this morning,
but there should be an element of fear
when we approach the throne of God,
when we understand who it is that we're dealing with.
Look at Isaiah 6, verse 1.
In the year that king Uzziah died,
I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up,
and his train filled the temple.
Above it stood the seraphims.
Each one had six wings, and twain he covered his face,
and twain he covered his feet, and twain he did fly.
And I want you to pay attention to the verbiage here.
And he says, and one cried unto another.
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
You know, we sing that song,
and it's this nice, gradual crescendo.
Holy, holy, holy, it's very pretty,
but is that what's being described here?
They're saying one cried unto another,
saying holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
Just this booming, just very authoritative,
just, you know, declaration that God is holy.
The whole earth is full of his glory,
and the post of the door moved at the voice of him
that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.
And now notice Isaiah's reaction.
You know, he hears this declaration of holy, holy, holy,
right, and he doesn't just go, oh, that's nice.
Oh, what a sweet sight.
What's his reaction?
Then said I, verse five, woe is me.
There's an exclamation point there.
Woe is me, for I am undone
because I am a man of unclean lips,
and I dwell in the midst of people of unclean lips.
For mine eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts.
That was Isaiah's reaction
when he saw the Lord God high and lifted up,
when he came into the presence of God,
when he stood upon holy ground.
He had that same reaction that we saw in Moses,
that same reaction we saw in Job,
that same reaction we saw in John and Peter
of unworthiness and fear,
and it's the right reaction to have.
And look, if it's missing,
we need to wrap our heads around who God is.
Spend some time in the Word and prayer
and understand who the Lord is.
He is somebody that is to be feared.
You have to understand that when we come
into the presence of God, we are on holy ground.
And part of that picture,
what we see here is that when Moses came in
to the presence of God, God told him,
look, put the shoes from off thy feet.
Meaning this, that God does have some expectations for us
when we come into His presence.
And you say, well, what's the deal with the shoes?
Well, I think it's kind of a picture
that God doesn't want us just tracking the world
into His presence, just tracking everything
that we've been treading around on the rest of our lives
into His presence.
There's some things that we need to just leave
when we come into the presence of God.
He's out there keeping His father-in-law's flock.
He's probably stepped in a few things
that he'd rather not have stepped in.
He's been getting dirty.
You're coming into the presence of a holy God.
You need to leave that filth outside.
And we could liken that to us today
not to literally putting off our shoes,
but maybe a cleansing of our mind,
maybe making sure that we're putting off
the filth of the flesh, that we're coming to God
with a pure heart and a pure mind, confessing sin,
putting off those spiritual shoes, so to speak,
when we come into the presence of a God
who is holy, holy, holy, and learning to fear Him.
Look, if we fear God, there's no objection from Moses here.
What, these shoes?
You know how long it took me to put them on?
I'm getting older, Lord.
It's kind of hard to bend over and put them on.
Do you mind if I just keep them on?
He says, you want them off, they're off.
And that's the attitude we need to have with the Lord.
When God puts His finger on something and says,
get it out, they say, yes, Lord, and it's out.
Don't track the world into His presence.
You know, the goal is to be like Christ, isn't it?
And I know I had you at Revelation at one point,
but I'll just remind you of this picture
that John saw again in Revelation.
It said in verse 15 that his feet were like undefined brass.
You know, you have Moses who's got to put his shoes off,
right, then you have the Lord.
His feet are like fine brass, like they were,
it says as if they had burned in a furnace, right?
They're just glowing hot.
You know, that's the kind of feet we want.
Things that where nothing sticks to it.
Where anything filthy or impure or unclean that touches,
it just burns up, right?
Now, obviously, that's the goal.
We're never gonna reach that sinless perfection
here on earth.
But we strive to be like that.
You know, that's what we should make our goal,
be people that when sin comes into our lives,
it just, we get rid of it.
It just goes away.
Where temptation comes, it just, it sizzles.
Because we're red hot for the Lord,
because we're fervent in our love for God.
But, of course, that's not always gonna be the case.
Go to John chapter three, John chapter three.
And a lot of times, in fact, most cases,
things are going to stick.
You know, we're gonna step in something
out there in the world that's gonna,
you know, we're gonna have to sit down
and get the spiritual stick out
and dig it out of the cleats,
if you know what I mean, right?
We're gonna have to get it out of the grooves
in the bottom of the soles of our feet.
You know, that's usually what happens.
You know, and the Lord knows that, you know,
but we have to make sure that we take the time to do that.
That we do what?
That we clean our feet, basically.
I know it's a pretty basic illustration,
but, you know, it's a good one.
That when we come into the presence of God,
we have to have a clean heart, pure mind,
that that's what God wants in His presence.
Because what? God is holy, holy, holy.
But sometimes, you know, if we're gonna do that,
we're gonna say, well, I know God is holy.
He wants me to be holy, even as He is holy,
and I need to get with God,
and I need to take some time to do what?
To clean my feet and get things right.
If you look at John 13, excuse me,
John 13, in verse three, it says,
Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things
into His hand and that He was come from God
and went to God, He riseth from supper
and laid aside His garments and took a towel
and girded Himself.
Verse five, after that, He poureth the water into a basin
and began to wash the disciples' feet
and to wipe them with a towel wherewith He was girded.
Now, this is, of course, a great illustration
of servant leadership, the fact that Christ Himself
humbled Himself and washed His own disciples' feet.
Okay, and that set an example for us.
You know, that's the main application here,
but within this passage,
there's also another lesson that is taught,
and it says in verse six,
Then he cometh to Simon Peter,
and Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet?
Jesus answered and said, What I do, thou knowest not,
but thou shalt know hereafter.
Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet.
Jesus answered and said, If I wash thee not,
thou hast no part with me.
So, of course, Peter's kind of being, you know,
I don't know what you want to call it
if he's hyper-spiritual here or what,
but he's saying, look, at least he understands,
you know, the implications here.
He understands what's taking place,
that the Lord is going to wash my feet.
You know, he's saying, no, it's the other way around.
You know, you could fault Peter for this or not.
Maybe he had the right attitude,
but he definitely, either way, he gets it right.
He says, you know, when Christ tells him,
look, if I wash thee not, thou hast no part of me,
Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only,
but also my hands and my head.
Right, it's like, well, then I got to get washed, Lord,
then make sure, let's just do the whole thing.
And he goes from, hey, don't wash any of me,
to like, well, if it's my feet,
let's get my hands and my head too while we're at it.
Right, because why?
And people, you know,
sometimes Peter gets criticism for this,
but I mean, his heart's in the right place.
And he's saying, look, Lord, you can't do that for me.
You know, I should be washing your feet, right?
And that's the right attitude.
That's correct.
And he's saying, well, if, you know, being washed
just means I get to have a part with you.
You know, like, I want to be a part with you.
Then I want to make sure I get the whole thing.
And of course the Lord says, look,
if I wash thee not, verse eight,
excuse me, verse nine, excuse me, verse 10,
Jesus said to him, he that is washed
needeth not save to wash his feet,
but is clean every whit.
He's saying, look, Peter,
you don't need to wash your hands or your head
because he is washed, right?
And what he's referring to is, you know,
he that is saved, right?
That we've been washed in the blood, right?
We don't need to wash our hands and our head.
We don't have to wash everything
because we've been washed in the blood of Christ.
But he did say he that is washed, you know,
he that has been washed in the blood,
he that has been saved needeth to wash his feet.
So even though we've been washed,
is there still a need for washing?
Yes, but it's very specific to our feet, right?
Now, I don't believe that, you know,
some people will take this very literally
and wash people's feet in church.
We're not, that's not us, okay?
But what he is saying, look,
there's a spiritual application here
that we as God's children, we're going to be like Moses.
We're going to be out working in the field.
We're going to be out, you know, keeping the flock,
you know, seeking the sheep.
We're going to be out living our lives.
We're going to be surrounded by sinners.
Our feet are going to get spiritually dirty.
We're going to pick up some things
as we move through this life.
That's just a part of living, it's unavoidable.
There's a very practical application
with Jesus teaching, you know,
they're walking around in saddles
and they're walking everywhere they go, you know.
It wasn't just a dirty floorboard
that they had to worry about.
Look, you walk around long enough
and any pair of shoes, especially a pair of sandals,
your feet are going to get dirty.
They're going to have dust.
You're going to take them off.
It's going to get in there.
There's a very practical application here, right?
But what's the spiritual application?
That is, we walk through this world,
our feet get dirty too.
We pick up things, we step in things,
and we need to sit down and, what, clean those feet
when we're going to come into the presence of God.
Because where God is, is holy ground.
And when we go into that prayer closet,
you're going into some holy ground.
It probably wouldn't hurt to literally take your shoes off.
But more importantly, spiritually,
to make sure that there's a cleansing.
And sometimes that's the very place
that cleansing has to take place,
is in that prayer closet.
We have to go there and confess our sins,
and He is just and faithful to forgive us our sins,
and to what?
Cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
There's a cleansing there.
So how do we do that cleansing?
Well, go over to Ephesians 5.
Familiar passage.
You've probably all heard it.
But do we practice it?
The cleansing that needs to take place spiritually.
We're going to go and do business with a holy God.
The Bible says in Psalms 51,
I'll read to you as you go to Ephesians 5,
behold, thou desire'st truth in the inward parts,
and in the hidden part,
thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
So God's not concerned so much with your literal feet,
as He is at those inward parts,
those hidden parts,
where He wants to make you to know wisdom.
Then He says, purge me with hyssop,
and I shall be clean.
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
You're looking there at Ephesians 5.
Look at verse 25.
Husbands, love your wives,
even as Christ also loved the church
and gave Himself for it,
that He might sanctify it and cleanse it
with the washing of the water by the word.
Don't think you're just going to get into some sin
and then just go and literally wash your feet.
Well, I'm just going to dunk my feet
in the tub for a second,
and everything's good now, right?
It's not a literal application.
It's a spiritual application that we're making.
And the washing that needs to take place
is a spiritual one,
and it's done, as it says here,
by the water of the word.
You know, the Bible is the water of the word.
It has a cleansing effect on us.
You know, the more time we spend reading the Bible,
the more time we want to live for God,
we want to read more Bible,
and at least that's the case for me.
It seems like the more I read my Bible,
the more time I spend in prayer,
the easier it is to not fall into sin
and not to have thoughts or say things
or do things that I'm not supposed to have
when I'm occupying myself with the word of God.
In fact, when those things try to stick to me,
when I do see something in my path
that I don't want to step in,
it's like, whoa, look out,
and I make sure I go around it.
I'm more careful the way I walk through this world
when I've spent time washing spiritually.
I mean, think about it.
Every Sunday, we try to put on our Sunday best, right?
We put on the nice shirt,
or maybe some of us, the same shirt,
the same tie we wore last week.
It's been cleaned.
But we wear those nice shirts,
and normally, we're careful, right?
We gotta eat later in the day.
I mean, I know some of us like to dunk our ties
in bowls of soup, so I'm thinking,
it was an accident, brother, right?
Well, we have a nice garment on.
We're careful with it.
I remember in Michigan,
when I started wearing suits to church,
in the wintertime, the cars would just get caked
with road salt and slush and mud and everything else on it,
and you'd get out to go to church in the parking lot,
and you're getting out real careful.
You're making sure you don't brush up alongside the car,
or you're gonna walk into church
with this big salt stainer on your back.
And you see guys that happen to,
oh, did you lean on your car?
Oh, whoops, right?
Look, when we're taking the time
to wash ourselves spiritually,
when we're taking the time to go in the prayer closet
and get the word out and do the cleansing,
we're gonna go through the rest of our day,
the rest of our life, hopefully,
being careful to not get ourselves dirty again,
to try to keep that cleaning, what, minimal,
to keep that sin account short
so that we can get to some real serious matters in prayer.
It's not like, well, it's been months.
Let me just sit down here and just make sure
I can try to recount everything
that I need to confess to God.
It's impossible, right?
And sometimes we just have to generally just say,
Lord, you know, and I'm sorry,
and if it's sincere, God knows.
But isn't it nice to go in that prayer closet and say,
well, it's just these few things.
There's just a few specks here, Lord,
that I gotta clean up right now.
And then we can get into the serious matters
of praying for one another,
you know, and praying for the power of God
and meditating and spending time with God
and having that fellowship with God.
There's gotta be that cleansing, okay?
There's gotta be that cleansing,
and we do that with what?
The washing of the water of the word, right?
If we do not fill our minds with the Bible,
it will get filled with something else.
It's a fact.
We will fill it with something.
We will put something in our hearts.
We will put something in our minds.
Let's make it God's word.
Let's meditate upon that.
Let's read that.
Let's make sure that that,
look, I'm not saying that's the only thing
you can ever read or do, right?
That's the only thing you can think about.
It's the only thing, you know,
obviously life demands that we think about
and meditate and ponder other things.
I understand.
But, you know, this should be there primarily.
You know, and this will help.
You know, this is kind of like, you know,
you go through the car wash and you get the pre-wash
or the, you know, you get that polish on it
that helps keep the bugs off.
They come off a little easier.
No one knows what I'm talking about, right?
You go in there and you get the Rain-X, right?
Helps get the bugs off a little easier.
You know, when I worked at the truck wash,
that's how we sold it to the truckers.
I hand-washed semi-tractor trailers,
if you can believe that.
And you'd say, hey, they would always complain
about the bugs that were on the body of their truck
that just got baked into the paint.
And they'd say, no, you guys didn't clean it well enough.
You need to get in there, and we're in there
with, you know, lambskin, just the wool things,
you know, the washers just trying to get these bugs
off their paint and we're explaining them,
look, that thing's been on there so long
that it's just baked right into the paint.
What you need to do is get this product
that's gonna help repel that,
and they're gonna come off easier.
Look, the Bible's like that product.
That's the illustration I'm trying to make.
When we have the Word of God in our hearts
and in our minds, you know, the bugs of sin, so to speak,
they'll splat, right?
They'll hit us and they'll go splat,
but you know what, they're not gonna bake themselves
down into the paint and become part of that truck.
You know, we don't want these sins just taking over us.
We're gonna walk through the world.
We're gonna step in things.
We're gonna get hit by these bugs,
but if we've been washing in the water of the Word,
they're gonna come off easier,
and there's gonna be less of them.
There's gonna be less instances.
And we need to do it, why?
Because God is holy.
It's not optional.
And you see God's holiness and how these men reacted to it.
And who are we in comparison to them?
Go over to 1 Thessalonians chapter four,
1 Thessalonians chapter four,
because we have to understand that God wants us
to be separate.
God wants us to be sanctified.
God wants us to be set apart unto Him,
that we should no longer live the rest of our time
to the flesh, that we should live it unto the Lord.
The Bible says, well, I'll just read 1 Thessalonians four.
1 Thessalonians four, it says in verse three,
"'For this is the will of God, even your sanctification,
"'that you should abstain from fornication.'"
You know, that's one specific sin, isn't it?
Fornication.
And by the way, that's one that we should
definitely abstain from.
I mean, there's a lot of other sins we could talk about
that we should abstain from,
but it seems like the scripture is just putting its finger
right on fornication,
which tells me that fornication is a filthy sin.
It's a wicked sin.
And now the world's not gonna tell you that today.
The world's gonna say it's perfectly natural.
You know, you're weird if you don't partake.
You know, they're gonna laugh at you and mock at you.
You know, if you don't go to your, you know,
your wedding altar pure, they're gonna say,
oh, you know, you're a weirdo, right?
They're gonna laugh at that, okay?
But the Bible, you know, God will commend that.
And I'm getting specific about the sin
because the Bible does, folks.
The Bible condemns fornication.
And look, who else in this world is gonna tell you
that fornication is wicked?
Hollywood's not gonna.
Public school system isn't going to.
You know, this culture isn't gonna say,
yeah, it's wicked, you shouldn't do it.
Now, the CDC might give you a hint
if you go look at the stats on, you know, STDs
and all these diseases that you can catch
by being a fornicator.
You know, the family court might give you a hint
when they, if you got to go look at their books
and just see all the people that are paying child support
on children they never intended to have.
You know, there's a hint that nothing good
comes from fornication.
You know, it might feel good.
It might be something that is pleasurable.
But you know, the Bible says there's pleasure
in sin for a season,
that the way of the transgressor is hard.
So he's parking it there for a minute on, you know,
you should abstain from fornication,
that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel
in sanctification and honor.
What is he saying?
Keep it clean.
You know, and he's being real specific about fornication,
but you know, we could go beyond that
and talk about the things that we look at,
the things that we listen to,
the things that we, you know,
the time we spend thinking about,
the things that we think about,
the things that we do, the places that we go.
These are all things that can make us unclean.
You know, these are the proverbial, you know,
cow patties out in our father-in-law's field
that we could step in like Moses, right?
But look, we gotta steer clear of those things.
And if we've stepped in one of them,
we've gotta clean it up.
And once it's clean, we're gonna say,
well, that took a lot of time to get that right.
It'll make me more careful to watch where I'm walking,
where I'm gonna put my foot down.
You need to know how to possess his vessel
in sanctification and honor,
not in the lust of concupiscence,
even as the Gentiles which know not God.
Why is it so easy for the Gentiles
to just be given over to these filthy sins?
Why is it that the world can just rush headlong
into fornication despite all the negative consequences,
despite the diseases, despite, you know,
the unwanted children, all the things that come,
the strife that comes with being a fornicator?
Why is it they can just rush headlong on it?
Because they know not God.
They know not God.
One, and they're just following their natural impulses.
They don't have the Spirit of God.
You know, in a way, they don't even really,
I don't wanna say they don't know better.
I'm sure they're convicted in their sins,
but they just think, well, you know,
it's just what people do.
And look, the truth be told, not everyone is a fornicator,
even in the unsaved world.
You know, they wanna make it out like everybody
down at the high school is fornicating.
They're not.
You know, there's a lot of people
that are even making it out of there
that haven't turned into fornicators.
You know, college might be another question.
I don't know if you can make it that far.
But I'm sure there's plenty of people that have, right?
Even the unsaved world.
But the vast majority of the Gentiles,
the unsaved people of this world,
look, they just spend their time
in what, the lusts of concupiscence.
They just, they can't get enough of it.
It's all they know, right?
Because they know not God.
But is that the case with us?
No, we know God.
We've come into God's presence,
and we know something about God that they don't know,
that God is holy, holy, holy.
And that when we stand in the presence of God,
we are standing on holy ground.
That's why we endeavor to, what?
Possess our vessels in sanctification and honor,
to keep it clean, to wash our feet,
and to be careful where we step,
and not to come tracking the filth of sin in the world
into the presence of God.
You know, at the very least,
we've put forth an effort to try.
I'm not saying we're perfect in this area.
I'm sure we all have sins.
Nobody's perfect, but we at least try.
Go over to James 4.
James 4.
You say, well, that sounds like a lot of work.
You know, it sounds like I've got to give up
a lot of fun and pleasure,
and it sounds like, you know,
this is a real drag, this whole Christian life thing.
You know, that's just a matter of perspective.
You know, that's just a matter of values
of what's important to you.
I'm not saying it's easy,
but it's definitely rewarding.
You have to understand,
and what I'm trying to get across this evening
is that when you're standing with God,
and you're standing in His presence,
you're standing on holy ground,
and that is a very unique privilege.
The Gentiles, they know not God.
You know, the whole Bible says
the whole world lieth in wickedness.
You know, Isaiah said that he dwelt
in the midst of an unclean people, right?
We are living in the midst of an adulterous generation.
Like, we're in the midst of that.
It makes sense that they don't care,
but God's people, those of us that have come
onto holy ground with God,
you know, we need to understand
that this is a unique privilege
that not everybody has.
It's a unique privilege to stand on holy ground,
to go into that prayer closet,
to pray to God, and to walk with the Lord.
You know, and if our heart is right,
you know, if we fear God, and we love Him,
you know, this is not gonna be,
His commandments are not grievous,
but it's actually a source of joy
to know that, look, I can leave
all the filth of the world behind
and just love the Lord, and fear God, and serve Him,
and I'll have the joy of the Lord as my strength.
The Bible says in Psalm 100,
make a joyful noise unto the Lord,
all ye lands, serve the Lord with gladness,
come before His presence with singing,
enter in His gates with thanksgiving,
for the Lord God is good,
His mercy is everlasting,
and His truth endureth unto all generations.
You know, the Christian that loves the Lord,
that's how he's gonna approach this,
and say, I can't wait to get on holy ground with the Lord.
Please, help me to keep myself clean,
help me to possess my vessel in sanctification and honor,
help me to purge out the sin,
and they're gonna do it with joy,
and thanksgiving, and gladness,
you know, but the carnal person
is gonna look at that as a drag,
and they're gonna say, well, man,
it just seems so hard to give up my sin.
Well, it's really a matter of what you value, you know?
And if you're in James 4,
you know, if you're struggling with this,
you know, James 4 is the remedy.
Verse 7, it says,
submit yourselves therefore to God,
resist the devil, and he will flee from you,
draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.
Isn't that a great promise in the Word of God?
That God's not just playing that game
that we all played with our siblings,
where He just kind of keeps His,
you know, you put your hand on their head,
and it's like, you can't get in there
just trying to hit you like this, you know?
You can never quite get close enough.
Or, you know, God's not,
you take a step towards God,
He's not like, whoa, stay back.
Whoa, stay back.
God sees us going towards Him.
He's open arms coming right back towards us.
I mean, that's what God wants.
God wants us to draw nigh to Him.
But notice what it goes on and says.
He will draw nigh to you.
But notice, cleanse your hands, you sinners,
and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
You know, God wants to draw nigh to us,
but sometimes it's like, whoo, spiritually, right?
You ever get around somebody that's, you know, a little ripe?
You're not exactly trying to get
in a telephone booth with them.
You know what I mean?
You're trying to put some space.
Windows get rolled down.
Heads get turned in the other direction.
You know, we might love these people.
We might care about these people.
And I've been guilty of this.
You know, you can't help it.
You work long, hard days.
Sometimes it's just the way it turns out, right?
You don't come home and just stinking
and, you know, run to your wife.
Lay one on me, honey.
So why don't you go get cleaned up first?
Because you smell terrible.
Right?
Look, we want to draw nigh to God,
but there's got to be a cleansing there.
You know, especially if it's something
we haven't taken care of.
And look, there will always be a need
for a cleansing, to some degree.
But if, you know, let's get that cleansing done,
you know, obviously in salvation,
but beyond that, let's keep that sin account short,
keep our lives clean, possess our vessels
and sanctification and honor,
so that, you know, it doesn't take so long.
So God doesn't have to just go,
you know what, you need a bath, son.
I'd love to draw an eye, but you smell.
You know, He wants us to cleanse our hands
and purify our hearts, He double-minded.
Be afflicted and mourn.
Look, there's a time to afflict yourself and mourn.
You know, we live in this culture
where everyone wants to just be happy all the time.
That's just not reality.
You know, in your life,
you're not just going to be happy all the time.
There's going to be, you know,
downtimes in your life too.
And sometimes it's the appropriate reaction.
It's the appropriate attitude to have.
To be afflicted and to mourn and to weep.
You know, it should make us sad
if we want to draw an eye to God,
but we're filthy.
You know, our feet are dirty.
Our minds are dirty.
You know, spiritually, our hearts are dirty.
You know, we haven't drawn an eye to God.
We're distant.
You know, that should cause us to mourn
and to be afflicted and to weep.
Let your laughter be turned to mourning,
they said, and your joy to heaviness.
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord,
and He shall lift you up.
So it's not like God is going to keep us there.
You know, if that's the avenue we have to take
of affliction and mourning and weeping,
it's not like God is just going to say,
that's it for the rest of your life.
That's, you know, we have to go through that why
so that we can, you know, be lifted up.
You know, we'll turn the corner eventually.
You know, once the feet are clean, they're clean.
You know, you can quit scrubbing
before the skin comes off, right?
You're clean now.
We can move forward, right?
But sometimes in our lives, if, you know,
if we haven't realized just how holy the ground is
that we've been standing on,
there might be a season of affliction and mourning
and weeping and humility
of admitting that, you know, we've taken God for granted.
And that maybe we haven't esteemed Him
as holy as He really is.
And maybe we haven't esteemed that holy ground,
the privilege for which it really is.
And if we want to stand on that ground,
look, that's good, but it's going to take humility.
It's going to take, you know,
this turning your joy to heaviness.
But you know what?
In time, God will lift us up.
And if we stick with it, eventually God will find ourselves
right here with the Lord.
You know, and that was kind of what I was trying
to get across this morning,
that we have that privilege as God's people
to have that unique presence, that unique fellowship,
that God will come and make His abode with us
through the Spirit.
But we have to understand that when God comes in,
when His presence shows up, you know,
that instantly becomes holy ground that you're standing on.
And you know, the shoes have to come off.
The feet have to get cleaned
because we're standing before a holy God.
We're standing on holy ground.
Let's go ahead and pray.