1 Samuel 6-7:2
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Good morning. Uh, grab a Bible, head to First Samuel, chapter 6. My name is Chad. If you don't, if I hadn't had the pleasure of getting to to know you yet, my name is Chad. I'm one of the pastors here.
Uh, we are working our way through 1 and 2 Samuel. We are in chapter 6. Our text today will be all of chapter 6 and just a little bit of chapter 7. We are studying this together. And so far, we have seen the birth of Samuel.
We have seen him begin to grow and develop uh around Eli the priest. We saw that his mother devoted him to the Lord. He was given over. He was uh then raised basically by Eli the high priest. We saw that Eli and his two sons Hoffni and Phineas were not good priests at all.
And uh we saw a man of God come and proclaim judgment on them. And then we saw that the Israelites went to battle against the Philistines. They lost. And then they said, "Well, let's take the ark of God into battle with us.
Then we'll definitely win." We saw them more definitively lose. The ark was taken. And the Philistines took the ark. And on that same day, Eli was killed. H Eli died.
Hafani and Phineas were killed. And um the ark left the people of Israel. The ark of the covenant was in um the land of the Philistines and God's hand was heavy upon them. And so last week we were looking at they basically tried to to bring the ark either inside of their worship or in somehow into Deegon's trophy room and it did not go well for them.
And so they just we just finished with them going, "Hey, let's get the ark out of here." And that's where we're going to pick up with today when they are trying to to get rid of the ark. So verse one of chapter 6, the ark of the Lord was in the country of the Philistines seven months. So for seven months, the ark is not where it should be. It is not with the people of God. And that's where we saw that they were distressed over the presence of the Lord leaving them, the glory of the Lord leaving them.
And the Philistines called for the priests and the divers and said, "What shall we do with the ark of the Lord? Tell us with what we shall send it to its place." So the first question is, "What should we do with it?" But then they have a clarifying comment. tell us how to get rid of it. If you if you give us any option that's keeping it, you're wrong. So they just say, "Hey, you priests and divers, y'all deal with this sort of stuff." God's currently, if we remember, he was afflicting them with tumors and then people were dying of terror.
They had just brought it around to Echron and Echron basically came out and said, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Y'all aren't giving us that thing." And so they called all the the Philistine lords together and they say, "All right, what are we going to do?" They get the priests and the binders and they say, "How do we send this back?" They said, "If you send away the ark of the God of Israel, do not send it empty, but by all means, return him a guilt offering. Then you will be healed, and it will be known to you why his hand does not turn away from you." So they're saying, "Well, we'll send it back with a guilt offering with some sort of appeasement, and then if you're healed, we'll know that that's what this is what it was all about." And they said, "What is the guilt offering that we should return to him?" They answered, "Five golden tumors and five golden mice according to the number of the lords of the Philistines. For the same plague was was on all of you and on your lords. So you must make images of your tumors and images of your mice that ravage the land and give glory to the God of Israel." Okay, we'll talk about the tumors in a second.
First, the mice. So far, no mice have been mentioned at all. Best read is he says the mice at ravager land is that that was part of it. That there was some sort of also mice were there causing problems. But it it wasn't a big thing.
Maybe it was unrelated. Also, maybe they're the Philistines are weird and they're like, "Do you know what God's like? Mice. So, send some of those." It seems like they're trying to appease and they have this general understanding of of a God is a God of a thing.
So, if they've had problems with tumors and problems with mice, they're like, "Oh, wow. The Lord of Israel, he's like a tumors and mice God. So send him some tumors and mice. That's foreign to us because God is God of everything. And giving him well-crafted, beautiful tumors seems odd, but that's what they do.
And they're like, "We're going to send back. We're going to pay him back. We're going to try to appease him. And since he seems to like tumors and mice, we're going to send tumors and mice. That's the plan.
Okay. Perhaps he will lighten his hand from off of you and your gods and your land. So they they see this as the hand of God heavy upon them. Why should you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts?
After he had dealt severely with them, did they not send the people away and they departed? Okay. What God did to Israel is well known and this is hundreds of years to Egypt sorry what God did to Egypt is well known and this is hundreds of years later the Philistines have some understanding of this God and I love what they say they say don't harden your hearts didn't they end up sending them away anyway that's basically what they ask the Israelites won y'all remember that and the Israelites that's how the Israelites got to where they are now remember when the Israelites showed showed up over here because they were sent away from the Egyptians and they were like, they basically just said, "What if our plan is not make God pummel the snot out of us first? What if we just surrender real fast?" That's the plan. So they said, "We'll pay him back.
We'll surrender quickly and we'll see if this goes away." That's the plan. It's not a bad plan. So now, this is verse seven. Now then, I love I love the they're about to come up with the system by which they're going to do this, and it's going to prove to them whether or not God was doing this or not. And I love what they come up with.
They sound very clever. This is This is way better than the mice thing. I like this. This is good. All right.
Oh now, now then take and prepare a new cart and two milk cows on which there has never come a yoke and yoke the cows to the cart. But take their calves home away from them. And take the ark of the Lord and place it on the cart and put in a box at its side the figures of gold which you are returning to him as a guilt offering. Then send it off and let it go its way. and watch if it goes up on the way to its own land and they that is actually up in elevation.
They are more coastal where the Philistines are. So it would actually have to travel uphill towards uh Israel, the people of Israel. If it goes up on its way to his own land in to Beth Sheamesh, which is the road that would take him that way, then it is he who has done us this great harm. But if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that struck us. It happened to us by coincidence.
make a gift, but then we're going to really figure out whether or not God's involved or not. And this plan has layers. All right. We want a new cart that's never gone anywhere. We want the cart to have no muscle memory.
We also want these cows to have never seen this cart go anywhere. New cart. And it's new. We're not sending an old cart, sending a new one. We want two milk cows who've never been yolked.
We don't want one milk cow because one milk cow can go by itself potentially somewhere. We want two so they have to work as a team. We also want them to be wholly unfamiliar with pulling something. We want you to take their calves and take them home. If a cow was going to wander off somewhere, it would most likely wander home or to where its calf is.
We want its calves and its home to be in the same place. Then we're going to watch and see if these two milk cows suddenly just form an elite team and head to a place they've never been to uphill away from their home and away from their calves. If that happens, we'll be pretty sure that God actually did this. I like that's a good plan. Otherwise, it's probably a coincidence.
You know, sometimes people just get tumors in mice and maybe that's what happened. All right. Verse 10. The men did so and took two milk cows and yolked them to the cart and shut up their calves at home. And they put the ark of the Lord on the cart and the box with the golden mice and the images of their tumors.
And the cows went straight in the direction of Beth Sheamesh along one highway lowing as they went. That means making loud cow noises. They took off and were like the whole way just I mean seemingly pulled or driven or just pumped up. But these two milk cows are like I was born for this. I know exactly where I'm going.
This cart has got to get to Beth Sheamesh quickly. They turned neither to the right nor to the left. And the lords of the Philistines went after them as far as the border of the of Beth Sheamesh. So the Philistine lords put this on as soon as it goes and the cows just start I mean mooing and taking off. And you know the the Philistine lords had to be like looking at each other like okay it's it's pretty clear.
It's probably going to work. And they follow him just kind of keeping an eye on like are they gonna and they go all the way to Beth Sheamesh. All right. Verse 13. Now the people of Beth Sheamesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley.
And when they lifted up their eyes and saw the ark, they rejoiced to see it. All right. You're you're reaping your wheat. It's regular work day. You hear some loud cows.
You look up. Two milk cows are just hauling the ark of the Lord into town. And they're pumped. They're like, "Hey, the ark's back. Look, the cows brought it." It doesn't say that, but I assume they noticed, you know.
And it says they rejoice. They rejoice to see. Okay, found my place. They rejoice to see it. That was verse 13.
Verse 14. The cart came into the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh and stopped there. A great stone was there and they split up the wood of the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord. And the Levites took down the ark of the Lord and the box that was beside it, in which were the golden figures, and set them upon the great stone. So, so far they're doing okay.
They have Levites actually moved the ark, which there's only certain people who are allowed to move the ark. It has poles that you're supposed to move it by. All the tribes live in different areas, but the Levites are scattered all throughout the tribes. They move it. The men of Bashamesh offered burnt offerings and sacrifice sacrifices on that day to the Lord.
And when the five lords of the Philistines saw it, they returned that day to Echron. They cut up the cart. They sacrificed the cows. They have more sacrifices. They rejoice.
The Philistines ride back happy to be rid of this thing and certainly considering all that that took place. 17 These are the golden tumors that the Philistines returned as a guilt offering to the Lord. One for Ashdod, one for Gaza, one for Ashcolon, one for Gath, one for Echron, and the golden mice according to the number of all the cities of the Philistines belonging to the five lords, both fortified cities and unwalled villages, the great stone beside which they sat down the ark of the Lord, is a witness to this day in the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh. Verse 19, and he struck some of the men of Beth Shemeshesh because they looked upon the ark of the Lord. He struck 70 men of them and the people mourned because the Lord had struck the people with a great blow.
So suddenly this story turns and what we're looking at today as we study this passage is the Philistines and the Israelites having to reckon with the holiness of God. that the Philistines and the Israelites are coming in contact with the holiness of God. And as we study this the rest of this morning, we are going to take up that consideration. We're going to as we look at this, we're going to reckon with the holiness of God as well. That the Israelites by being Israelites were not exempt from what it is like to interact with a holy God.
So it says, "And he struck some of the men of Bashamesh because they looked upon the ark of the Lord. He struck 70 men of them and the people mourned because the Lord had struck the people with a great blow." Now, there's a couple of things we need to say as we continue to move through this section. The first one is this. There is a textual I'm just kind of pausing the sermon for a second. There's a textual difficulty in verse 19.
1st Samuel chapter 6 verse 19. There's a textual difficulty in translating from the Hebrew manuscripts to the English. Our English translations all are going back and looking at the original languages and translating. and we have 17,000 copies of the Old Testament, some 6,000 copies or close to 6,000 of the New Testament. We have very reliable Bibles.
There are some places as we are translating from ancient languages and we have different manuscripts that are in different places where we can match everything up and we can look and we can know what what was in the original and what wasn't. There are a few places where there's still some difficulty. So, this is one of them. We took some time this week, Spencer and I sat down and actually just kind of dove into discussing a little bit of what's actually going on in this text in the translation process. And so if you're interested in that, it's 15 minutes.
That'll be on the website when we post the sermon. It'll be sermon audio group content. And underneath that'll be a video of us trying to talk through this section a little bit more for the person who's like, "Boy, textual variance is something I'm so interested in." We got you. We did not want to shorten that down and give no time to it this morning um and feel like we didn't handle it well. We also didn't want to suddenly make this sermon 57 minutes because we spent 15 on textual variance in the middle of it.
We also have linked a link to a Wesley Huff video if you're the type of person who just went, "Wait a second. I've never even considered the fact that this was translated into English and now I have all kinds of questions as how we go about that." Wesley Huff is very helpful in trying to explain some of that and he talks about the reliability of the Bible and the truthfulness of the Bible and we've we've linked that as well. So, back to the sermon, 70 men just died. I think when we're reading stuff like this, sometimes we might just go 70 men and we move on because we don't know these men. We don't live in this town.
But 70 men just died. And it's 70 men who would have been in the middle of this. 70 men who probably heads of households, firstborn sons in a town. We don't know exactly how big this is, but Besamesh does not loom large in the history of Israel. This is this they have this shining moment and there's a battle that's fought here later.
This would have been devastated. They they mourn and the nature by which they died would have stuck out in everybody's mind. This would have been if you think about like we the Challenger exploding or the Hindenburg the Hindenburg killed 36 people but we all know about it. We have certain things that loom large in our mind. But if you think about this area where there's the greater Columbia area has like 200,000 people.
If 70 people died, how much would we be talking about that? How much would we be considering that? How much would we be having marches and lighting candles and prayer vigils? If 70 people died from some sort of disease, the city would be shut down. This would be national news.
We'd all be figuring out whether or not we were going to get it. If they died in some sort of tragic accident, we'd all be aware of what happened and how it happened. 70 men die and they it it says they mourn. This is their struck. We don't know with what or how.
I don't know if that means that that the way they died is unimportant or that the way they died struck is a good explanation of it. How they die they died. How quickly? Why did they die?
What did they do? It says they looked upon the ark. Some English translations will say they looked in the ark. That's not really the word that's used, but they're trying to make an interpretive understanding of what did they do that was so wrong. If the ark could ride in, if the Philistines could be around it, if it could ride in on a carp, they had to have done something more.
I think the two explanations are either the ark was uncovered and there were 70 men who got together and excitedly were like let's see what's inside of this or the ark had been covered the entire time and they uncovered it which I actually think is quite likely. This is this is from Numbers chapter 4 says when the camp is set out Aaron and his son shall go in and take down the veil of the screen and cover the ark of the testimony with it. Then they shall put on it a covering of goat skin and spread on top of that a cloth of all blue and shall put it in its poles. That's how they always moved it when they were moving it in the tabernacle. Only the high priests were able to see it.
They covered it with three different coverings. Then they moved it with poles. It's likely to me that they covered it up the way they always cover it, the way it had always been taught to cover it. Now these priests weren't very good, so they were doing all kinds of stuff they weren't supposed to. So you can make the argument maybe they didn't.
But it seems likely that they would have had these things here. They would have covered it. They took it into the battle covered. It also seems likely to me that the Philistines who it told us in the other text wouldn't step on the threshold anymore after Deeon's head had been laid there. That was the head of their God.
It's an interesting story. God cut it off um if you did if you weren't here last week. But they no longer for they said still don't they still won't step on the threshold. the Philistines who have some understanding of the holiness of God, some understanding of the fearfulness of the God who went and and got the Israelites out of Egypt, that they would have just left it covered. They got it, but this is how it came and they would have not uncovered it.
And so, it's quite possible that it rode covered and that they said, "Let's look at this." Either way, they either uncovered it or opened it. And what they did was they approached a holy God as if he were commonplace. They took something that was holy and they profamedained it as if they were just allowed access and could approach it however they wanted to. They ran into the holiness of God. They had to reckon with the holiness of God.
And it says this in verse 20. Then the men of Beth Sheamesh said, "Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God, and to whom shall he go up away from us?" So they said, "Who who can stand before this holy God? And to who should we send him to?" First answer is probably like, "We don't none of us. And who who do we want to just He's got to get away from us." So they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kiraath Jereim, saying, "The Philistines have returned the ark of the Lord. Come down and take it up to you." I don't know if they gave them more information.
The information that we're told they gave them, y'all, 70 men just died and they're like, "Hey, Kiratim, guess what? You get an ark. Come get it." because they're afraid of it. Chapter 7. And the men of Kiraathjarim came and took up the ark of the Lord and brought it to the house of Abenadab on the hill.
And they consecrated his son Eleazar to have charge of the ark of the Lord. From that day from the day that the ark was oh goodness from the day that the ark was lodged at Kiraim, a long time passed, some 20 years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord. So cur seems to handle it. Okay.
They consecrate someone for him. They say this is your whole job just caring for this. They put it in a place. Now it's interesting. They did not take it back to Shiloh.
We don't know what happened to Shiloh. We know that later Jeremiah in prophesying against the people of Israel says God's going to make this city like Shiloh, destroyed and without inhabitant. So it seems as if when 30,000 men of Israel were killed in the battle that they lost the ark, Shiloh was somehow also overtaken, destroyed. But we also know the three high priests died. But the there's just really no mention of Shiloh does not come back up as a thing.
They don't take it back to Shiloh. They take it to some guy's house. They close it up and 20 years passes and it says everybody was just kind of sad lamenting after the Lord. But there's a question that the people of Bashamesh ask and I think we should consider it with them this morning because I think the text forces us to consider this idea. They say who is able to stand before the Lord this holy God.
I think the Philistines were running into this. The people of Israel were running into this. And they asked this question and I think we ought to consider it with them. Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God?
We are not culturally well set up when it comes to considering holiness. We just aren't. We don't think of much as sacred. We don't think of much as holy. We're we're a pretty um flat society as far as everybody's fair game.
Hey, we were just joking. Don't you have a sense of humor? Like we we just in general we we aren't a respectful group of people. We started off by fighting off a king and ever since then we just are like, "Uh, if you want us to show you a lot of respect, you're probably super annoying." We just aren't well designed for it. So when we consider things like the holiness of God, we aren't well set up culturally for that.
There are other cultures who understand this a little bit better than we do. I think we're tempted sometimes to read passages like this and go, you know, you'll even hear people say sometimes, well, yeah, well that was the Old Testament. The character, the nature of God has not changed. But we want to almost say sometimes, well, I'm glad he's not like that anymore. He is he is still like this.
He is still unapproachably holy. Then if we think more about it, if we have to actually sit and consider it, there are times where we go, I I don't know why he would do that. I don't know why he would act like that. I don't know why he would respond like that. If I was hanging out at my house near my fire pit, if I dropped something in the fire and just reached into it and pulled pulled it out and then later was sitting with a doctor as he was tending to my hand and I said, "I don't know why the fire acted like that.
I don't know why it responded that way. It would display that I had a grievous misunderstanding of the nature of fire. And when we say, "I don't know why God did that," it displays, it betrays, it tells on us that we have a grievous misunderstanding about the holiness of God. And we do, we call him the man upstairs. We say, "God's my co-pilot." We have hilarious jokes about him golfing.
We don't care. We've never broken out in a sweat over those things. We've never considered that we are presuming to elevate ourselves or to lower him and that either one of those is vast wickedness. First thing we need to understand is that God is holy. We need to know what that word means when it says this holy God.
What does that mean to be holy? There's really two ways the Bible uses that word. And basically, whenever it uses the word, it carries both definitions, maybe emphasizing one or the other at the time, but both are carried with the word holy. The one that we consider more often is actually the one the Bible considers less often. The one we think about the most is the idea of moral purity.
That he's good, that he's righteous, or that he'll say things to us like, "Be holy as I am holy." Meaning, pursue moral purity. And the Bible does mean that when it says it, but the word in the Hebrew comes from the Hebrew word cut. It primarily means separate and distinct. That God is unlike anything else. When the angels sing holy, holy, holy, they're saying distinct, other other something else.
all together that we are not like God. We are not on the same level or the same plane. We do not exist in the same category. That he is vast and majestic and good and pure and righteous and beyond reckoning and beyond understanding outside of the the understanding that he graciously gives. He is glorious in an unfathomable way.
That he is other, foreign, not common, not approachable, not pocketable, not tameable, not simple, not small, holy. This is Hannah's prayer in 1st Samuel chapter 2. We read this. She says, "There is none holy like the Lord, for there is none besides you. There is no rock like our God." Your holiness is a holiness that is only you have this holiness because there's no one like you.
There is nothing similar. RC Sproul would ask his students sometimes, "What's more like God? A worm or saraphim?" Which is a a type of angel? And then he would say neither because God is altogether holy and unlike other things. This is why the Proverbs 9:10 says the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.
That that's where we need to begin with trying to understand his holiness and we need to begin with fear and reverence. We often have this common notion that we have the ability to evaluate him, to understand him. A lot of us are like, "Yeah, I already know about God." As if he's simple. Y'all, my sons this past week said, "What's the difference between gasoline and diesel?
And I said they are different substances. If you want to know the science behind it, I have no clue. I know that if you fill your car up with diesel, it won't work. And vice versa, because it's it's a different it's a different type. If they' have said what, I'd have been like, "Gas liquid.
A liquid gas. Stop asking questions. There are certain things that I understand are beyond me. Maybe I could go learn it, but there are certain things like I don't know what it was for you. I don't know if it was calculus where you were just like, I'm done.
I let me go see where's the registar. I'm going to drop this. Do I need it to graduate? Will a D minus work?
There are certain things that we just gave up on and you just know I don't understand that. Someone's like, I'll explain it to you. You're like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm never going to understand that. Stop talking to me.
And we have the audacity at times to be like, "Yeah, but I got God. Him. I've I've got I I got that. I understand how that works. The Bible speaks of him as other, as holy, as separate, as vast.
His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. We are not able to grasp him. He reveals himself to us, but he is not simple, small, or pocketable. We need to know that he's holy.
We also need to know that we're sinful. They ask the question, who is able to stand? They look around and they go, "Can any of y'all? Who who who can who can go before him?
He's holy. Who can go before him? You need to know you're sinful. That he is holy beyond measure, beyond comprehension, and that we are sinful." Yeah. It's so crazy to me sometimes the way we'll view ourselves in relation to God where we'll say things like, "Well, I'm not that bad.
I'm okay." It's like, you aren't even the nicest person at your job. You went to a school of 400 people and you were like in the middle. We're not talking historically or globally. The way we do it most of the time is we just look downhill and go, "That guy's way worse than me." And then we'll just somehow presume to relate to God. I remember when I was at the hospital, my wife had just had a baby.
They were going to hand me my baby and they were like, "Wash your hands." And I remember thinking, "Good call. Right. Oh, yeah. Do Do you wear sunglasses and sunscreen?
Do you think that there should be a barrier between you and a ball of fire that's really really far away? And do you think that you can approach God who dwells in unapproachable light in the glare of his holiness and be fine? Our audacity and pride and presumption is baffling. He is holy and we are sinful and he sees through us. Before him we are not dressed up.
He is not mistaken. He sees to the core of our hearts and our beings. You don't even see yourself as well as he sees you. We need to know that he's holy. And when they ask the question, who can stand before him?
We need to know that answer includes not you and not me. And if we're tempted to say, "Yeah, but but it's different now." It is and it isn't. I want to show you Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12, New Testament written to the Church, written to Christians. It says this.
This is verse 18. For you have not come to what may be touched. What we have approached in God is not something that is approachable. You've not come to something that may be touched. If you were somewhere in a radioactive area, everybody's wearing hazmat suits or whatever, and you're like, "What?
That's radioactive?" And you just grabbed it and stuck it in your pocket, and then it burned through your hand and your pants, and they'd be like, "Yeah, fool. That's not how this works." And he's saying, "You haven't come to something that is that simple. That that is easy. It says you have not come to something that may be touched." And then he's going to use Old Testament imagery, pictures, things that happen to describe what we have been welcomed into, brought into. a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest.
So, a pitch black firestorm and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. All the people of Israel have been rescued out of Egypt. God speaks and they say, "Moses, please, please, please tell him not to talk to us anymore. Let him talk to you. We'll listen to you.
let him talk to you, but don't have him talk to us. And then we say things like, "Well, if there is a God, I've got some questions for him." No, you don't. That is not how that will work. For they could not endure, this is verse 20, the order that was given, "If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned." Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, "I tremble with fear. How many of you were like, I'm I'm pretty good.
Like it's me and then Moses is here. Moses in interacting with God who had seen all that he had done and had related to him in all these ways is like he trembles with fear. But you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, if you think it's wise to wear a suit and speak respectfully when you go to court, but that you think that you can just strut in front of the God, the judge of all, like we our our thinking is broken here and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel and you're reading this and you're going what is it even talking about exactly some of that you're like okay I know that okay but it's saying you have approached something that is so vast so glorious so good so holy it's not something that can be touched. The entrance is not simple. And it says to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant.
You can't approach God, but Jesus can. And Jesus mediates so that the work of Christ purchases for us access to all of this. It is not something we access on our own. It is not something that we come in on our own. It is not something that you do on your own.
It is something that Christ has done through the work on the cross. That he is God who became man so that he could pay our debt. He was standing on our side. But he's also God so that he can be holy and righteous and actually pay a debt that applies to everyone. That his blood is so precious that it covers all of our sin.
And so that he is able to mediate a covenant between us, sinful us, and a holy God beyond reckoning. If we lose the holiness of God, we will lose the love of Christ. We will lose the humility of Christ. We will miss out on understanding mercy and forgiveness. Tim Keller relates a story.
He's a pastor in New York. He relates a story. He says he's talking to a lady and she says, "I I believe in God. I just can't the idea that Jesus had to die." And he said, "Okay, let me ask you a question.
Does God forgive you?" And she said, "Yeah." He said, "Okay, what does it cost him? What does it cost him to forgive you? and she's like, "Well, it I guess nothing. It's just not that big a deal." And what he said is, "It's it's like a pendulum. If the pendulum only goes here on holiness, he actually doesn't care that much.
It's actually not that big a deal. He actually doesn't love that much because our sins that we commit against each other aren't that bad to him. He doesn't care how we treat each other. He doesn't mind all the wickedness in the world and he's not that holy. So sins against him don't matter that much.
If the pendulum only goes to here, then his love and mercy and grace can only go to here. But he says, "No, if you understand his holiness and you understand your wickedness and you understand your depravity and you understand that you cannot approach him or you will be undone, then oh how glorious is Christ. Oh, how loving is the father. Oh, how merciful he is. It's only in the light of his holiness and the depths of our sin do we know how glorious and good Jesus is.
Our are our affection so stirred for him. If you are not in love with Christ, if you do not see him as glorious and beautiful and wonderful, it's quite possible that you don't see yourself as very sinful or you don't see God as very holy. And one of the things that I think continues to happen and I'm concerned for our Church at times is that we talk a lot about the love of Christ, but we fail to see our sin and we fail to see God's holiness. But mercy is beautiful in the light of my wickedness. And forgiveness is real when I know the depth of depravity I was drowning under.
And when I understand that I would be shredded in the light of God's holiness. Oh, how glorious is Christ. And that's what the New Testament says over and over again. Colossians 1, I'm gonna read one passage. And you who were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, we were over here.
We were wicked, depraved, and unprotected from the holiness of God. He has now, that's Christ, reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach. That he's invited us into holiness through his death, through his blood, through his sacrifice, through his rescue. And our hope is in Christ. And if we don't have Christ, we don't have hope.
So what do we do with a text like this? How do we apply this? First, I would say to the Church, I want you to consider who you are without Christ. I want you to begin to expand your understanding of the holiness of God and what that means. And I want you to rejoice at your hearts stirred for how good and glorious and kind Jesus is.
That he would die to save sinners. That we would have hope in him. I want you to sing. I want you to sing thinking about Jesus and God's holiness and your sin and not about what you're going to have for lunch. And who can hear you singing?
I want you to pray as someone who knows that that right was purchased with precious blood beyond measure. I want you to follow Christ as someone who delights in understanding that you've been made holy and blameless by the mercy of Jesus. I want us to take very seriously and consider what we joke about and what we're willing to put up with when it comes to how God is treated. And if you're not a Christian, that means you are without Christ. And I want you to understand very clearly that you are covered in your sin and your wickedness and there is no one mediating between you and a holy God.
You are as guilty as they come and there is the glare of a righteous light and a glorious God to be reckoned with. And you will not stand. Jesus says, "Nobody comes to the father except through me." There's no one who makes it the father except through Christ. And that there is an offer of a mediator who will pay your debt, who paid the costly penalty to rescue you, who has love unimaginable and mercy that covers all of our sin if we will but come to him and say, "I need your rescue." And I would encourage you to do that. Let's pray.
Lord God, you are holy. You are distinct. You are separate. You are high and above all that we can think or imagine. And so Lord, we praise you and we praise the glorious name of Christ who humbled himself, taking on the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men and dying a death on a cross so that we might be rescued.
And Lord, I pray for the person in this room who is not in Christ that they would see a terrible glimpse of your holiness. that they would see the depth of their sin. And Lord, that they would run to Jesus whose blood can wash away all of our sin and make us white and clean and saved with hope. May we honor you, Lord. May your name be honored as holy among your people in Jesus name.
Amen. The band's going to come back up and we're going to sing together. And I would invite you as they get set up and as we're getting on the stage ready to lead us in worship that you would consider the holiness of God. That you would consider yourself for a moment and then respond accordingly.