In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of responding to the reality of God's holiness. He starts by highlighting the commandment in Exodus 20:3 to have no other gods before God. The preacher then uses a personal anecdote about feeling fear in a dark cornfield to illustrate the choice between encountering a terrifying human or a Martian, ultimately emphasizing the need for God in our lives. The sermon also touches on the concept of reality and how it should not just be intellectual knowledge, but a living reality in our lives. The preacher concludes by discussing the significance of God's nature and the caution needed when comparing Him to earthly fathers or governors.

Coming now to teach on the holiness of God. And I've decided that I think I may have to touch this in two parts today. And then, or one part today and one part tomorrow. Because as I was going through it, there is so much to be said about the holiness of God. And so many, well, the holiness of God is like, take a diamond and lift it up to the light. If you have a hundred men all looking at the same diamond, they're going to be seeing so many different things because of the cuts and the way the light will hit each one of those cuts and bring about a glory that the other one might not see at that moment. It's in the same way with the holiness of God. And so we're going to be touching on one part today and another part tomorrow. Before we get started, I just want to make sure, can everyone hear OK, my voice? Is it OK? OK. All right. I'm going to be looking at a lot of passages, which is not something that is very comfortable for me to do. I would rather just grab a text. But there is so much that I want to say. But I just want to lead off with a passage that is so very important. It's in Exodus 15-11. And it is simply this. Who is like you among the gods, O Lord? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in praises, and working wonders? Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, I come before you in the name of your Son. And it is because of his name I have great confidence before you. And Lord, I know that you answer prayer for only one reason. For his name. For his name. And that you do all that you do for your Son. And Lord, my heart rejoices in that. And I pray, Lord, that you would take this feeble loaf and fish and multiply it, Lord. It would be no less supernatural for people to be fed by my babbling than for you to feed 5,000. O God. And Lord, I pray that my own life would be transformed. That I know so little and am so little of what you are. But I pray, dear God, to be drawn to your holiness like a moth to a flame. God, help us. Strengthen us. Give us wisdom. Illuminate us. Open our eyes. In Jesus' name. The meaning of the word holy. The meaning of the word holy is so very, very important. The basic root, if we were to reduce it down the farthest we could reduce it, it would be to mean to cut. To cut. And I like to use the illustration of a woman or a man who loves to nose his way around the kitchen and will put out a wooden cutting board and then maybe lay a carrot on that cutting board and begin to cut. But as they cut, they not only cut with the knife, but then use the knife to do what? To separate out. To cut and to separate. To cut and to separate. And the idea of holy, more than anything else, means this idea of being cut off and being separate on into being distinct, unique, separate, as we see here in Exodus 15, 11. Who is like you among the gods? And of course, it's a rhetorical question. And the answer is no one. And throughout Scripture, we will hear this over and over. There is no one like the Lord. Absolutely no one. Now, I need to address something that's very important. And please understand me. It's a difficult thing to communicate, but it's very, very important. If I were to ask you, what is the first thing that pops into your mind when you hear the word holy? It would probably be sinlessness, moral perfection. There's no shadow or there's no variation in God. He is morally perfect. Well, then let me ask you this question. When I say the word righteous, what pops into your mind? Well, sinless. Well, there's a problem there. In the word holy is found the sinlessness of God and the moral purity of God. But holiness means so much more than that. And if you don't understand the first part, you can't understand the second part. Above every other thing, holiness means that God is distinct. He is unique. He is separated unto Himself. He is not common or vulgar or profane. He is unique. Sacred. Sacred. Sacred. That there is no one like the Lord in absolutely everything. You must understand this. And someone asked me one time when I was speaking about this, a student raised his hand and said, well, then how come every time the word holiness is mentioned just about it, it also talks about His sinlessness? And I said, well, when you're dealing in the context of a corrupt, fallen world, if you were to say God was distinct, what would be the first thing that would come up? He is not sinful like everyone else. But it means much more than just He is without sin. It means that He is transcendent, that He is above absolutely everything and separated from absolutely everything. And this idea of holiness is manifested in every one of the attributes of God. Now, how is that? Well, let's just look for a moment. The triune nature of God is an expression of His holiness. Well, how is that? Well, what other, what creature in heaven or on earth or under the earth is such a being so marvelous and mysterious, infinitely beyond our comprehension? Is there anyone like Him in His being? Of course, there is not. We go on that God is spirit, is an expression of His holiness. Is there any creature as free and boundless as God? Of course, there's not. He's holy. Then we go on to His perfection. It's an expression of His holiness. In what way? Is there any creature so flawless, so perfect as God? No, He is distinct. He is in a complete other category. We go on. His eternity, His self-existence, His immutability, His omnipotence, His omnipresence, His omniscience, His righteousness. All of those things are expressions of His holiness. There is none like the Lord. Now, I need to say something. The distinction between God and His creation is very, very important for us to understand. And I always use this illustration. It's a bit crude, but it works. I'm going to give you two creatures to think about. And I want you to tell me which one of those creatures is more like God. The great seraphim, standing in the presence of God, crying out, Holy, holy, holy. Or the tiny, single-celled creature floating around in your bathtub. Which one is more like God? The answer is neither. That glorious archangel in heaven, whose glory is so great that it would explode our minds and our hearts if we caught just a glimpse of Him, is no closer to being like God than the smallest microbe on the face of the earth. No one is like the God of Scripture. And this is something that we must understand. It is not a quantitative difference. God is not like us, just bigger and better. It is a qualitative difference. He is not like us at all. And it is in this knowledge that such things as the fear of God, we are dealing with someone. You think Mount Sinai was marked off when we're talking about the person of God? We are talking about, as one old Jewish theologian used to say, the otherness. He is completely, completely other. And we see this. I want to just read to you a few verses. And this will be on CD and things, so don't have to spend all your time writing. But in Exodus 15-11, Who is like you among the gods, O Lord? Now, gods here refers, of course, to the idols and the vanities of the nations. But to them, these gods were the greatest. They were inconceivable in their power and in their might and their majesty. And there was all sorts of rituals that one had to go through in order to draw near to these gods. And the Bible says that the God of Scripture, that none of these before Him, they are all reduced to vanity and nothing. And then it goes on in 1 Samuel 2-2, There is no one holy like the Lord. Indeed, there is no one besides You. Nor is there any rock like our God. Now, I put this in here because it's very, very important. I want to throw something in here to show you that this is more than just an intellectual endeavor. When our worlds are falling apart and we look around us at the strongest creatures that are, we know we cannot put our trust in them. And if that is all we had, we would be a miserable lot. But we have One who has us, who is nothing like everything we know. He's so far exceeded. You see, that is why, if you see me one day in an ash heap, cutting the crust off my body with a broken cup, don't come and tell me ten ways to feel better about myself. Tell me about God. Tell me about a rock that is higher than I. Tell me about the One whose name is a strong tower and the righteous can run in there and be safe. That's what I want to know. And that is why, for those of you young men who may be studying in the ministry, I want to tell you something. All these little things that you're taught to fix mankind are not strong enough medicine. You must know God and learn to pray. Now, go on and he says in Isaiah 40, 25, To whom then will you liken me? That I would be his equal, says the Holy One. I'm always afraid whenever I hear someone say, Well, God is like... You know, all the heresy during the patristic period in the church, all the heresy about the Trinity, either came from those who denied the Trinity or those who tried to explain it. It's the same way when we talk about the doctrines of God. Well, God is like this. No, He's not. You use that language and immediately I can say, No, He's not. Now, you can say in a limited, humanly speaking sort of way, God reveals Himself as a Father. But there is no Father like this Father. And that needs to be clearly marked out. Because some fathers are horrid. And that God is a governor. Well, yeah. What do you mean? He's like the ones we know on earth. No, in Him there is no injustice. No bribe. So when we say God is like something, we need to be very, very careful. Now, I want to go to another passage that is extremely, extremely important to me. And I love this passage. It's in Exodus 3.14. And what is the scenario? What is the context? Moses is being sent by God to deliver Israel. And Moses says, Well, what if they ask me who you are? What do I tell them? He said, You tell them I am who I am. This is one of the most marvelous statements in the Bible. Of course, it would have to be it came from God. But it is a marvelous statement. Let's say for a moment that, and I've used this illustration, it's kind of whimsical, but it works. Let's say for a moment that a Martian were to come down to Metropolis, Illinois. I understand that there are many already here. If a Martian were to come down, having never seen another human being, and said to me, Who are you? Well, I would say, I am like him. And I am like her. And I am like them. And I could point to over six billion illustrations of what I'm about. You want to know who I am? Well, just look around. There's a lot of us. And in the good and bad and all of them, you're going to get a glimpse of something that I am or I am not. Moses asked God, Who are you? God could not point outside of Himself and say, I am like him. Or I am like her. Or I am like that. He says, I am who I am. And that is God's answer. At least until 2,000 years ago, when someone asked God, Who are you? And He pointed down to a carpenter in Nazareth. He said, I'm like him. There is no one like the Lord. And you see, this is just in times of trial or when you're a man as weak as I am. And you're constantly needy. And you're constantly having to draw strength. When the smallest trial that wouldn't bother anyone else bowls you over, you need a God like this. You must have a God like this. He's not like anyone else. Isaiah, In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. And above Him stood the seraph, and each one having six wings. With two they covered their face. With two they covered their feet. And with two they did fly. And one cried unto the other, Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory. And the post of the door moved. It was the voice of Him who cried. And the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me, for I am undone. For I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips. Oh, praise His name. Why praise His name? I'll tell you why. Because that King sitting on that throne is not like the King Uzziah who died. This one doesn't die. And to His people, that is a great hope. And to His enemies, that is a terror, because there is no changing of the guard. You don't like this political regime? Well, wait around. There will be another to take its place. But not in heaven, where the real King, He is also not like the seraphim, who can only approach His presence with their heads bowed and their faces cut. I do not think that it would in any way bring down the glory of God to suggest that these creatures... First of all, I believe that they're the strongest, most holy creatures that have ever been made. And why do I believe that? Because of their proximity to God. I also believe that, as I have always said, a man must be supernaturally strengthened to come into the presence of God, else that presence and the beauty and glory of God make him mad. I would believe that if one of those creatures were to manifest themselves in our small auditorium here tonight, it would make us mad. Not just the fear of the thing, the glory of the thing. The beauty of the thing would be too much for our minds to comprehend. And yet, this thing is a thing in the presence of God. This thing only breathes if angels breathe. It only breathes, it only lives because of the One who ordained it to happen and makes it happen. There is no one like this God. And what is so amazing is having redeemed us from the pit, this God did not entrust us to a sitter, a highly qualified sitter. He entrusted us to no one. Think about that. He entrusted us to no one but Himself in the Father's hand. And from there, no one can take us. I would imagine that all the hordes of hell, all the demons and the devil himself, if they were to mass together, could put up quite a fight against even the mightiest seraphim in the presence of God. But before God, the nations are not a drop in the bucket. And this is the One who holds you. It can almost make you walk out the door and throw it open and dare, dare enemies to come for you because you are held in the hand of the One who holds it all. What a wonderful, wonderful truth. And what I'm trying to get across is this. Not only many people who are not given to theology stay away from it because they believe it's intellectual nonsense or not practical. And then many who are given to theology make it not practical with their teaching and their pride. What I want you to see is that the deeper you go, the more practical it gets. The more it is for you. Don't give me ten ways. Give me God. Don't give me self-help. Give me God. Don't tell me how to increase the size of a church. Teach me how to preach about God. Now, we go on. There's just so much, isn't there? Now, I want to touch on something that's very, very important to me in that something that's been working in my life. The first time I heard it, I heard it probably three years ago. And a dear brother, he just said it in a sermon. And have you ever had something that just stuck to you like it was nailed to you? And the Lord will not allow it to go. It is one word. Reality. What does it matter? All this. At least in my own life. If I can speak forth truth as though it were born with me and would die with me. What does it matter if I can grasp these things with my mind if they do not become living realities? Living realities in my life. And my dear friend, that is where many of us drop the ball. It is where many of us drop the ball. I want us to be so careful. Christianity is not about doctrine. Christianity is not about truth. Propositional truth. They are not the end of all. It is the person of God. Now, I would in no way suggest nor believe, nor should you think I believe, that theology and truth and propositional truth and all this is not important. It is extremely important because the Bible reveals to us God in a spoken language, in words, using reason and logic. But, just because you have all these things and can deliver them from a pulpit or this and that, does not mean you are doing the Christian thing. And it does not mean you have really grasped knowledge. Knowledge, like medicine, is swallowed down and gets into the bloodstream and changes your life. Changes your life. So I want us to look at some things about reality. How should we respond to these things? How should we respond to the fact that God is holy? Holy in the sense that He is completely separate. How should we respond? First of all, in Exodus 20, verse 3, you shall have no other gods before me. You say, well, Brother Paul, that was a good, simple start. Now let's go on to something a little bit more profound. No, let's wait here for a moment. Because I've not made it over this hurdle yet. I remember a few years ago, I liked to dabble in making furniture and I got into making bows. And I got wooden bows, archery. And I remember that I went to England and I was preaching and I bought a bow there, an English longbow, just like Robin Hood. And I came back and I was sitting in a cane, a bunch of cane, hopefully going to still to stalk a deer. And I was sitting in that cane waiting in the morning and I was admiring how the sun had just come up and broke over the wood. And it was coming through the cane and it was just a beautiful lemonwood bow and they had made different types of wood in there and how it was shining and I was turning it and it was so beautiful. And no, I did not hear the voice of God. Maybe it was my own, but if it was, it was a good one. It said this, Paul, behold your God, that although regenerate in my heart, although given to the things of God, although in some ways and similances serving Him, this thing had come to occupy my thoughts. Sun breaking through the wood, rushing through the cane and I look at a stick, I should have fallen on my face and worshiped God. We, although those who are regenerate, you are still struggling in sanctification and beware, I really don't know what to call it, but there is something still in us that has this amazing capacity to twist almost anything into a God. And I love the people, when we were young, I used to have a friend of mine and he would always write letters and stuff and we used to laugh at his letters because the whole letter, we were like 21, 22 in college, just all become Christians. He'd write a letter, be 10 pages long about this girl that he just met and how wonderful she was and then at the end, you know, keep God first. And we used to tell him, hey, this is not keeping God first when she has 10 pages and God has a PS. And then I began to study the Bible and I realized that the whole idea of even God being first is that God's not to be first, as though there could be something second and third competing with Him. He's everything. It's not like you have the Kingdom of Heaven here and then you have your secular world over here and they're competing with one another. If you're a Christian, you're in the Kingdom of Heaven and everything that does not fit in there does not fit, should be thrown out like a man who plucks out his right eye and casts it from him, cuts off his right arm and casts it from him. Another thing, and this is so very, very special. A dear brother in Zambia shared this with me. Not all the verses. I had to look them up myself, but the five. And I just never... He looked at me and very, very polished people. They're not like a hillbilly like me. And he said, Paul, he goes through the full tenor of all the Scripture, through everything in Scripture, we see this one theme marching through Scripture. God says, they will be my people and I will be their God. He says it starts in Exodus and it goes all the way through the book and to the end. And that is the desire of God's heart. And I just want you to look. I'm just going to read off some verses to you. They're in kind of an order that will give them some logic. But listen to this. First of all, in Exodus he says, I will dwell among the sons of Israel and will be their God. That's what he desires to be. I will be their God. Judges, they did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. Verse 3, chapter 7. Verse 3, chapter 7. Again, they forgot the Lord their God. 1 Kings 9, 9 They forsook the Lord their God. 2 Kings 17, 9 They did things secretly which were not right against the Lord their God. They did not listen to the Lord their God. 2 Kings 17, 14 They stiffened their neck and did not believe in the Lord their God. 2 Kings 17, 14 They forsook all the commandments of the Lord their God. 2 Kings 17, 16 They did not obey the voice of the Lord their God. 2 Kings 18, 12 They forsook the covenant of the Lord their God and bowed down to other gods and served them. Jeremiah 22, 9 Do you see? He desires to be your God and desires you to be His people. And He will not, He cannot because of love's sake, He cannot share you. He will not share you. If He has to tear forth the very pillars of the earth, He will do it to have you only for Himself. It is His desire. It's an amazing thing. It's as though, I mean, I know about, you know, God being sovereign and God being all powerful and not being dependent upon men, but I want you to think about something for a moment. It's like God stands there before Israel and before you and before me and says almost with a face of just joy, Hey, hey, listen. I will be your God and you will be my people. And we respond by going, and what else do we get? And what else do we get? What else? That's an indication of what was offered is simply not enough. And if it's simply not enough, this God, the great possibility is that your heart is not regenerated and you can't see Him as He is. He desires. But not only does He desire, if I stopped there, I'd be a heretic. He does not only desire. Let me tell you what He's done. He went down to Egypt and He got for Himself a people. Well, get this. According to all the things I'm reading in the New Covenant, He went and made Himself a people. Supernaturally. This is what it says, Jeremiah 24, 7, I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the Lord and they will be My people and I will be their God. Jeremiah 31, 33, I will put My laws within them and on their heart I will write it and I will be their God and they shall be My people. Ezekiel 11, 19-20, and I will give them one heart and I will put a new spirit within them and I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh that they may walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them. Then they will be My people and I shall be their God. You see, God's not saying I've got to fix them so that they'll like Me, as though there was some deficiency in Him. The problem is this, man's heart is evil and only loves evil. And when man's evil heart sees a holy, beautiful God, man can only hate Him. So before God can get Himself a people, He has to change their heart. And that's what He's done. And He goes on in this passage I love so much. It's in Ezekiel 37, 23. They will no longer defile themselves with their idols. You see, there's hope. He says, I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and all your idols. You're a Christian, but you mourn sometimes about how much you lack. You mourn about the idols that have your heart. Well, listen to what He says. They will no longer defile themselves with their idols. This is sanctification. Or with their detestable things. Let me tell you something. If it is just .00001 degree outside of God's will, it's a detestable thing. He goes, or with any of their transgressions. Why? They were carried. They were carried by His Son. But I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned. Those places that you build so far away from God. Hiding from Him. And He says this, and I will cleanse them and they will be My people and I will be their God. And then Ezekiel 37, 27, My dwelling place also will be with them and I will be their God and they will be My people. And you say, but Lord, that's Ezekiel. So much time has passed that you will dwell with them. Is it a promise that can be true? Go to the book of Revelation. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth passed away and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride, adorned for a husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men and He will dwell among them and they shall be His people. And God Himself will be among them and He will wipe away every tear from their eye and there will no longer be any death. It doesn't matter how long the promise takes. It's going to happen. And it is happening because the darkness is passing away in your life if you are a Christian and the true light is shining. That more and more of those idols are being torn away and God is making you. And that leads me to something else. You can be a rule keeping dot every i cross every t Pharisee and be so far away from holiness you can't spell the word. Holiness is not just following biblical principles. It is a passionate desire to run to God and receive His income. That is holiness. Above everything else, that is holiness. And we're going to see that in just a moment. Now, another thing that we need to look at and what this means. First of all, I said that you have no other God before Him. Secondly, that we would be His people and He would be our God. And the other would be to love Him. To love Him. Such a seemingly despised verse. You know, there's a problem when you almost make verses into Sunday school verses for Sunday school children and you relegate them to, I understand that. And when you do that, it's like taking a book you've once read and sticking it up in your library never to pull it out again. In fact, the matter is, if there's anything in the Bible you don't understand, it's this. What does it mean to be holy? To love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, your soul, your mind, and your strength. That's what it means to be holy. My dear friend, separation is not for separation's sake. And that's a problem with people who take holiness seriously. They're thinking all the time about the things from which they have separated themselves. I don't do this. I don't do that. I'm not like the contemporary Christian. I'm not like all these people. I'm not like the TV evangelist. I don't do this. I don't do that. I'm holy. No, you're not. You might be close to halfway there, but you're not holy. Because separation is not an end in itself. We only separate from the things of the world so that we can separate unto God, so that we can draw near to Him. If there is no divine passion, if there is no love, if there's no beating of the heart, if there's no desire... My dear friend, my two little boys, I love them so much, and both of them, when they were learning to walk, you know, they would pull themselves up, you know, and grab a hold of a chair or a wall or a door and just think themselves quite the man. And then they would see Dad and they would reach out. And Dad would always be a little bit farther than their reach so that they would walk. But now they come to their first great moral dilemma. I want Dad, but I can't have Dad and this. So what's involved? Risk. I have to separate from this to separate unto Dad. My dear friend, they did not let go of the chair just because they wanted to let go of the chair. They let go of the chair because they wanted Dad. And Dad wanted them. It is to love the Lord, your God, to be passionate about Him, to be passionate about His glory. And again, you're saying, Brother Paul, I know all this, but you're heaping condemnation upon me. I know this. What can I do? What can you do? Seek to know Him. Study His attributes. Study how He's revealed Himself. Pray and pray that those attributes, when they're revealed, are much more than just statistics, but that they become reality. The more you know Him, the more you love Him. The more you know Him, the more zeal you have. The more beauty you see, the more you want. The more you want. Now, I want to say something, another thing that needs to be a response, and it is this. Reverence before God, but brought about by His otherness. Fear of the Lord, generated by the otherness of God. Now, what do I mean by that? Again, I try to be proper, but it just doesn't work for me. Again, just another silly illustration that might help you understand something about why we fear the Lord. Sometimes I get up and go deer hunting very, very early in the morning, and it's dark out there. And sometimes I get the willies walking across a cornfield or something. I get kind of spooked. You keep kind of looking behind you. And let's just imagine for a moment that I've got a choice. I can meet out there in the pitch dark in the middle of that cornfield a man seven feet tall that weighs 400 pounds of pure muscle who wants nothing more than to tear my head off. Or, I can come into contact out in that morning, in those wee hours in the dark, with a Martian. Now, I don't know about you. I'm going to choose the seven foot tall guy. And you say, well, Brother Paul, why? That doesn't make much sense. I mean, after all, Martians are only about three feet tall. And they don't weigh 30 pounds sopping wet. I mean, I don't know if there's a bone inside that jelly looking thing. I mean, why am I afraid? That seven foot tall man is much bigger than me, but he is me. He is a man. I know what he is. I know something of what he can do. I can comprehend him. I can grasp him. I know something about him. One of the elements to the fear of the Lord is this. I am dealing with someone who is not like me. And not like anything or anyone. And in that, it is like literally walking over if you could do such a thing, to the very edge of the universe and teeter-tottering there on the balls of your feet. It's like all of a sudden you're walking and then in one split fraction of a second all the universe is opened up towards you and you just... That's only a fraction of what it means to be encountered. We have tried to make God so familiar. We have tried... There were songs that tried to make Him human. Even a song, a secular song a few years ago that said that they literally wished God was more like us. Oh, my dear friend, I want and it instills in me reverence and fear to know that there is a God that I can know, but goes so far beyond what I can know. Now, let me get to a point of not like us. It's a fearful thing, but at the same time, like all things with God, it's a comforting thing. What is this? I'm sick. I know the doctor's power, but he's not like a doctor. God, He goes far beyond it. I know the strength of men and those who care for me, who would even give their life for me, but even their strength reaches a limit and they cannot help me. But there is one out there that's not like that. And this one. This is when I teach on the love of God is the point I try to get to people, communicate to people more than anything. Why is it so hard for us to grasp the love of God? Because no one loves like God loves. We've never seen an example, a human example that would even come close to say that God's love is like a mother's love or a mother's love is like God's love. I want to tell you, if you ever do that, it's blasphemy. There is no love. As a matter of fact, one time with a lot of my Pentecostal friends, I'll really just have a really good time with really good fellowship and sometimes they'll talk about faith and everything and I'll say, you say that raising the dead is a big thing of faith. That's nothing for a Baptist. I mean, as a Baptist preacher, I have to do that every Sunday morning. You want to know what really requires great faith. The greatest act of faith on the face of the earth that has ever been exercised by any man. And they say, well, yeah, what is it? For me to see myself as I am in the mirror of God's Word and to still believe that God loves me as He says He does. You say, well, a lot of people have let me down. He won't. Well, you know, you talk about God as a Father, but my father was horrendous. He's not. Oh, there's no one like our God. And when you take a survey of what we are, we praise God. He is not like us. Now, I want to go to a few other things and Brother Charles Leiter is probably laughing back there because I'm actually using notes. It's getting me all confused. Here is the one thing. What does it mean? How do we respond to the holiness of God? When we say that God is separate. Now, I want you to realize this truth here because this is above them all. When we're saying He's separate, we are saying He is of infinite worth. Do you understand what I'm saying? This is the biggest part of holiness. When we're saying God's holy, we're saying He's separate. Not just that He's different, but He is of infinite worth. It cannot be calculated. There is nothing as worthy as God. There is nothing that has the value. No comparison. And what does it mean to set aside God as holy in your heart? It means to recognize something of that worth and live according to it. And how can we say that we don't have idols, but more importantly, how can we say that we recognize that God's worth is an infinite worth above all other worths when it is a treasure we so little seek to know and to embrace? Again, we go back to idolatry. How quickly my ability... I don't need to look outside for another illustration. How quick is my ability to just... I'll do this. I will come down out of preaching something like this. I will come down and walk around and start talking to people and get distracted to the point where I'm not thinking about this anymore. He is of infinite worth. It cannot be calculated. You take everything that is. You take rivers and streams and oceans and mountains and mole hills and stars and suns and specks of dust and cattle on a thousand hills and all the money that exists on the face of the earth, all the coins, all the gold, all of humanity, everything that breathes and does not breathe, everything that was and now is not, everything that will be, and you put it on a balance and that is why the Puritans and the old writers would speak about sin as insanity. I forget which... I think he's a mystic. 15th, 16th century, I forget. But I used to have it written on my computer and I can't see it right now, but I wrote the thing on my computer and it said this. Any conversation where Jesus Christ is not the principal theme is absurd. Is absurd. If He truly is of infinite worth, if we separate Him as such, and we acknowledge that and live accordingly. Now, I want to just give us... I have 45 seconds. I want to give us something. Another thing that we must see in it is this. This is the beginning of all prayer. This is the beginning of all prayer. And I can prove it. They came to Jesus and said, teach us to pray. He said, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Your name. In my prayer journal now and on my prayer sheet that I carry with me, the first thing there, because my heart is so wayward, is seek ye first the kingdom. And then after that, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done. That is the only reason you're giving breath, is to pray that. It is to pray that. And what are we saying? It embarks evangelism, missions, life, sanctification, absolutely everything. It is all about one thing. And what is that one thing? That all of creation consider God's name to be hallowed. And what does that mean? It means this, that all of creation, including ourselves, recognize the infinite worth of God's name, of His being, and set it apart as sacred. And set ourselves apart as belonging to Him. What is sanctification? Sanctification? It is simply growing in a recognition of the worth of God, the infinite worth of God, and responding to that knowledge. What is missions? Why do we do missions? Have you ever read in HeartCry that we put that His name might be great among the nations? That's the same thing being said here. And what is that? Our greatest desire is not the salvation of the lost. Our greatest desire. I ask missionaries this all the time when I'm interviewing missionaries or teaching missionaries. I'll say this. Have you ever spent a night where you could not sleep because you're so burdened over the lostness of a certain people group or a tribe or maybe your community? And they said, yeah. I said, that's good. Let me ask you another question. Have you ever spent a sleepless night because you knew there were places on the face of this earth where men were not honoring God as He ought to be honored? It's the difference between humanistic missions and God-centered missions. Now, God desires that men be saved much more than we could even imagine. But my dear friend, this is all about God. It is all about His glory. And all about men esteeming the worth of God because we see a world around us that esteems nothing. But that can change. It can. What makes you think it cannot? Like Spurgeon told the young man who wasn't seeing many results when he preached, well, you don't expect people to get saved every time you preach, do you? He said, well, no, I guess not. Why are we so negative? Why do we believe? For I also pray with Habakkuk 2.14. The glory of God's water covers the sea. Do you ever realize that there's no distinction between water and sea? And what he's saying, he's praying for a day when there will be no distinction between earth and the glory of God. Every aspect of the earth will be about the water. Now, we are going to pray and then I want to ask Darren just to come up. Father, Father, I praise You and I worship You and I adore You and I magnify Your name. And Father, You're so good and You're so kind and You're so loving and Your mercies are new every morning and You choose to use the vial and the base and the things that are not to confound the things that are. Oh God, I praise You and I adore You and I ask You, Lord, that You would grant us the grace to grow in the knowledge of Your holiness. And I ask this in Jesus' name. What a bold name! What a strong name! I ask it in His name for His glory, for His sake.