{"id":10560,"date":"2022-05-19T09:55:25","date_gmt":"2022-05-19T13:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/?post_type=message&p=10560"},"modified":"2022-05-19T09:55:26","modified_gmt":"2022-05-19T13:55:26","slug":"holy-holy-holy","status":"publish","type":"message","link":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/message\/holy-holy-holy","title":{"rendered":"Holy, Holy, Holy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Below is an automated transcript of this message<\/h3>\n\n\n\n Good <\/i><\/span>morning, church! We’re continuing our series today entitled, \u201cHymns, Singing Praises to our God.\u201d Our theme verse for this series is found in Psalm 40:3. It reads like this, \u201cHe has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see what he has done and be amazed. They will put their trust in the Lord.\u201d Over the past few weeks, we’ve been going through different classic hymns. We’ve looked at \u201cAmazing Grace,\u201d \u201cHow Great Thou Art\u201d and \u201cBlessed Assurance.\u201d This morning, we’re going to consider the hymn, \u201cHoly, Holy, Holy;\u201d not so much the song, but the topic. We are going to look at the scripture for that hymn and see what the scripture reveals to us.

\nAs we look at this hymn , the lyrics were written by a British pastor and poet named Reginald Weber. Weber was born in Cheshire, England in 1783. He was a preacher’s kid and later succeeded his father in his father’s church. Later, as he approached his forties, he felt called to <\/i><\/span> missions and in 1822 he was appointed to the mission field of India. While he was in India one day preaching in a small village on a very hot day, he became overcome with heat and, seeking to cool himself down in a pool of water, actually experienced a stroke and passed away in 1826.

\nThereafter, in that same year, his widow discovered in the trunk of his belongings, fifty-seven hymns that Weber had written. Among those fifty-seven hymns was the hymn, \u201cHoly, Holy Holy.\u201d She had the hymn published and later had the tune added to the hymn to make it the hymn that we know today. The hymn is unique in both its theme and in its stately tune. The theme invites us to join in the heavenly praise that perpetually takes place in the heavens and throughout the millennia, to join with the seraphim,the cherubim and the angelic host in heaven.

\nAs you look at the lyrics to this hymn, , there’s no cheap emotionalism or sentimentality. It is magnificent and stately in its theme and it draws us up to <\/i><\/span> heaven.

\nNeither is the tune what you’d call just an ordinary tune. Written by John Bacchus Dykes and is called \u201cNicaea.\u201d Nicaea has a unique elegance and magnificence, which in turn complements Heber\u2019s stately language. But perhaps what makes this hymn most unique and memorable is its repetition of the phrase, \u201cHoly, holy, holy,\u201d at the beginning of all four verses, praising God for His holiness.

\nNow, if someone calls you \u201choly,\u201d do you take that as a compliment? We tend to be concerned if somebody says we are \u201choly.\u201d Often, we think that the person is calling us \u201cholier than thou\u201d or a \u201choly roller\u201d if we get too excited about worship. We often think of \u201choly\u201d in a negative light. We think of it as being some sort of this perfectionism or sinlessness. We really don’t understand the word, \u201choly,\u201d but when we look at the scripture, in <\/i><\/span> fact, before we even open the book, it says \u201cHoly Bible,\u201d right at the top.

\nWhen we start reading the bible, we start seeing that the bible says that God is holy. He, then, calls us as believers that we are to be holy and we don’t even understand the word. What does this word, \u201choly,\u201d mean? What does it mean to say that God is holy and that we are to be holy too.

\nI would say this about this phrase, \u201cHoly, Holy, Holy;\u201d as you look at the scripture, there’s no place in scripture where it says, \u201cGod is love, love, love.\u201d You can find that God is love, but it\u2019s \u2018God is love.\u201d \u201cGod is peace.\u2019 There’s only one place that it repeats three times; it’s in the book of Isaiah and then again in the New Testament in the book of Revelation.

\n\u201cHoly, Holy Holy; there’s something about this description that seems to describe all that God is together. This is what Dr <\/i><\/span> Harold Wilmington says, \u201cGod\u2019s holiness is a single perfection that would perhaps come closer to describing the eternal Creator than any characteristic He possesses. It is the union of all other attributes, as pure white light is the union of all the colored rays of the spectrum.\u201d To say that God is holy, is to say something about Him that’s unique to Him.

\nIn Isaiah 6, we see that the Lord gave Isaiah a revelation of His holiness. He saw God in His holy estate and in His holiness. I believe today that God wants to reveal His holiness to us as we consider this. I think that we can understand God’s holiness by looking at the four insights that we will find in our scripture today; for insights into what it means to have God in His holiness revealed to us.

\nLet’s look at the text today. Isaiah 6:1-8 (ESV) 1 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train ofhis <\/i><\/span> robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said: \u201cHoly, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!\u201d 4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said: \u201cWoe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!\u201d 6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth and said: \u201cBehold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.\u201d 8 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, \u201cWhom shall I send, and who will go\nfor <\/i><\/span> us?\u201d Then I said, \u201cHere I am! Send me. This is God’s word. Amen! \nFour insights into God\u2019s holiness:\n1. His holiness reveals our separation.

\nThese first four verses are amazing in their grandeur and in their majesty. Isaiah tells us this, \u201cI saw the Lord;\u201d we see some details here. We don’t see all the details that he could have seen, perhaps, but we do see this much: 1 \u201cIn the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim.\u201d

\nSeraphim, in the Hebrew, is the idea of a fiery something; a fiery angelic being. They had six wings. He actually saw the seraphim more clearly than he did the Lord. He saw aspects of the Lord, but he didn’t see Him fully. He could see that he was seated on the throne. He could see He was high and lifted <\/i><\/span> up. But, beyond that, there’s no recording of any further revelation of seeing Him.

\nIn John 1, we read that no one has seen God at any time, but the Son has made Him known. Jesus has made Him known. If you want to see a full revelation of God, you have to look to Jesus for that. He saw a partial revelation here, but beyond what he saw is what he heard.

\n 3 \u201cAnd one called to another and said: \u201cHoly, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!\u201d He heard, \u201cHoly, holy, holy.\u201d He heard the seraphim calling this out, singing this as if it had gone on since eternity past. Why is \u201choly, holy, holy\u201d repeated three times? In Hebrew, it’s pronounced, \u201cq\u0101\u1e0f\u00f4\u0161.\u201d Why is it repeated three times?

\nAs we learned, as we were studying Zachariah a few weeks ago, in the Hebrew language, if they wanted to intensify the meaning of the word, they would repeat it. Instead of saying, \u201cmore holy ,\u201d <\/i><\/span> they would say, \u201choly, holy, holy\u201d and instead of saying the most holy, they would say, \u201choly, holy, holy\u201d to intensify its meaning, showing that God is the most holy of all.

\nWhen my daughter was first becoming a teenager, we had this pattern that we had followed throughout her childhood. When it was bedtime, we would have this little game where I would say, \u201cI love you\u201d and she’d say, \u201cI love you more.\u201d Then I’d say, \u201cI love you the most.\u201d She would go running to bed and try to get under the covers before she would say, \u201cI love you infinity!\u201d Well, how do you top that one?

\nThat’s what the seraphim were saying; He is \u201choly to infinity.\u201d He’s the most holy. There is no one like Him. That’s what the word, \u201choly,\u201d really points to. It’s not just His sinlessness and His moral perfection, which is certainly in view, but it’s His \u201cotherness.\u201d In <\/i><\/span> fact, many theologians refer to God as the \u201cwholly Other.\u201d Now, that sounds like the same word, but it’s not. It’s spelled \u201cwholly,\u201d as in completely other. He’s not part of creation. He’s the creator. He is the \u201cwholly other.\u201d He is \u201ccompletely other\u201d and, unless He reveals Himself to us, we cannot know Him. There’s a vast gulf of separation between God and man. Unless He builds a bridge, we can’t approach Him. That’s what it means, when we say He is holy, is His complete otherness, His wholly otherness and his utter transcendence.

\nHenry Thiessen writes this, \u201cGod is holy means that He is absolutely separate from and exalted above all His creatures and creation, and He is entirely separate from all moral evil and sin.\u201d To say God is holy is to say He is beyond our reach unless He reaches to us.

\nR. C. Sproul says, \u201cGod alone is holy in Himself. The word holy is used as a synonym for His deity and calls attention toall <\/i><\/span>that God is. It reminds us that His love is holy love, His justice is holy justice, His mercy is holy mercy, His knowledge is holy knowledge, and His spirit is holy spirit.\u201d He is set apart. That’s what the word \u201choly\u201d means. It means \u201cto be separate, set apart. \u201c

\nAnother aspect of God’s \u201cotherness\u201d might be considered in the thrice repetition of \u201choly, holy holy\u201d in that He is the three in one. He is God in three persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

\nJohn Calvin wrote, \u201cThe ancients quoted this passage when they wished to prove that there are three persons in one essence of the Godhead\u2026. I have no doubt that the angels here describe One God in Three Persons.\u201d They quoted this verse, \u201cHoly, holy, holy\u201d as proof of the Trinity.

\nYou might take note of verse eight that we read a moment ago to further consider this proof of His Trinity. Notice the pronouns God uses when He speaks of Himself, 8 \u201cWhom shall I send, and who will go for us?\u201d Whom shall I send (singular pronoun) and who will go for us (plural pronoun) in <\/i><\/span> the same verse. This is God. He is one God, revealed to us in three Persons. This points even further to His otherness; His holiness.

\nDo you understand the Trinity? I see you shaking your head \u201cNo.\u201d I’m with you, brother. The rest of you need to be honest; you don’t understand it. It’s beyond you. The only way we know it is by revelation; it’s been revealed to us. So God has taught us that this is His nature, but it’s beyond our understanding. I could give you several ideas of how to understand it, but I have to admit to you that no one fully understands our God; He is beyond us. He is separate from us. He is holy.

\nThis passage started off somewhat strangely. We’re getting ready to step into the \u201cthrone room\u201d and he has this little intro, 1 \u201cIn the year that King Uzziah died I <\/i><\/span> saw the Lord.\u201d What was this? This is the date entry of his diary for the day, like May 15th being today. That’s how they would date things in those days, that it would be according to the birth, death and reigns of kings. They didn’t have a common calendar like we do today, 2022 years since Christ was here. We have a common calendar. Jesus interrupted history and that’s how we count the days now, but they didn’t have that then. Perhaps that’s his devotional date, but I think it’s more. I think it’s kind of like this: \u2018In the year that King Uzziah died. I saw the true king.\u2019 Uzziah was King of Judah at the age of 16 years and was considered a great king who reigned for 52 years. His death in 739 BC, would have marked the end of a time of great peace and security and the beginning of a time of great uncertainty for Judah. He didn’t finish well; we won’t go into that, but he was king <\/i><\/span> for so long that people were born, lived and died under his reign. There was a sense of peace. They had peace from Assyria, from Egypt and from the surrounding nations.

\nThis was a season where you didn’t have to worry about inflation, the price of gas, whether or not you could find baby milk or who was president. King Uzziah was on the throne. But he died. It would be like saying, \u2018In the year 2001, after 911, I saw the Lord.\u2019 It would be like saying, \u2018In the year 2020, when the whole world was struggling with Covid 19, I saw the Lord.\u2019 That seems to be more of the sense like the minute you think the world is falling apart and coming unglued, God has not left his throne. God has not stepped down. God has not stepped down from His holy throne. He is sovereign. He is the king.

\nIn the very year when things looked as bad as they could get, Isaiah said, \u201cI saw <\/i><\/span> the Lord, seated on his throne. He was high and lifted up.\u201d \u201cThe Lord\u201d is mentioned four times in this passage. In verse one and eight, \u201cthe Lord,\u201d \u201cAdonai,\u201d in the Hebrew, which means, \u201cMaster, Lord.\u201d Then, in the other two places in verse three and verse five, we see it as \u201cthe LORD,\u201d which, in the English, shows us that we have the name, \u201cYahweh,\u201d which is the covenantal name of God. Yahweh of hosts or Yahweh of heaven’s armies. We see both titles and names being used.

\n\u201cSeraphim\u201d has the idea of fiery ones; these were fiery angelic beings, strange creatures. You don’t see these flying around here. They had six wings; apparently, they only needed two of them to fly. The other four served as coverings. Alexander MacLaren categorizes them as: \u201cThe Wings of Reverence <\/i><\/span>they covered their faces before a holy God. The Wings of Humility, The less comely and inferior parts of that fiery host were veiled lest they should be seen by the Eyes that see all things. The Wings for Service, the emblem of joyous, buoyant, unhindered motion.\u201d

\nThere’s no one like Him. He is singular and distinct; we could not know Him unless He reveals Himself to us. His glory, however, is upon the earth. It says, \u201cthe whole earth is full of His glory.\u201d \n What is \u201cglory?\u201d \u201cGlory\u201d is the manifestation of God. It’s the beauty of God. We cannot see God, but we can perceive His glory. You can’t look into the sun without going blind, but you can see the spectrum of light at daylight. You can see the reflection of the sun at night from <\/i><\/span> the moon. You can see the glory of the sun, but you can’t really see the sun without going blind. No one can see God but His glorious manifest upon the earth.

\n 3 \u201cAnd one called to another and said: \u201cHoly, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!\u201d 4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.\u201d When they said, \u201cHoly, holy, holy,\u201d it says he not only saw, but he heard. He feels the foundations of the thresholds of the temple shake. Now, this is not the temple in Jerusalem, This is the temple in glory. This is the temple in the heavens. The temple shook and was filled with smoke, much as it did whenever God’s manifest presence was present in the Tabernacle in the wilderness during the time of Moses\u2019 revealing the awesome majesty of God, while still concealing him from human eyes. He saw the Lord. but not really. He experienced the Lord through his senses, but not fully. He’s the \u201cwholly other.\u201d

\nHannah wrote, when the Lord opened her womb and gave her a son named Samuel, 1 Samuel 2:2 (ESV) \u201cThere is none holy like the Lord: for there is none besidesyou <\/i><\/span>; there is no rock like our God.\u201d

\nThere’s no one like Him. There’s no one like Him. He’s \u201choly, holy, holy.\u201d He’s not \n\u201cthe man upstairs.\u201d He’s not that image that you have of some old man with a cane and a long beard. He’s the wholly other. There’s no one like Him. There’s a vast gulf of separation between man and God unless He bridges it.

\nWeber writes in his first verse, \u201cHoly, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty. Early in the morning, my song shall rise to thee. Holy, Holy, Holy, merciful and mighty. God in three Persons, blessed Trinity.\u201d He invites us, by speaking of Himself, to join with the heavenly host, singing that ever repeated phrase, \u201cHoly, holy, holy.\u201d This is the first insight; God in His holiness reveals our separation.

\nHere’s the second insight into God\u2019s holiness:\n2. His holiness exposes our sinfulness.

\nWe see, in verse five, Isaiah’s response to the revelation of <\/i><\/span> God’s holiness. Circle the word, \u201cwoa,\u201d in your text. That’s not a word that we use a lot. This is not a word that is used here to get a horse to stop. That’s not what we’re talking about here; it is not about putting the brakes on your horse. This is a different kind of word here. It’s actually a sound in Hebrew, \u201c’\u00f4y.\u201d It’s more like a guttural urge that comes up from the bottom of your soul. That’s what Isaiah had seen that had broken him. He saw the Lord in His holiness and it broke him. He says, \u201cwoe is me.\u201d In other words, it’s a phrase of lament. He said, \u201cI am lost!\u201d Or as other translations \u201cI am ruined\u201d (NIV) or even better, \u201cI am undone\u201d (KJV). God\u2019s revealed holiness exposed Isaiah\u2019s sinfulness. I really like this one, \u201cI am undone;\u201d God’s revealed holiness exposed <\/i><\/span> Isaiah’s sinfulness.

\nIsaiah says, 5 \u201cWoe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!\u201d I’m a simple man. I come from a long generation of sinful men. I’ve seen the king, the Lord of hosts. I’m undone by this. Anyone who rightly has caught a glimpse of God of the bible, the God of revelation, if you’re not undone, you can’t be redone. If you’re not undone by it, you can’t be reborn.

\nThe beginning place is to recognize that you are lost. Spurgeon says this, \u201cGod will never do anything with us till he has first of all undone us.\u201d Have you been undone by the revelation of God’s holiness? When Isaiah writes in Isaiah 64, perhaps, he’s still contemplating this vision. He says, in Isaiah 64:6 (NKJV) \u201cBut we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like <\/i><\/span>the wind, Have taken us away.\u201d The best righteousness we have is as filthy rags.

\nPeter had a similar experience. Jesus came to him as He was preaching on the shore. Peter had been up all night fishing; he’s a professional fisherman and caught nothing, but he was doing the things he could do that morning. He was cleaning his nets, sitting there on the beach, probably exhausted thinking about getting breakfast and taking a nap. Then Jesus says, \u2018Hey, can I use your boat? The crowd is pressing in and it would be a good platform to preach from.\u2019 Peter replies, \u2018Yeah, go ahead.\u2019 you know. Jesus gets on the boat. Then, He says to Peter, \u2018Hey, let’s go fishing. Push out into deep water. Let’s go fishing.\u2019 Peter’s says, \u2018Lord, I fished all night. Now look, You’re a rabbi. You probably don’t know much about fishing <\/i><\/span>. It’s the wrong time of day to fish. I didn’t catch anything all night and I’m a professional, but because You say so, okay.\u2019 They go out and they cast their nets. They’re catching nothing. Jesus says for him to cast on the other side. When he does, immediately the net becomes so full that it begins to tip the boat over like they caught a whale or something like that. When he starts pulling up, it’s full of fish. The biggest catch that this professional fisherman had ever seen. Peter calls ashore and asks James and John to bring their boat. Their boat starts sinking. When this happens, we see Peter’s response in Luke 5:8 (ESV) \u201cBut when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, \u201cDepart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.\u201d Peter caught a glimpse that this is not an ordinary man. This man is holy; this is the Lord. He calls him Lord here.

\nWhen I <\/i><\/span> was in high school, I had learned to play the guitar. I was kind of self taught. Some family members knew how to play and I’d pick up things mostly. I would drop a needle on this thing called a \u201crecord.\u201d Young people, talk to your parents about it. They’ll tell you later. I would just keep dropping the needle in the same place and figure out the little leads and stuff. When I was in high school, I would play at gatherings and parties and stuff like that. All of my high school buddies would say to me, \u201cDude, you are good.\u201d I thought, well, I’ll go to college and major in music. I tried out to be a classical guitar major; I had two auditions for placement for the grade I would be placed in and what level they would let me enter. When I tried out they said I wasn’t good enough to be placed at the freshman level. They gave me a remedial semester to catch up . <\/i><\/span> That’s pretty humbling. I went from an all star to a nobody. I was \u201cundone\u201d by that audition. I found out there were guys and gals that had greater ability than me; I just had never encountered them.

\nI used to play tennis all of the time. In fact, when I was 28 years old, I was working for a drug store corporation whose home offices were down in Florida. Every year, we’d go down there for a week-long conference. This particular year, they had a tennis competition. All of the people that worked for the company and all of the \u201cjobbers\u201d that sold to the company entered the tennis competition. I won; I came in first place. I was really proud of my tennis ability at age 28. I got a Sony Sound system as the winner; that was back when they gave you speakers this tall guys, do you remember that? I was playing tennis two or three <\/i><\/span> times a week. Then this kid started coming to our church from Barton College, his name was Anthony. He played on the Barton College tennis team. He says to me, \u201cPastor, I hear you play tennis a lot.\u201d I told him that I did. He says, \u201cWell, let’s play this coming week.\u201d I was thinking, awesome, I’m gonna beat this kid. This kid that played for the Barton College tennis team humbled me. I didn’t win a single point off this kid. I wanted to throw my racket away afterwards. I was \u201cundone\u201d by this kid’s tennis ability.

\nMax Lucado says this, \u201cYou don’t impress the officials at NASA with a paper airplane. You don’t boast about your crayon sketches with Picasso. And you don’t boast about your goodness in the presence of the Perfect.\u201d . Have you been \u201cundone\u201d yet? Have you recognized that you’re a sinner?

\nThe second verse of Weber’s hymn <\/i><\/span> goes like this: \u201cHoly, Holy, Holy, All the Saints adore thee. Casting down their golden crowns around the Glassy Sea. Cherubim and Seraphim, falling down before thee, who wert and art and evermore shall be.\u201d

\nHave you recognized your own sinfulness? It’s the beginning of knowing that you need a Savior, which leads us to the third insight.

\n3. His holiness demands our sanctification.

\nWe cannot approach a holy God because of this vast gulf of separation, because we are sinful and He is holy, unless He does something to build a bridge that makes us holy, which is what the word \u201csanctification\u201d means. It means \u201cto be made holy.\u201d His holiness demands that we must be made holy in order to approach Him. The minute that Isaiah says, \u201cI am undone,” we have verse six; one of the seraphim, one of those fiery creatures, one of these angelic beings, flew to him. Apparently the being not only has wings, but he has hands. Verse 6, \u201cThen one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. He <\/i><\/span> took it from the altar with a set of tongs. He didn’t want to put it in his hand. You don’t pick up a piece of coal with your hand! He picked it up with some tongs and came flying to Isaiah with it. I think Isaiah must have froze, because he didn’t run. The seraphim touched his lips with it. The minute that Isaiah said, \u2018I’m a sinful man. I have unclean lips. I come from a people of unclean lips. There’s nothing righteous about me. I shouldn’t be here. The minute Isaiah confesses, God sends that angelic being towards him with a fiery coal.

\nIf you think about fire, it can either purify or destroy. It’s a fiery coal. The book of Hebrews says that God is a consuming fire. What does this altar represent? I think the altar represents Christ’s atonement. We know that it’s an altar and that it’s not in Jerusalem. It’s in the heavens and the heavens are <\/i><\/span> timeless; they stand outside of time.The altar already foreshadows the cross which is the fulfillment.

\nAll of those little lambs that were offered as burnt offerings on the altar were like checks written on a future deposit. Remember when you used to be able to do that? Some of you remember what checks were; these things you wrote on a piece of paper, They have no value. Just a piece of paper. The only thing that makes them good is the bank, by faith, believes that you signed it and that you’ll actually make a deposit or have made a deposit.You used to could write a check on Friday and not have to make a deposit until Monday. You can’t do that anymore. The money is received right away. Every one of those little lambs sacrificed on the altar is like a check written on a future deposit. Jesus, when He died on the cross , <\/i><\/span> He said, \u201cIt is finished.\u201d In other words, \u201cpaid in full.\u201d The atonement is in Christ. This burnt offering, this coal, points to Christ. I think it shows that He’s the one Who sanctifies us.

\nVerse 7, \u201cAnd he touched my mouth and said: \u201cBehold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.\u201d This speaks of the doctrine of atonement. A good way to define atonement is \u201cat – one – ment. \u201c Christ’s death on the cross, received by faith as being paid for you, makes you at one with God. It justifies you. It pays for God’s judgment, so that the fire of God doesn’t burn for condemnation, but it burns for purification. It makes you holy; your sin is atoned for.

\n\u201cBehold, this has touched your lips.\u201d It makes me want <\/i><\/span> to sing another song: \u201cHe touched me. Oh, He touched me and all the joy that floods my soul. Something happened and now I know. He touched me and made me whole.\u201d

\nThe coal touched him and it didn’t kill him. It made him whole. It made him holy. The holy one was making him holy; He was sanctifying him. Quoting Leviticus 11:44, Peter reminds us that God wants us to be holy like Him. 1 Peter 1:16 (NKJV) because it is written, \u201cBe holy, for I am holy.\u201d The Lord wants us to be set apart, different from the world. He wants us to be different. He wants us to be like Him, holy and set apart for special use.

\n1 Thessalonians 4:3 (ESV) \u201cFor this is the will of God, your sanctification.\u201d God wants to make you holy. He wants to make you like Him, fit for heaven and He has a plan on how to do it because you can’t do it for yourself. You came from a people with filthy lips and you have filthy lips <\/i><\/span>. We are all sinners.

\nThat’s why Paul writes this, Romans 3:23-25 (NIV) 23 \u201cfor all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood\u2014to be received by faith.\u201d

\nNotice Weber’s third verse: \u201cHoly, Holy, Holy, Though the darkness hide thee. Though the eyes of sinful man, thy glory may not see. Only thou art holy, and there is none beside thee. Perfect in power, in love and purity.\u201d Weber gets it doesn’t he? This is a wonderful lyric. If God doesn’t reveal Himself to us through Jesus, if He doesn’t build a bridge across that great gulf of separation, He’s a Holy God, we would never be able to be right with Him. But, Jesus becomes one of us. He takes our sin, He takes our death and He takes our separation. He offers His eternal <\/i><\/span> life. He offers his righteousness; He offers His sonship. He’s the bridge andHe’s the one who sanctifies us.

\nHave you confessed your sin today? You can’t be born again without, first of all, recognizing that you’re \u201cundone,\u201d that you’re lost. The minute you confess your sin, the minute you say, \n\u2018I need a Savior,\u2019 He comes flying to you to save you through Jesus, Confession, repentance and faith go together. \nHere’s the fourth insight.

\n4. His holiness qualifies our sending.

\nNotice the word, \u201csend.\u201d It’s there two times. 8 \u201cAnd I heard the voice of the Lord saying, \u201cWhom shall I send, and who will go for us?\u201d Then I said, \u201cHere I am! Send me.\u201d He’s a sending God. His holiness qualifies our sending. In other words, I wouldn’t have the right to be up here right now because I come from a people of unclean lips and I have unclean lips unless He touches me <\/i><\/span> and qualifies me. This is how I prayed this morning, \u201cLord, just let me draw back the veil enough so that people can see how holy You are.\u201d If they see how holy You are, it will be like a mirror. They’ll see how needful they are and how simple they are apart from You. The only qualification I have is that He has saved me and sent me. As I say, week after week, \u201cI’m nobody; I’m just your paperboy. I bring the good news; I roll it up, put a rubber band around it and throw it as hard as I can to your front porch. You have to open it. You have to receive it and believe it.\u201d

\n\u201cWhom shall I send,\u201d God says this. God is so wonderful and merciful. I think, maybe, He’d been calling and Isaiah <\/i><\/span> couldn’t hear him yet, because his ears opened when his mouth did. I feel like, when that coal touched his lips, he was purified. He was atoned for. All of a sudden. he could hear the call. God qualifies whom He calls.

\nIsaiah heard; his response is beautiful because Isaiah has a part here, Then I said, \u201cHere I am! Send me.\u201d Pick me. Send me. He put his \u201cyes\u201d on the table. Did he know where God was sending him? No. Did he know what He was going to say? Not yet, but it didn’t matter. Holy God is calling and if He wants me, here I am. Send me, here I am.

\nSend me. Have you ever said that God? \u2018God, You know what you have with me. It ain’t all that it, but it doesn’t matter because God cares more about your availability than He does your ability.

\nRemember what He told his disciples when Jesus sent them out to witness. They were <\/i><\/span> probably pretty worried. Luke 12:11-12 (ESV) says this, 11 \u2026 do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, 12 for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.\u201d Yeah, but where am I going? What am I going to say? Don’t worry about it. God’s got it. Will you go? Will you obey? Here I am; my guess is on the table.

\nMoses had some trouble with God’s calling. He was 80 years old. You need to give him credit; when you get to be older you start thinking that you\u2019ve already done your due. Can I tag out and take a break? He’s 80 years old when he saw God revealed at the burning bush and we read this in Exodus 4:10-11 (ESV) 10 But Moses said to the Lord, \u201cOh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.\u201d 11 Then the Lord said to him, \u201dWho <\/i><\/span>has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?\u201d God cares more about your availability than He does your ability. He qualifies who He calls. He qualifies who He sends.

\n Weber writes in his final and fourth verse: \u201cHoly, Holy, Holy Lord, God Almighty. All thy works shall praise thy name in earth and sky and sea. Holy, Holy, Holy, merciful and mighty. God in three persons blessed trinity.\u201d

\nHow can you know if God’s holiness is being given to you, that you’re being sanctified and sent? Well, one thing about God is that He hates sin. His holiness causes Him to hate sin and love righteousness. How do you know that holiness is being given to you? It’s when you hate what God hates and love what God loves, not that you’re perfect because only God is perfect. But, when He saves you, He gives you a hunger and thirst for holiness. He qualifies those he <\/i><\/span> sends. If you’re a believer today, you are sent.

\nIn the year King Uzziah died, 739 BC, Isaiah heard the heavenly hosts singing, \u201cHoly, holy, holy, and 800 years later, the apostle John saw a vision of heaven and he heard the same refrain.. He recorded it in the book of Revelation 4. John the Revelator leaned into that same heavenly location and he saw some of those similar strange creatures. They were singing the same song that, in my opinion, they have never stopped. Revelation 4:1-7 (ESV) 1 After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, \u201cCome up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.\u201d 2 At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. 3 And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. 4 Around the throne <\/i><\/span>throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. 5 From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, 6 and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal. And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: 7 the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight.

\nEight hundred years later, John the Revelator got a vision. Revelation 4:8 (ESV) 8 \u201cAnd the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, \u201cHoly, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!\u201d

\nThose 24 elders represent in my view, the people of Israel and the people of the church. The 12 tribes and the 12 disciples represent us, the believers. We’ll take off those crowns and throw them at the feet of the Lamb, at the feet of Jesus. <\/i><\/span> We’ll join that heavenly chorus, \u201cHoly, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.\u201d

\nWhy not start practicing now? Will you recognize God’s holiness, that He is separate from us? He is high and lifted up. Will you confess your sinfulness that’s revealed when we look upon Him? Will you embrace the sanctification that comes through the atonement of Jesus? Will you answer His call when He sends?

\nLet’s pray. Lord, thank You for Your word. Lord, I pray that Your holy spirit, right now, would apply Your word to people’s hearts. Lord, if there’s someone in my hearing, whether they’re watching online, they’re watching in our service next door or in this room, I pray, right now, that You’re knocking on heart’s doors, that people are saying, \u2018I need a Savior.\u2019 Would you pray with me right where you are if that’s your heart\u2019s desire? \u2018Dear Lord Jesus, I’m a sinner. I need a Savior. I believe You died on the cross for me, that You were raised from the grave and that You <\/i><\/span> live today. Come and live in me, forgive me of my sins and make me a child of God, I want to follow You as my Lord and Savior.\u2019 If you’re praying that prayer, believing, the Lord will save you. He’s the bridge between man and God. He’s the only way. Others are here today and you’re a believer. You’ve said \u201cyes\u201d to Jesus. You believe, but you’ve yet to say, \u2018Here I am, send me.\u2019 For some reason, you’re still waiting or you’re afraid. You’re anxious. You feel that there’s something you don’t know how to do. Would you hear this word that God qualifies who He sends? He supplies those that He calls. He cares more about your availability than your ability. Right now, would you just say to the Lord, \u2018Here I am, send me.\u2019 We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The lyrics to this hymn were written by British pastor and poet, Reginald Weber. Weber was born in Cheshire, England, in 1783. He was a \u201cpreacher\u2019s kid,\u201d and later succeeded his father in the church his father once pastored. He later felt God\u2019s calling to the mission field and in 1822, at the age of 40, he was appointed to oversee the Church of England\u2019s ministries in India. While in the village of Trichinopoly on April 3, 1826, he preached to a large crowd in the hot sun, and after trying to cool off in a pool, suffered a stroke and died.<\/p>\n

It was later that same year after his death, that his widow found 57 hymns he had written among his belongings that had never been published. Among them was “Holy, Holy, Holy,\u201d which she had published along with her husband\u2019s other hymns.<\/p>\n

In Isaiah chapter six, the Lord gave the prophet a revelation of His holiness. We can understand what it means that God is holy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":10517,"template":"","tags":[2230,2710],"series":[2894],"scripture-book":[1290],"scripture-chapter":[1339],"speaker":[2007],"class_list":["post-10560","message","type-message","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-holy","tag-hymns","series-hymns-2022","scripture-book-isaiah","scripture-chapter-1339","speaker-gary-combs"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/message\/10560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/message"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/message"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/message\/10560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10560"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=10560"},{"taxonomy":"scripture-book","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/scripture-book?post=10560"},{"taxonomy":"scripture-chapter","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/scripture-chapter?post=10560"},{"taxonomy":"speaker","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/speaker?post=10560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}