The Holy One of Israel — Bryan Anthony

Give us grace to peer into this experience that the Prophet had in Isaiah 6, and give us all something of the sense of God's holiness that touched this man these hundreds and hundreds of years ago. So let's pray.

Father, we come before your throne of grace this evening feeling so poignantly that none of us are sufficient for these things. Yet you've graced us with the Holy Spirit, you've graced us with the Scriptures, you've graced us with this foundational description of your holiness that was given by a Prophet of age old.

And we ask this evening, Lord, that you would help us along with the spirit of wisdom and revelation, that you would move upon our hearts and minds, that from the fatigue of the day you would quicken us by supernatural grace to peer into these awesome passages of Scripture and to attain from you a greater glimpse of your holiness.

Lord, we recognize that this is not a shallow subject, this is not an attribute that we list off with the others and then check off as if we've got everything down pat, but that it's meant to shock our system and to shock us out of our human reasoning and to catapult us into heights of worship and obedience and awe.

So we do ask for that by the help of your spirit as we look at Isaiah 6, that you would, with the spirit that you've given each of us, quicken us to probe this text and to draw out from it life and revelation and understanding that would be helpful in Jesus' name.

Amen. I do want to draw some from, just in case you want to get these books if you don't have them, Walter Kaiser Jr. on the majesty of God in the Old Testament and The Attributes of God by A .W. Pink.

I know one of these is going to be available in the APS library soon, so you can, during prayer meetings, if you want to glean from it, you can. In the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple.

The seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings. With two He covered His face, and with two He covered His feet, and with two He flew. And one called out to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

The whole earth is full of His glory. And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of Him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I said, Woe is me, for I am ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.

For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said, Behold, this has touched your lips, and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is forgiven, or atoned for.

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here am I, send me. He said, Go and tell this people, Keep on listening, but do not perceive. Keep on looking, but do not understand.

Render the hearts of this people insensitive, their ears dull, and their eyes dim. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and return and be healed.

Then I said, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until cities are devastated and without inhabitants, houses are without people, and the land is utterly desolate. The Lord has removed men far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.

Yet there will be a tenth portion in it, and it will again be subject to burning, like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled. The holy seed is its stump. I just wanted to get through that whole chapter and just see what the Lord would draw out on the holiness of God.

The Church’s Need for the Knowledge of God

The holiness of God. We're going to spend these next weeks on the knowledge and attributes of God. As it's been recently said that probably one of the greatest weaknesses of the church, or maybe we should say, what's the word I'm looking for?

One of the greatest things missing in the church. Shortcomings or holes in the picture. Voids, that's a good word. Thank you, brother. One of the greatest voids in the church is an adequate understanding of the attributes of God as set forth in the scriptures, which is one of the reasons why some of the things we were discussing in the interview today even have a place to make their headway in the church because the saints are not acquainted with the God of the scriptures.

If we were acquainted with the God of the scriptures even on a cerebral mental level when we began to see these kinds of things an alarm would go off. And yet the cerebral mental understanding is insufficient.

A revelation is necessary as was given to the prophets and apostles by the Holy Spirit. Isaiah had this kind of remarkable encounter with God perhaps unparalleled in the whole Bible even and therefore unparalleled in history.

But we need to take it up as a pattern. Not that every man or woman in the church will have a similar experience in terms of the visible vision of God that was given but that inwardly the same reality would be formed in the hearts of all the saints by the help and work of the Holy Spirit and by what God has given us in the scriptures as we turn to Him continually day by day taking up our cross and following Him where so ever He goes.

Recovering a Living Revelation of God’s Holiness

The holiness of God. Who knows of the holiness of God in modern times? What movements in present times are carrying the sense of God's holiness to such a degree that when the church visits their conferences and convocations reads their books and drinks in their teachings we are being built up inwardly with an increasing revelation of His holiness where a sense of the fear of the Lord is increasing where sin is becoming increasingly sinful in our hearts and where God's majesty is becoming increasingly majestic where His glory is not a catchphrase that has to do something with a lively meeting but it has to do with an awe that has overtaken us because we've seen Him high and lifted up the train of His robe filling the temple and though we've been seasoned in prophetic understanding and even engaged in ministry as was Isaiah we cry out, woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips.

Stephen Charnock who wrote the great magnum opus on the existence and attributes of God which we'll be gleaning from. I didn't bring it today but you can order it at a pretty affordable price and it's highly recommended.

It's probably, I don't know, a thousand pages but it's been considered one of the great works on the attributes of God where the brother takes up from some hundreds of years ago he takes up, you know, the knowledge of God the righteousness of God the love of God the mercy of God and then he spends a good fifty to a hundred pages on each attribute that he's focusing on.

You know, you bring this need for the knowledge of the attributes of God up in the church and the majority of the saints would yawn and ho hum because we haven't seen His beauty and His majesty as Isaiah had for the prophets of old and for the apostles there was nothing more desirable than to gaze upon Him.

For the psalmists the cry of David became to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of His life that He might gaze on the beauty of the Lord and behold His majesty. We've been so congested with lesser things that we've I think one brother said we've been nibbling at the table of the world so long that we've not realized there's a feast of the knowledge of God available to us that would taste so much better and would fulfill so much deeper.

But Sharnock writes God is oftener styled holy than almighty. Forgive his somewhat archaic language. Now what is he saying? He's saying in the scriptures God is actually called holy more than He's called almighty more often and set forth by this part of His dignity more than by any other.

This is more fixed on as an epithet to His name than any other. I'll give interpretation as best as I can but we need to get a hold of this and extract the life out of what these men have said and written.

You never find it expressed His mighty name or His wise name but His great name and most of all His holy name. This is the greatest title of honor in this ladder. Doth the majesty and venerableness of His name appear.

What is he saying? What is venerableness? Worthy of honor worthy of utmost investment. That's what His venerableness represents. And His greatness. That's the that's the simplified term of majesty we hear of the majesty of the Lord also could be translated sometimes the beauty of the Lord but most simply the greatness of the Lord.

The otherness that He's not like man that you can't take the most holy man that you've known and exaggerate His personality and His attributes and say that must be what God is like. The holiest of men that you've seen are as filthy rags.

In comparison. He is totally other than holy, that's what it means His greatness. The greatest of men. The cloud of witnesses that hangs on my wall in my study they call McShane Holy McShane Robert Murray McShane.

They talked of W .C. Burns the native Chinese saints. He was the holiest man in China. Yet the greatest of these men pale in comparison to the one who sits on the throne. Any piece of holiness that they had that impressed other men was simply the piece of holiness that they had the capacity to receive of the heavenly one who was seen by the prophet in this remarkable passage of scripture.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty. He says once in Psalm 89 I have sworn by my holiness. God swears by His holiness because that is a fuller expression of Himself than anything else. Never does He say I swear by my love.

Never does He say I swear by my compassions. All of these are remarkable attributes of God. But He swears by His holiness because summed up in His holiness are His judgments. Are His compassions are His purity are His kindness.

Everything that God is, is summed up in what the seraphim cried out in this awesome passage. Holy, holy, holy. And the scholars teach us that in the Hebraic framework when you reiterate or repeat something it actually is bringing an extra exclamation mark on it so that when Jesus says truly, truly I say unto you He's not just being redundant or trying to get their attention by saying it twice.

He's saying truly with one exclamation mark. Truly with multiple exclamation marks you better hear what I'm about to say. And from the angelic expression given here is a holy with one exclamation mark.

A holy with two exclamation marks and a holy with unlimited exclamation marks. Following this is the great Hebraic expression given to the prophet. Who would understand that these seraphim are saying we cannot even give definition to His holiness.

All we can do is gasp and cry out that He's holy, holy, holy beyond measure. All of the elders they're saying Isaiah. Though you would esteem Moses. Though you would esteem David. Though you would esteem others from age old though you would esteem Abraham.

They only had a piece of His holiness and what they had was only what they had received. No flesh and blood can glory in His presence. Holy, holy, holy. The seraphim are crying out. The 24 elders are crying out angelic creatures and beings that the prophets and apostles tried to describe but couldn't even put human terminology on so that it sounds almost as foolishness to human wisdom.

And that as the theologians have said if they would swoop down and bring one of their wings into one of our gatherings we would worship them. They are the ones crying out covering their faces. Holy, holy, holy.

Holiness as the Transcendent Attribute

John Howey a great Puritan preacher in the 17th century said after quoting Psalm 30. Sing unto the Lord O you saints of His and give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness. He says this may be said to be a transcendental attribute.

You guys know the word transcendent. It's almost synonymous with holy. Transcendent means beyond us. It means undefinable. It means impossible to categorize. It means uncontainable. It means no human language in any of the languages of the earth even in Hebrew can adequately describe this one.

It's a transcendental attribute. His holiness is that as it were runs through the rest and casts luster upon them. Luster is a wonderful old Anglican word that really means splendor and filled with light and glory and beauty.

The old poet wrote before thine ever blazing throne we have no luster of our own. And John Howey this old Puritan writer is saying that God's holiness is a transcendental attribute that as it were runs through the rest of His attributes and casts luster upon them.

It is an attribute of attributes. So when you think of the love of God and you immediately think oh I know my dad was a loving dad. That must be how God is. No you might have gotten a glimmer of God's love through a believing father who was expressing kindness or through a neighbor or through a fellow brother or sister in the body.

But He is so holy and so transcendent that His kindness and His compassion and His love and every other attribute has upon it glimmering light that has been cast on the basis of His holiness before thine ever blazing throne we have no luster of our own that no flesh would glory in His presence.

I think I read today from an old preacher that a good sermon will cause people to regard the preacher but a message from the Lord will cause people to revere the King of Heaven. It's those who have been apprehended by this kind of picture.

Isaiah’s Encounter With the Holy One

Isaiah had already been prophesying for five chapters and the Lord did not appear to him and say your ministry is presumptuous and false. Now here's what you need to see. The Lord simply appeared. It didn't even require a great message from the one on the throne.

Picking apart the uncleanness of Isaiah's lips. Simply to see him high and lifted up brought Isaiah low enough to realize that though he had been giving foundational words of woe and of repentance to Judah his own lips were unclean and the people around him, their lips were unclean.

It wasn't only that Isaiah was going around using it wasn't at all, I would assume that Isaiah was going around using the ancient equivalent of profanity and using curse words and speaking curses against his neighbors.

It was that the high and lifted up one appeared to him and his transcendental holiness which is so other than anything Isaiah had ever seen caused him even to realize that though I am prophesying on the basis of the law of Moses though I am speaking a word of rightness and righteousness my own proclamation of him is as a weak interpretation of the glory of the one that I'm seeing on the throne.

I'm calling my own nation to holiness and repentance but I know barely anything of his holiness. Now that I've seen him mine eyes have seen the king and I abhor myself in dust and ashes. It wasn't a politically, religiously correct response that Isaiah was giving because ok here he is and he's holy and so I better say that my lips are unclean.

The light of God had flashed through the man's soul. He beheld the heavenly temple he saw its posts shaking at the sound of the voices of those who were crying out and at the emanation and of the expression of God's glory in that holy temple Isaiah was beholding it with human eyes and it required him to cry out.

Oh my lips my lips who is sufficient to speak of this one. And though I've felt a burden to speak and to call my own people away from their sin and though the word that I'm giving them is a thus saith the Lord and I've been giving it for five chapters now that I see him I wonder if I am even adequate to be giving these words.

I wonder with the modern age of preachers who are self-confident if they've ever once been touched with this sense. And I'm eager to see a new what is Spurgeon saying? A golden age of preachers who come to the pulpit or to the corner or to another small group of saints even like this with a feeling of total inadequacy.

That though I put in eight hours of study and preparation and prayer I still am gripped with a sense of inadequacy. Nothing I can proclaim would rightly set him forth in his splendor. I am but a weak vessel seeking to proclaim an infinite God's glory.

And if only I could get a little bit of that sprinkling of his luster upon his attributes and we could taste something of the age which is to come and see a glimpse of something of what Isaiah saw then that would be sufficient for the night to carry us on in pursuit of the knowledge of God and utterly worth it worth ten hours of preparation worth suffering if persecution should come upon the church to get one more glimpse of his precious face one more.

What does Paul say? That you might grasp the love of God. One more grasp, a little bit tighter of a grasp on a true knowledge of God. Well, Pink goes on to write the God which the vast majority of professing Christians love is looked upon very much like an indulgent old man who himself has no relish for folly but leniently winks at the indiscretions of youth.

But the word says thou hatest all workers of iniquity. And again, God is angry with the wicked every day in Psalm 7. But men refuse to believe in this God and gnash their teeth when his hatred of sin is faithfully pressed upon their attention.

No sinful man was no more likely to devise a holy God than to create the lake of fire in which he will be tormented forever and ever. What is he saying? He's saying that in his day which was many many many decades ago the common understanding of God in the church lacked a sense of his holiness and that the majority of those even who were professing the name of Christ had fashioned for themselves a God to their own liking who did not have himself a hatred of sin or a holiness that separates him from the depravity of mankind and that requires mercy or more specifically requires a bloody cross on Calvary.

It was so made God to be common to our ministry and Christian experience that a sense of his holiness has dissipated and left. And I would say that these decades and centuries after some of these men wrote we are now feeling the negative reverberations of that when all kinds of expressions of ministry so called ministry can be carried out with no priestly distinctive with no sense of the fear of the Lord where whole ministries can go decades long in preaching and teaching and doing good works with no mention of sin being made.

And maybe we might say no proclamation of the high and lifted upness of God sufficient that would draw men to their knees again to say oh what about my lips he says because God is holy the utmost reverence becomes our approaches unto him.

God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints and to be had in reverence of all about him. Then Psalm 99 exalt the Lord our God and worship at his footstool he is holy. Yes at his footstool in the lowest posture of humility prostrate before him.

Think of that is this some kind of old teaching that is irrelevant in modern times and that the modern man cannot adapt to because he has come above this kind of self-effacing humiliation of the flesh.

And so we've got to communicate God in a different way than Isaiah did. We've got to come into some kind of a definition of God that is more palatable and easier to stomach than what Isaiah is seeing here and what the psalmists were communicating here that does not bring the requirement of repentance.

It does not reveal to us the depth and darkness of sin and how deeply offended God is at sin. And so then to call people to repent before him in dust and ashes is some kind of old testament phenomenon.

And to command the saints to worship at his footstool in the lowest posture of humility prostrate before him is some kind of a works mentality that is deathly and is not life-giving like the new expressions of faith that we've been able to develop where as Dr. Brown was saying today phrases are made like God is always in a good mood and we can and we can always feel light about him.

That he's always in a good mood and there is no need to recognize what it was that was evoked in Isaiah's heart when he saw the Lord high and lifted up. When Moses would approach unto the burning bush God said put off thy shoes from off thy feet.

He is to be served with fear. In Psalm 2 of Israel his demand was I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me and before all the people I will be glorified. And then A .W. Pink writes. The more our hearts are awed by his ineffable holiness the more acceptable will be our approaches unto him.

Ineffable. Does anyone have a definition? Ineffable is indescribable. So Pink writes the more our hearts are awed by his ineffable holiness indescribable holiness the more acceptable will be our approaches unto him.

That we don't have a slapdash casual mentality when coming before the throne of grace. That we don't have a deathly fatalistic legalistic approach either. That we realize according to Hebrews 12 that we have not come to a mountain that cannot be touched.

That we've not come to Sinai but we've come to Mount Zion. But remarkable enough to that expression of grace in Hebrews 12 he ends the chapter by writing for our God is a consuming fire. That it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God in sin and in resistance toward his mercy.

So I was asked today in the interview is it contradictory then the sense of the fear of the Lord and the sense of the joy that he brings. And I said yes to the natural man. It's contradictory. This is not pragmatism or reason.

Or let's figure out how to explain God as best as we can. This is as Tozer said that the reality of God's nature is holy ground and reason must kneel reverently outside the door. There's a measure of reason and logic to the revelation of God given in the scriptures.

But it only goes so far. There comes a point where you've got to be put out at sea and say God is holy holy holy. I have not a full understanding of his mercy. I have not a full understanding of his judgments.

I have not a full understanding of why he does what he does. I am dust. And he is the one who forms the dust and breathes life into it. Holy, holy, holy. I think something of that was jolted in Isaiah's system when he saw the Lord high and lifted up where he'd been prophesying for some time to his people.

And good prophecies in total conjunction with the earlier prophets in conjunction with the the revelation of God that had been given through Moses. They weren't prophecies that were off base. But he realized that even those words were inadequate when he saw the Lord high and lifted up.

But the more our hearts are awed by his ineffable holiness the more we're willing to say with Ezekiel before the valley of dry bones Lord you know the more we'll see the resurrection life of God the more acceptable will our approaches unto him be according to A .W. Pink.

Holiness and Conformity to God

Because God is holy we should desire to be conformed to him. His command is be ye holy for I am holy. Is that remarkable? 1st Peter 1 .16 that God who reveals himself as holy and totally other than man on all counts would then turn the table and call those who have been redeemed and called by his name to be holy as he is holy.

The utter impossibility and almost foolishness of that it smacks of Paul's statements regarding the foolishness of the cross. This is foolishness Lord look at us. Look at our inadequacies. I could name off a dozen things I committed against you yesterday Lord.

And there were probably 500 things I was not even conscious of. And you've called me to be holy as you are holy. So what is the ground upon which that holiness is attained? What is the ground upon which the saints come into the reality of that?

If God is a just God and a kind God and he's not a trickster telling us to come into things that we have no access to dropping us in a maze that has no exit and saying find your way out. If God is just and true and faithful then what is the ground upon which that holiness is attained?

A .W. Pink would say to be holy as we are holy has everything to do with receiving the increasing understanding of his ineffable holiness. And the more and more we rub shoulders with his throne the more and more like him becomes the expression of our lives.

He goes on to write. We are not bidden to be omnipotent or omniscient as God is but we are to be holy. And that in all manner of deportment. That's the verse before I forget what the modern versions say there but in every area there is to be a mark of his holiness like he said we are not to become gods.

We are not to become omnipotent and omniscient. There never will be a time when in and of ourselves there's the ability to save ourselves or others. We never will gain a salvific authority. Always it will be something that we're receiving from his hand recognizing him to be the fountain of life and turning away from broken cisterns that we've been sipping from all too long though they hold no water.

Sharnock goes on to write. This is the prime way of honoring God. If I could say that there is a weakness in the church and particularly the charismatic church in our age it is the failure to honor God as God.

In fact there's that portion in Malachi that's been really striking my spirit lately where the Lord speaks if I am a father where is my honor. And on the heels now of decades of teaching regarding the father's heart so much of which has been helpful to the body of Christ especially those who had seen the Lord as some kind of tyrant who is always cracking the whip and wanting to catch his kids in some kind of sin so that he can exercise more discipline.

And those who've had a view of God like that that is some kind of a sadistic disciplinarian. The message of the father's heart has been helpful on many counts. But one of the weaknesses of it has been to emphasize a view of the warmth and tenderness of the father heart of God without emphasizing what the whole of scripture emphasizes that he's not a father meaning only a nice guy who parents us that he's a father who disciplines those he loves.

That he's a father that requires honor. And that if he's not adequately honored by those who are his children then there are consequences for that. And we see it in profound and painful examples with Adab and Abihu, Aaron's sons with Uzzah who touched the ark who was of the Levitical order and should have known better that though the Philistines who were ignorant of God had handled the ark before they did not suffer the same consequence.

But when Uzzah reached out to study the ark he perished and David was disillusioned and angry with the Lord and afraid the holiness of God is outside of our categories of comfort on every level that those who would have a religious legalistic view of God his compassions and his mercies would bust out the sides of every wall that they have placed up and vice versa.

Those who have some kind of a view of God that is not rightly honoring him in his holiness will one day be rudely awakened. I believe when the great shakings of the last days come upon us and they've not rightly pursued a knowledge of God in the scriptures that would prepare them for that time.

God’s Wrath, Goodness, and Judgment

Well listen to what he goes on saying think upon that if you would though when thinking of God as father there is no one more warm or more kind than God. His fatherhood is perfect as a matter of fact.

One scholar said I don't have it with me. But I was reading about the wrath of God early this morning and one scholar made a statement that I thought was so precious. He said the wrath of God is not the opposite or the antithesis of his goodness.

We often think of goodness and wrath or kindness and anger of God. He said the wrath of God is actually not the antithesis or the opposite of his goodness. It's the antithesis of neutrality towards sin.

In other words if God were to be neutral towards sin and not address it with judgment then he would not be God. So the opposite of God being neutral and numb toward the presence of sin in his people or in the world is his wrath.

So it's not that sometimes God is jolly and kind and then other times he flies off the handle and gives judgment. His judgment is actually the issue that is necessary for the expression of himself in the earth or he would not be God.

This is why Israel will come to the end of its own self-sufficiency during the time of Jacob's trouble in the last days. Because if God did not bring about that eschatological judgment and purge all the sinners from his people as it says in Amos 9 he would no longer be God.

If there were no hell he would no longer be God. It's not because he flies off the handle like an abusive father. It's because every judgment of God is perfectly required and perfectly necessary. Or he would no longer be God.

He goes on to write Steve Sharnock. We do not. We do not so glorify God by elevated admirations or eloquent expressions or pompous services of him. All of those attempts will fall short. He said. We primarily honor God when we aspire to a conversing with him with unstained spirits and live to him in living like him.

Isn't that awesome. He says. The greatest way that we honor God as believers is when we aspire to a conversing with him with unstained spirits and live to him in living like him. This is what happened with Isaiah at the great revelation of God.

Isaiah dared not even converse with him. Woe is me here. He was one who was hearing the voice of God and delivering the foundational message to Judah. Now his own inadequacy is brought before the light of God's throne and he moves into an organic kind of repentance.

That was the natural response to viewing a God of that great glory. So he closes by saying. Then as God alone is the source and fount of holiness let us earnestly seek holiness from him. Let our daily prayer be that he may sanctify us wholly and our whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Holiness as Separation and Divine Ownership

Walter Kaiser makes note regarding Isaiah 6 that when God is present the ground becomes holy ground. When God indwells the inner sanctum of the tabernacle it becomes the holy of holies. Even the people of God were a holy people not by moral accomplishments of their own but simply because God had chosen them and set them apart for himself.

They were holy in status but rarely if ever in character and life. Now listen to this statement. Holiness signals a line of separation and a mark of ownership, a mark of ownership that little portion of the sentence stuck out at me this afternoon when I read it.

Holiness. Holiness is not a certain hairstyle or a certain dress or a an unwillingness to ever set foot in a movie theater or some other external thing. Holiness is first separation from the spirit of this age in all of its expressions and a coming into the warmth and glow of the righteousness purity and separateness of God as God.

So holiness is the brother writes later in here the differentness of God. It affects issues pertaining to sin. But it goes deeper than issues pertaining to sin or issues of sin. Let me say it this way.

It addresses the issue of sin not just the issue of sins. If I could put it that way it hones in on the sinfulness of mankind not just the issue of certain sins committed that he's conscious of. And therefore it becomes as profane for Nadab and Abihu to perform a ceremonial sacrifice outside of the way of the Lord as if they were dancing before a golden calf.

You see what I'm saying. The distinctness of God as he is touches every aspect of human expression that issues forth to human glory. And therefore the overt and obvious sins are purged in the presence of that holiness.

But so is even a seasoned prophet like Isaiah who was not even setting his hand to strange fire like Nadab and Abihu but who still saw in the light of that glory the inadequacy of what he was setting his hands to.

Oh that preachers would tremble again. Oh that we would come before the scriptures with this sense not of a spiritual kind of cloggage that we could never gain and obtain increase from the Lord or that his holiness is not accessible to us in his grace but that it's not something that can be articulated on the basis of our wisdom and that if anything is issuing forth to our glory we have already missed it we've already lost the match we've already slipped outside of that glorious revelation that Isaiah is seeking to articulate to us.

So holiness signals a line of separation and a mark of ownership. It was a mark of ownership on Isaiah's tongue. We need desperately in the church in these days to be marked with this ownership of God.