The Goodness of God Is His Holiness

I was thinking of Isaiah 6. In Isaiah 5, Isaiah was, as a prophet, he was rebuking the people in Israel, saying, Isaiah 5 verse 8, Woe unto you if you do this, and woe to those who do this, again and again, verse 18, woe to those who do this. Throughout that chapter, he was saying woe to them, woe to them, verse 22 and onwards. And then we read in Isaiah 6, the Lord gave him a vision of heaven, and in heaven he saw the angels covering their hearts, covering their faces, covering their legs, covering themselves completely.

And out of six wings, they were covering themselves with four, and two wings they flew, which means two-thirds of their wings they were using to cover themselves, not to be seen, and only two wings to fly. And Isaiah saw, and then he stopped saying woe to the others and said in verse Isaiah 6,5, Woe is me. That's always what happens when we come into the Lord's presence, where we spontaneously become aware of how far short we ourselves have come of God's high standard.

And that is something which has come to my heart that, you know, there is a song which says, it's a very popular song, God is good all the time. And I know they used to sing that in Austin every Sunday, all the time, God is good. And it led to backsliding.

Can you imagine backsliding because you sing God is good? Yes, because that's not what they sing in heaven. What they sing in heaven is God is holy. If you understand holiness, then you understand the goodness of God.

Jesus said once to a rich young ruler who came to him, why do you call me good? Only God is good. It's true that God is the only one who's good, but our understanding of goodness is that he blesses us and gives us so many things, but that is not heaven's understanding of goodness. The only goodness that heaven understands is holiness, absolute holiness, total purity in thoughts and words and attitudes and motives.

So, if that is our understanding of God is good, then we are right. So, I told some of those people in CFC Austin, I say, what you need to, you for 14 years have been saying God is good all the time. Now you need to start saying God is holy all the time, all the time.

God is holy all the time. So that you understand what goodness really is, because that's what Isaiah saw here. Isaiah 6, 3, he heard the angels saying, holy, holy, holy.

He has a vision of heaven. They don't say good, good, good. God is good.

No, they say holy, holy, holy. And then the other vision of heaven we have in is in Revelation chapter 4, where John the apostle is given a vision of heaven. And what does he see there? I mean, Isaiah was 600 years or so before Christ and he saw now here, nearly a hundred years after Christ has risen and come and gone.

John sees a vision of heaven and Isaiah to Revelation 4, verse 8, he sees the same thing. That is 600 years later from Isaiah. He sees in heaven.

They're still saying, holy, holy, holy. Isaiah 4, verse 8. And what I want to say is, have you seen this vision of heaven where even the angels who have never sinned in their whole life, they are taken up with the awesome holiness of God. And I want to ask if we have taken up with that, are we gripped by that? It's not a very popular thing to speak about.

I know a lot of people think I'm very extreme when I keep on emphasizing purity and holiness, but I know that I will have no regret when I stand before the Lord. My understanding of God's goodness is He wants me to be completely free from all sin. How would you say a mother loves her child? A mother loves a child because she wants the child to be completely free of all sickness, anything wrong in that child.

That is how God loves us like a mother. He wants us to be completely free from everything that is His goodness. So, this is something that I thought we should be gripped by and we should live in the reality.

This is what it means to live in the presence of God all the time. And we'll be flat on our faces if we understand this. And we will be so slow to criticize others.

We'll have to stand up to point out what is wrong, but always aware of our own limitation. So, after Isaiah saw and said, woe is me, he didn't stop preaching. That is Isaiah chapter 6. And you've seen Isaiah, he goes on for another 60 chapters.

So, he's seeing his own need and say, woe is me, I'm undone, I'm a man of unclean lips. God immediately touched him and filled him with the Spirit. And he continues for 60 chapters thereafter.

So, but it was a completely different Isaiah after that, one who was aware of his own need. And that is the understanding of God's goodness that we must have, that God is holy. A mother is good because she wants her child to be absolutely free from all sickness, even external dirt.

A mother will want to wash away all dirt from a child by bathing that child regularly. That's how God is. He wants us to be free from all sin, externally, internally, in attitude, motive, everything.

And that's not something that we should be gripped once in a while, but every single day of our life, morning till night of every day. And when we pray for the fullness of the Holy Spirit, remember, there are many qualities of the Holy Spirit. He's a comforter.

He could have been called comforting spirit. He's an encourager. He could have been called encouraging spirit.

He's full of love. He could have been called loving spirit. But of all the qualities of the Holy Spirit, joyful spirit, God selected the word holy.

He's called holy spirit. Even though all those other things are true, joyful spirit, encouraging spirit, comforting spirit, everything is true. God selected the word holy.

And I feel that in Christendom, unfortunately, that is not emphasized. And that is what I believe our church is called to emphasize, the holiness of God and each of us individually, to be representatives of that in a world where Christendom does not preach it. Which church preaches about holiness in thoughts? Which church preaches about holiness in purity and thoughts? Which church preaches about holiness in motives? Which church preaches about holiness in our attitude towards money? Or take it, whatever it is.

God has called us to be a light to become dim in our church. And each of us has a responsibility. Amen.