Enter into the rock and hide in the dust from before the terror of the LORD, and from the splendor of his majesty.
(Isaiah 2:10 – ESV)
(Isaiah 2:10 – ESV)
As human beings we stink, and in saying that it is not self loathing but realizing that the higher we get up into God the further we have to go. We don’t preach and teach the depravity of man so as to keep men down, but so as to show them the only way up. That way is Christ, but even when we have been redeemed, in our flesh we are still low down dirty rotten scoundrels compared to God. It is only that now He has condescended to us in the person of Jesus, and having come down to save us and to bring us to God we are positioned with Him in the heavenlies. In His grace we are already arrived at our destination, we simply await glorification.
Now then, in this life we can because of His grace become more and more sanctified, we can scale the heights of God holiness. On this side of eternity we can get a small glimpse of the reality of God, because we now climb up to God on the back of our beloved Savior. And this we do by God’s grace. We are still imperfect, and as Paul said we haven’t arrived in fullness, but we can press on toward the upward call, we don’t have to stay in our sin.
So realize that when we say we stink, we stink less than we did before, but the more we see of God the more we realize our stink. No I am not worse than I was before, by the grace of God I am more holy than I have ever been, and by the grace of God I am becoming more holy every second of every day, all praise to His name. But the more light that we have the more dust that we see. We do go up into the heights, but then we see just how much higher the Lord is than we had thought.
The more holy I become, the more holy I realize He is, and how much further from Him I am than I ever could have imagined had He not graciously allowed me to ascend to the heights I now scale. The higher I get the more beautiful He appears, even as the more awful my sin appears. I am sick of the false humility that says we cannot dare ascend higher up in the mountain of God’s majesty. Having said that, I want to go higher up into God, not so as to glory in my climb, or in its own heights, or to look down on others, but so as to revel in the majesty of my Master. Oh, just how lofty are you, my Lord? Only heaven will begin to reveal it, and even then, it will take forever to explore it.
1 comment:
This was taken from a previous post from 4-3-07, and reposted on 7-27-09, but now includes the audio in our SermonAudio files, which has additional material in it...we will be doing this with many of our older posts, so that they can have the audio attached to them and be archived at SermonAudio...hope these are edifying and enjoyable for you...God bless...
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