Steven Lawson-Holiness part 2

Woops, found this in drafts:

At the Scottish Reformed Conference on the 12th of May Steven Lawson took us through Holiness in the Old Testament in the morning and in the New Testament in the afternoon. 

He started with a quote from Thomas Watson's A Body of Divinity 'The holiness of God is the brightest jewel in the crown of God'. God's holiness is as the centre of all His attributes, His righteousness is Holy righteousness, His wrath is holy wrath, His mercy is Holy mercy, everything about Him is holy. His word is holy. 

In the sermon on the Mount Jesus says we are called to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect. It's a restatement of Leviticus, 'Be Holy because I am Holy' Perfect is a synonym of holiness.

All God's ways are perfect, perfection is the standard He has set for all of us. And He will not drop the standard one iota. He doesn't grade on the curve- we are not measured against each other but against Him and His perfection.

Matt 6.9- Our Father in Heaven, though He is Father He is in Heaven, high and lifted up, His name is hallowed that is Holy.

Luke 1:35 The Holy Spirit, is Holy, the seed born is Holy, produces the Holy child, the God-man, Holy Deity added to Holy humanity. Gabriel comes from the Most High, another name for Holy- (High and lifted up again). See this one who is Holy, separate and different, He enters into our world, becoming our Saviour, no wonder the Shepherds are able to worship, not out of intellectual vacuum or anti theological way but because of Who He is. He is perfect in all His ways. The one who is separate is OUR Saviour.

In the temptation Christ makes His stand on the word,, not to show that He didn't sin, But that He cannot sin! Holy humanity and deity, he was incapable of sinning

We have several unlikely testimonies to the holiness of God.

A demon:
Luke 4:34. The unclean spirit calls out after Jesus, 'we know who you are the Holy One of God' Dr Lawson said the demon has a better testimony of than Professors of liberal theology.

A fisher man

So does Peter (Luke 5:8) he realises that he is the presence of Holy God and knows himself to be a sinner, he is undone, the light exposes those things that are contrary to God.  We sin less (though we are not sinless). However you are aware, painfully aware of the holiness of God and your moral failures.

Pilate: 'I find no guilt in Him'
the thief on the cross 'this man has done nothing wrong;
the centurion observes 'surely this is the Son of God'

The Power of The Word

I read recently the biography of William Carey, Missionary to India, written by his great grandson, S. Pearce Carey. In it he tells a story of how William Ward, Carey's fellow missionary and printer of the Bengali Bible. Ward left one of the copies behind in a village some distance from Serampore, completely by mistake. It was found by a high caste Hindu, he read it and then he re read it, then he read it to others. Over time he made his way to Serampore, a converted man seeking baptism. He was not alone he came with other converts seeking to be baptised and they kept coming.
I found this story encouraging and then a few days later I went to the store and saw this:

This was in Tescos Inverness, without doubt the best thing I've ever seen for sale in a Supermarket, and it was free. The reason it's the best thing is it's the only thing that can bring you to the God who transforms lives. If God can take the Bible translated into Bengali and use it on it's own to convert some High Caste Hindu who had never met a Christian before, God can take these Bibles translated into England and use it to bring people to Himself. Especially as the Western world and the moment is in lock down due to a virus. Spurgeon said, 'The veil between life and eternity is thin when death walks the street.'

Who knows what God will do by His word even this day?

Shalom

Stephen <><