PURE HOLY FIRE

A Sermon On:

HEIDELBERG CATECHISM Q/A 9,10,11

HEBREWS 10.26-31


PREPARED BY

KEN GEHRELS

PASTOR

CALVIN CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH

NEPEAN, ONTARIO


THE DEMAND FOR PURITY
It's a cleaning company's nightmare - a microchip production plant.
Go into most factories to clean and "good enough" is generally all right. Some places are worse than others - like the one where the boss would plant a piece of garbage behind the door to see if it gets picked up, or the one who took a white glove to the top of doorways as quality control.
But that's NOTHING like a microchip plant -- in those places the tolerance for dirt and dust is zero. None. Zilch. The production of these little electronic wonders demands precision in chemical composition and layout. Take the new Pentium II chip - containing millions of transistors on one tiny square. One bit of dirt can ruin the entire chip, junking the thing.
And so employees at such facilities leave their street clothes outside, because of the potential of contamination. They put on special lab clothes. The ventilation systems are carefully maintained in a hyperclean fashion, as are the walls, the floors - every square inch of these plants.
Perhaps this seems almost paranoid. I mean, how many employers demand that kind of fixation? Overkill, isn't it?
Not at all. The product demands this standard. There's no way around it.
Impurity is simply NOT tolerated! Woe to the one who tries to get by with sloppy compliance. They will be immediately terminated.

GOD AND PURITY
Dirt and microchip factories - the two are incompatible.
I want to use this as a down-to-earth example to set the stage for this question in our setting of faith and worship here this morning --
As believers and followers of God, as we consider our Divine Creator, are there those things which God cannot stand to have around Him, with which He simply cannot have any association; which are contrary to His very nature as God, and hence which, if they tried to enter His presence, would find all the forces of heaven mustered against them to push them out?"

To find the answer to that we have to turn no further than the first pages of the scriptures - God creates humanity: pure and perfect. God spends daily time together with those first humans. They walk together, talk together. They enjoy each other.
But then it happens. Our first human parents engage in activity that they want, but which God has expressly forbidden. The result? They are tossed out of Paradise, the earth sinks into a downward spiral of decay, and the God-human relationship is shattered.
That opening story of the Bible depicts a very important, foundational point right up front.
God can have no part of, and will tolerate no amount of SIN in his presence - no disobedience to Himself; no living by thought, word or deed in a manner counter to His eternal divine standards. No impurity. No distortion.
None.

Now, I used the illustration of the microchip plant. Like any illustration you can only take this one so far. Unlike the silicon production plant, God isn't forced into the position of evicting any trace of impurity from His divine presence because of His fragile condition; because it would destroy Him or His heavenly glory.
Rather, it is that simply that God in His magnificent radiance, will have nothing impure staining His presence; the divine decree states that no tarnish will be allowed to smudge the shining purity of heaven -- anymore than a bride anticipating the glory of her wedding day would tolerate her groom showing up unshaven, beer in hand, wearing sandals and torn jeans, and saying, "Get married? Now? Sure... whatever."

The bible says, "God is light. In Him is no darkness at all." (1 jn 1.5)No room for darkness, for evil, for wrong.

Hence it was that, in the course of giving His holy Law that the Lord pauses to remind his people what the whole business was all about: I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy.... I am the LORD who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy. [Lev 11.44-45]

God has no room, a zero tolerance policy for sin.
Jesus himself reflects this truth when He taught His followers, saying "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." [Mt 5.48]

God cannot
- and God will not -
allow sin, impurity, imperfection, unholiness to remain in his presence unchecked. He will not allow it anywhere near himself. Only that which is perfect, or which has been cleansed of all unrighteousness will be allowed to behold his face. All else will be banished to eternal punishment and condemnation, to the fires of God's righteous and wrathful judgement.
So the blunt reality which faces us is this:
Do you want to see God, to be in his presence some day, to experience his guidance and power even now on earth? Then:
Be perfect... as your heavenly Father is perfect.

If you can't or won't reach that standard, then be prepared to spend eternity in a state of punishment and condemnation.
Should you find that a hard thing to swallow, rather harsh and legalistic and all that sort of thing, I'd invite you to grab a bible and read Matthew 25. It's a rather extensive passage, with a tremendous amount of deep teaching regarding God's demands for how we approach our fellow human beings. I don't want to dig into all that today.
Simply absorb and appreciate the fact that it IS THERE!Appreciate the fact that one day there WILL be a judgement, a time of accounting before the face of God. Understand clearly the uncompromising teaching that it WILL be a time of separation - those receiving the favour of God and those consigned to eternal punishment.
It will NOT be a time when all is swept under the rug, and either overlooked or forgotten.

Our early teachers in the Reformed branch of the church taught this biblical truth through a couple of questions and answers in the Heidelberg Catechism. One of them says this:Q10: Will God permit such disobedience and rebellion to go unpunished?
A: Certainly not. He is terribly angry about the sin we are born with as well as the sins we personally commit. As a just judge he punishes them now and in eternity. He has declared "Cursed is the man who does not uphold the words of this law, by carrying them out."
Cursed.....
One of the most common images used in the bible in the context of God and His attitude towards sin and evil is that of fire.
Fire - two ways you see it used in the bible. The first is in the context of refining. Like at a gold smelter - separating and burning off the impurities to leave the pure product to shine and gleam with all its value.
In that way believers pray for the refining fire of the Holy Spirit to come within, separating out and burning off any impurities, so that with total devotion and love they could serve the Lord.

The more common way fire is used as a bible image is for judgement. A fire that burns and consumes - that destroys. It is a punishing image. And you see it all through the bible.
In Numbers 11 we read about people crabbing and complaining about God's care for them. We read, "Then fire from the LORD burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp." Judgement. Destruction.

Or, chew on these words from the prophet Jeremiah:
Jer 4:4 "Cleanse your minds and hearts, not just your bodies, or else my anger will burn you to a crisp because of all your sins. And no one will be able to put the fire out."

Or these words of Jesus:
Mt 18:8 If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.

Harsh, sobering words aren't they?
How different than what we'd like to believe. We'd so love to believe that God is the Great Rule-Bender; that he would set standards but then be flexible about the whole thing and sort of wink now and then if we stray from the mark, or do our own stubborn thing once in a while; that He would sweep sin under some cosmic carpet.

How different than the view floating around today which says that there is no such thing as ultimate right and wrong. It's just what works for you and your group, or what the majority decides.
Bible says that there IS very much ultimate right and wrong.
If things go by majority, God holds the controlling vote. Period.
And - yes, Virginia, there are consequences to your actions. The piper will have to be paid!!

So don't get sucked in by folk trying to tell you that God is love and full of mercy and that your sin, your rebellion, your foul-ups, screw-ups, stains, twists and distortions of life don't matter; that He'll overlook them. NOT SO!!
Our forefathers thought about that too, and wrote --
Q11: But isn't God also merciful?
A: God is certainly merciful, but he is also just. His justice demands that sin, committed against His supreme majesty, be punished with the supreme penalty - eternal punishment of body and soul.

Think about that as you hear the echoes of our bible reading from Hebrews 10:"It is mine to avenge; I will repay... the Lord will judge His people. It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."
The pure, holy God demands purity and holiness, ONLY purity and holiness, in His presence.
Leaving you and I in a bad spot.
'Cause if we accept this as true then every door to heaven is nailed tightly shut. For there isn't a single human being who can come even remotely close to perfect purity and holiness.


Every door is nailed tightly shut......
Except for one.
His name is Jesus.
He said, "I am the Way, the Truth, the Life. No one can come to God except through me." (Jn 14)
In him, and in him alone, is life.

God is perfectly pure and holy. He is totally just and will not, cannot, wink at or toss aside the rules of Cosmic Justice...... Pure, holy, just.
But He is also perfectly faithful and merciful.
So, even in the face of our unfaithfulness and merciless abandonment of Him, God provides a door through which we can find forgiveness and freedom. Jesus entered the docket in our place. He faced all the wrath of God. He carried human guilt. And he walked the road to execution, to condemnation by heaven and earth -- He walked that in our place.The payment was made. Justice was satisfied. Freedom and life are available.

Available -- for all those who will accept the free gift of forgiveness and new life from Jesus.
Imperfect people like you and I who continually trip over our moral feet have a way to enter the perfect purity of heaven.
We have assurance that if we come through Jesus we need not fear God. For He looks at us through Jesus. Jesus is like a haze filter that you put over the lens of your camera to remove the misty, smoggy look and to make the picture pure and clean.God sees us through Jesus - pure and clean.
So we may approach Him freely.
We may ask in prayer.
We may gather here this morning in worship.
We may anticipate His care and guidance each day.

And so falling into the hands of the Living God is no longer a dreadful thing.
It is a peaceful thing. A longed-for thing. A marvellously good thing.

Through Jesus it becomes the thing we long for more than anything.
It becomes that on which we build our lives.
It becomes that which defines our identity.
It becomes that thing
- people in the hands of the Living God -which controls what we will say and do today what we will think, say and do tomorrow.
Through Jesus we'll be able to leave here singing of the faithfulness of God.
Through Jesus.
And only through Him.