 Okay, good morning. Thanks for joining today's class. Of course on the Holiness of God, BC 209. I hope you've been learning something from this course and something that's been helpful to you guys. Can you hear me, Nikhil? Francis? Lauda? Okay, little Lauda, sure. Right, yeah. So as I was saying, I hope you've been able to learn something from this course about God and about His Holiness and the importance of it. Right, so from chapter one, what can you recall? Anything that you could recall from chapter one? Holiness is not just moral things that we have, standards that we have here. God's Holiness is beyond that. Okay, so what is that beyond? It's the otherness of God. The otherness of God, okay. Alright, what else can you recall from what we've covered so far? He is thrice holy. His word is holy. What God spoke, He spoke in holiness so that when He promised to David, He says like, I swore to David in my holiness saying that I have kept my word apart to do the promise that I have given for David. He is three times holy, all the angel beings in the heaven were holy. Yeah, thank you, Sri Radha. So that, like, He is so holy that when angels worship Him, so they close their eyes, but the same holy God chose us so that we can be His friends. Like He came to us to become our friends. Yeah, thank you. Okay, alright, thank you. I mean, I'm just asking you, what do you recall from what we've learned? I'm not trying to do a memory test. What is it that's ministered to your heart that you can recall immediately with regards to this? As soon as you hear the words or the topic, the holiness of God, what comes to your mind first from what we've learned? That's all. I'm not trying to test your memory. I get to learn so many things from this chapter, like about God's holiness, how God is holy, and whatever He spoke, that all word is holy. And as we saw in all testament also, He is holy. Holy, no one can stand in His place, and even no one can go in His place until He will not make Himself holy. So as we see, but through Jesus Christ, we get chance to go in His presence to meet God. Yeah, thank you. Alright, I'm going a whole circle. I'm suffering from that time, and it became true. Thank you. You can get out. Those online also feel free to share in the chat section. Yeah, I quickly remind this one thing, and it's absolute sinlessness. Like holy is, I mean, He is the meaning for it. He's the holy God. And the other thing I reminded is this, His nature is reproduced in us. He wants us to be like Him. And one of the things you shared with us, which Jerry Bridges shared, holiness is the perfection of all other attributes. His power is holy power. His mercy is holy mercy. His wisdom is holy wisdom. It is His holiness more than any other attribute that makes Him worthy of our praise. His definition of holy, whatever He do, is absolute holy. That's what we can learn. Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, that's all for a chord. Yeah, thanks. Okay. Okay. Nina, we are just going, just asking, what do you recall immediately from what we've learned so far on the subject? That's it. So is there anything that you'd like to share? I think God, He upholds that holiness above everything, and He calls each one of us to live into that holiness. Like we also have to be holy, and He already made us holy through Jesus Christ, but living in our mind that should be there. Like we have to be holy unto the Lord. Everything what we are doing, we have to be, and He already given a lot of things that we can do it. Yeah, thank you. So I think we started off learning about His otherness, His holiness, His absolute, who He is. Because in our context, when we use the word holy, we only think moral purity. Moral purity is sinlessness, basically. That's what moral purity is. I don't smoke. I don't drink alcohol. I don't watch pornography. I don't lie. I don't gossip. I don't backstab anyone. I am not jealous. I don't have any lustful desires in my heart. I don't have ill thoughts against another person. So that's what moral purity is, isn't it? It's a huge part of righteousness as well, and sanctification. Yes, but when we say that God is holy, He is a being that we have not seen or heard properly enough because He is eternal. Yes, He is revealed to us through His Son Jesus Christ. We understand that. Yes, 100%. We see in Colossians 2 verse 9 that in Jesus Christ, there is the fullness of deity. So He is revealed to us who He is. But at the same time, He is holy. He is a being that we can't fully comprehend. You understand what I'm saying? We cannot completely comprehend His majesty. We can try to come up with any words possible to define Him or to describe Him. But then if there's one word that we can make sense of who He is, is that He is holy. It's a very alien, very foreign thought to us. And we went on to learn that this holy God who is Christ's holy, who surrounds Himself in holiness, right? Holiness adorns His house. We see all of that, and yet He reaches out for us and says, I want you to be like me. Be holy for I am holy. He gives that command. And another part, what is interesting or what we've learned is that He just didn't give us the command. It's one thing to just give you the command and let you figure out how to do it. Okay, I want you to be holy. What do we do? What does that mean? Because it's a very foreign thought to us. That was one of the very early commands that He gave to Israelites as well, right? I want you to be set apart for me. I want you to put yourself in the shoes of the Israelites who've lived in the land of Egypt for how many years? 400 years. 430 in total, but you leave the 30 years of Joseph. But 400 years in the land of Egypt, in bondage, specifically speaking, right? Okay, fine. 430 we'll bring Joseph into. But how many generations is that? Approximately 10 generations. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. We are only 7 of us in this room, and then, yeah, sure. Think about 10 generations. Your generation goes away and then comes yours. Goes away and then comes Nichols. Goes away and then comes Francis' generation. Then Nina's, and then Anand's, then mine, and then 3 more generations. 10 generations of people have been exposed to idolatry. 10 generations of people only understand one way of worship. That is the Egyptians' way of worship. For 10 generations, they have not seen or heard of this God. They only know that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that He's going to send a deliverer. That's all. But they've been exposed to this foreign way of worshiping. Idolatry is what they are known for. And that's why when they came to Mount Sinai and they saw the whole mountain on fire and trembling, and they were puzzled, which is very easy for us to judge. They stayed away. They didn't want to do anything with the God. But you have to understand that they have no idea how dangerous and terrifying He can be. Awesome is literally translated as terror. When we say God is awesome, we say, hey, that's so awesome, that car is awesome. But the actual meaning of awesome is terror. And terror strikes fear, isn't it? It's like that holy fear. And so they didn't know what to make of it. And then that's when He gives them the command saying, okay, I've set you apart, Exodus 19. Of all the nations, I've called you unto myself. You have yourself seen how I brought you out of on Eagle's wings. So He reaches out and then He also gave them the commandments. Okay, and this is how you should be. And this is how you can be set apart unto me in everything that you do, especially in the way you worship me will set you apart. Because the way you worship me will be very different from all the other surrounding nations worship. That will show the people around you that you are set apart, that you are not like them. So worship at the core is so powerful and so strong. Are you with me? So the first thing is that He is holy. The second thing is that He gives us the command. He desires for us to be holy. And He gave us the Holy Spirit who will empower us and teach us and help us to live a life of holiness. So that's what we saw briefly with sanctification and righteousness. Right? Yes. Yes, no, maybe. Somewhat. Okay. Okay. And in the last chapter, we covered a little bit about the importance of why personal holiness is important. We looked at it in a question and answer format kind of thing. Okay. So chapter six is titled In the Beauty of Holiness. This is the last chapter in this section, section one that addresses God's holiness and personal holiness. And from the next section, we look at repentance and the importance of it. You know, when we fall, how can we heal? Right? How can we be restored when we backslide the importance and the significance of repentance? Okay. So we look into the next section in the next class, probably next week. Okay. So In the Beauty of Holiness. Now, when was the first time you came across this line or this verse? Do you recall? In the beauty of worship the Lord in the beauty of His holiness? Next in song. Sorry? In the song. Okay. You? Sam. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Ask me when did you hear it? First time? Yes. In the? Okay. Ah, yeah. Okay. Beauty of Holiness. Nikhil? See, again, you don't have to answer it. Do you remember or recall when? I have a little bit of a kindergarten students in my class right now. Okay. So when you hear the words in the beauty of His holiness, what comes to your mind? What do you make of it? What do you understand of it? Nothing. Nothing is coming. Something is coming and clashing. When we are exhorting Him, we used to use these words like His whatever He does, what is He? We exhort Him like He is holy. And most of the things like no one saw directly, actually, but we exhort Him like that in the beauty. Like I remember this, Your Beautiful by Phil Vickham. When that song was also, it was describing everything about God that He is beautiful. And I don't know the exact how to express, but that feel is so beautiful when we really feel that. I only believe if some individual, if any particular, if he really individually experience only that experience, that beauty, that feel. I think in words, for me, I can't, I couldn't describe. The beauty of His holiness. Anybody? In the beauty of His holiness. Let me see like the beauty of holiness, God's like about His nature, about how His character, God is holy and about His beauty. One of the words also say in the Psalms like cloud, it's showing your beauty, God. So we can see nature also, how all things like beautiful, awesome, how God created. If nature this much can be beautiful, then how beautiful will be God? So we can imagine that. The beauty of holiness. And how we say like His, He is handsome, like His eyes are beautiful. And in that way, I think the beauty of God is holiness more than the power or more than the authority that He carries, the most beautiful thing about Himself is that holiness that nobody can fully describe, nobody can fully comprehend. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, and thanks everyone for sharing what you shared. When we look at the creation of the nature, for example, right? Romans chapter one was 20. He says that He's revealed Himself through the creation, isn't it? If there's a creation, it's pointing towards a creator, isn't it? It has to, right? Oh, we need to acknowledge the creator, isn't it? For example, if someone makes anything, a beautiful car design or a beautiful cake, you know, you say, okay, the cake looks beautiful, and then you look at the person and say, good job, this is awesome, isn't it? Yeah, and so when you appreciate the creation, you are also acknowledging the creator, right? And that's why, and He's glorified, and that's why He's chosen to reveal Himself, you know, in the creation. That's what Romans says in 120, Romans chapter one was 20. And you know this thing called the Shammah in Deuteronomy chapter six, verse four? It's the Shammah is the Jewish prayer. Let's look at it. Tell me what it says. Hero Israel, that the Lord thy God is one, right? And like me, there is no other. Isaiah 44, verse five and six, and Isaiah 45 says, like me, there is no other, right? Like me, there is no other. See the otherness there? Yeah. And so, yeah, I mean, I'm just kind of helping us think a little bit more deeper, although we've understood, learned about holiness of God. Simple words like worship Him in the beauty of His holiness. We understand the word beauty, we understand His holiness. But in the context, we just can't look at it as just mere words. We are using those words and attributing it to a God. And that should mean something. That should make us ponder and wonder. We just can't skim through it. Okay, worship Him in the beauty of His holiness. Just slow down and wonder and ponder. And I think that's a beautiful mark of a creator as well. See, now, if God is a creator, we are created, isn't it? And if we are created, we are also creative. Yes, that's one of the beautiful characteristics of God. That's why when the Bible says that we are made in the image and the likeness of Him, that's what it is that we all possess the characteristics of Him that we have the ability to love because God is love. We have the ability to forgive because He forgives. We have the ability to be kind because He is kind. He is gentle. He's slow to hangar. You get what I'm saying, isn't it? And so that's why we need to ponder. And He knew that we would be creative and that's why He gave us trees and not tables. So a carpenter would look at the tree or a piece of wood and he's like, hmm, he sees something in that, only what he can see, isn't it? Like a sculpture, for all of us, we just look at a big rock, but he sees something else. Are you with me, right? So why am I saying all of this is in all of these small little details that His beauty and His holiness is displayed. And when we say like Him, there is no other. I'm sure you've heard of the attributes of God. What are some of the attributes of God? It's a very fundamental theological question. Yeah, so He's omnipotent, omnipotent, omnipresent, and He's faithful, He's justice, His love, His mercy, He's faithful. So you take the one word, omnipotent. Again, that means when we say that like Him there is no other. That means there is no one like Him who is as powerful as He is. And when we say He is holy, there is no one like Him who is as holy as He is. There is no one like Him who is ever present like He is. The immutability of God is what? The immutability is the unchanging one. That's what it simply is. That's another attribute of God. So He doesn't change. If He changes, He stops becoming God. He doesn't change. He's the unchanging one. That's what we call it as the immutability, right? In His faithfulness, there is no one like Him. So all of that is pointing to one thing, His otherness. And that there is beauty in this holiness, right? So, and I recall this, and I remember the year 2010 in October where He started, you know, I was in His grace and in His mercy. He began to reveal His perspective of His holiness, right? And started, you know, encountering me with His holiness and putting this burning desire in me to pursue His holiness. And then that somehow led me to the Song of Songs book. You know, and the Song of Songs will be the last book that you will think of when you think of the holiness of God, right? But in that season, I was led to that book and there are so many things, you know, that were just stood out from the book. For example, He's the bright and morning star. That's what He's the lily of the valley, the bright and morning star. He's the fairest of 10,000. So what does that mean? He's the fairest of 10,000. That means He's beautiful and then there is simply says that 10,000 was the biggest number back then, right? That means simply saying that there is no one like Him among the 10,000. And now we can just say, you know, He's the bright and morning star. All of that is something that you would use to define or describe someone's beauty. Your face is shining like a beautiful morning star. Like, hey, thank you, thank you. Fair and lovely and just a little bit of, yeah, no, no, no, nothing. It's just layer, you know. It's like, yeah, you know, okay, you know, it's like multiple layers. Not you, Francis. Not you. Yeah, first we put moisturizer and then some cream and then something and then something else. Oh, yeah, foundations. How do you know, Prince? Okay, so are you all with me, right? And I just want us to just ponder and his holiness is throughout his, you know, the Bible in every book of the Bible, even in Lamentations. Right? He's beautiful. And that means he is holy from Genesis to Revelation. He's holy. And if you read that and if you just may have the patience to just calm down, slow down and see it, he will reveal it to us. Are you all with me? Right? So in chapter six, we see that metaphorically in the scriptures, we see when the Bible says that the eyes of the Lord is everywhere. It's pointing towards his omniscience. Right? The hand of the Lord was on a person, his presence is with him. His face, his face was shining on a group of people. It simply says that his presence, his favor is over them. Right? In Proverbs chapter 16 verse 15 says, in the light of the king's face is life. Okay, go to the scripture. I hope it's the right one. Proverbs 16 verse 15. Yeah? In the light of the king's face is his life. And then his, sorry, his, okay, his favor. Okay. Listen to those words. His favor is like the cloud of the latter rain. Later rain means the much. So in, again, in the, in the geography of that region, they get four rainfall. So they, they have four different words for rain. And four different words points to a different time of the rain in, during the year. And the last train is called the latter rain. Okay, that, so in all these four, the rains that comes in first time, the second time, third time, it does different things to the soil. And it's beautiful. So in English, we just use the word rain. Okay. So here's the thing. Stay with me. Okay. We're still talking about the holiness of God, his face and his light and his beauty in it. In Deuteronomy chapter five, I think it says that God spoke to Moses out of the fire. He spoke face to face with Moses. That's what it says. I hope I'm right. It's, I hope it's, I know it's Deuteronomy. I know it's in the Bible. It's in the top left hand corner. My Bible. Chapter five verse four. Yeah, awesome. Okay. Thank you. I'm really bad at memorizing. Yeah. Okay. Right. Right. Thank you. So I want us to, again, very briefly going to talk about, you know, his holiness and Moses, just a little bit, because we're going to go into Psalm 90 very quickly. And no one better to, you know, consider than Moses for us to, you know, study a little bit and why he writes Psalm 90 from a different perspective. So out of the fire, God spoke to Moses face to face. Right. Okay. And then in some, in Proverbs 16 verse 15, we see that in the light king's face is life and his glory or his favor is like the latter rain. Okay. One more scripture. Let's go to Ezekiel chapter 39, 29. Ezekiel 39, 29. Can someone go and tell me, it should say that I will not hide my face any longer. I will pour out my spirit on them. Okay. 39, 29. The other way. I always make that mistake. So Ezekiel 39, 29 says I will not hide my face. Okay. So look at this. So in Deuteronomy chapter five verse four, it says out of the fire, he spoke to Moses face to face. Are you with me? And then now we see in Ezekiel 39, 29, he says I will not hide my face any longer. That means I'm going to reveal myself to you. I will not hide my face any longer. I will pour out my spirit. Pour out. Okay. And then again, once again, sorry for being redundant. In verse 16, 15, in the light of the King's face is life. My favor will be like the latter rain. So why am I saying all of this? And then, you know, in Numbers chapter six towards the end of the chapter, we see the Aaronic blessing. God tells Moses to tell Aaron to bless the people of Israel. Say what? May the Lord bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you. And then it goes on to say, let the countenance of your face increase. Let it increase. Now what led the people of Israel by day and by night? The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. So Deuteronomy chapter five was four. Out of the fire, he spoke face to face with Moses. Now Ezekiel 39, 29 said I will not hide my face any longer. I will pour out my spirit. And then Proverbs 16, 15 says my favorite is like the latter rain. So why are we doing this? So pour out. We use that word when we assign to describe rain, pour out. Or there was a huge outpouring. Yes or no? Yes, no, maybe. Okay. For the rain to come, for there to be an outpouring, what needs to be there? Yeah. For it to rain, there has to be clouds. So his face was also in the cloud. Why? I will not hide my face any longer. I will pour out my spirit. And then in Malachi, he says I will come to you like the latter rain. In Malachi four, I think. I forget. Oh, okay, let's not go there. So the point here is when God led the people of Israel as a pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night, his face was there in the cloud as much as it was in the fire. So the point is you can have face-to-face encounters with God and not know it. People of Israel did not know it. Are you with me? And so Moses understanding or having this revelation of knowing firsthand of what it is to have this face-to-face encounters with God, he writes Psalm 90, right? Psalm 90, now I'm just referring to your notes. Holiness, God's beauty seen through us. That's the section. In Psalm 90 verse 16 and 17, it says, Let your work appear to your servants and your glory to their children. Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us and establish the work of our hands for us. Yes, establish the work of our hands. Okay, so there are two Hebrew words used there besides glory and then beauty. So let your work appear to your servants. Please follow along in your notes. Let your work appear to your servants and your glory, the Hebrew word used there for glory is hadar, which means magnificence, glory, honor, splendor, excellency, ornament. Okay, so let your work appear or reveal, let there be a revelation of an unveiling to your servants and your glory to their children. Okay, by now we've established that holiness is God revealing or expressing his beauty. It's like his beauty, his glory, his splendor is all a manifestation of his holiness. Okay, so that is hadar. See then, next verse is, and let the beauty, the Hebrew word used there is noam or known. And the beauty, which is delight, splendor, grace, beauty, pleasantness of the Lord our God be upon us. Okay, you see this, now he's just elaborated the Aaronic blessing from in Numbers chapter 6. May the Lord bless you and keep you. That's just like a benediction prayer. He says to release all the people of Israel because, and now he's kind of elaborating on that. Let the beauty, the splendor, grace, beauty, pleasantness, delight of the Lord our God be upon us and establish the work of our hands. Yes, establish the work of our hands. Right, and so the word hadar, the Hebrew word hadar is emphasizing the glory possessed by someone, like who has it. Okay, what is it? Hadar is emphasizing the glory of someone who's possessing it, like who has it. And the Hebrew word noam is emphasizing its effect on those who behold the glory. Are you with me? Right, so hadar is, okay, God is saying, okay, God, he's magnificent, he's glory, he's honor, splendor, excellency. He's possessing it. It's the source. He is the source. Everything is from him. And then noam, the Hebrew word used there says, okay, as we look at him, as we look to him, there is a reflection of him over us. Yeah, and so, I mean, we all know the story where Moses, after his encounters with God, he came down, his face was radiant. He had to wrap around his, you know, face with a cloth. And then Paul writes in 2 Corinthians chapter 3, I think was, I'm not sure if it's 2 Corinthians chapter 3 or 1 Corinthians. My apologies, you can look it up. It says Paul is saying, okay, his glory, that was a fading glory. It faded eventually. And now we have a glory that does not fade in Jesus. Okay, now that's a whole different topic for another day. We can discuss about that. Okay, so Moses in Musam 90 verse 16 and 17, he's praying that God's beauty be seen up. People, in other words, he's saying, you know, I'm just paraphrasing it. I'm sure Moses wished to say, like, hey, guys, you guys are having face-to-face encounters with him. There's a cloud, his face is in the cloud, his face is in the fire. Just look to him. Don't just look at it like some magical science fiction thing that is leading us. Yeah, you guys following, learning something? Okay, there's a question for Mina here. Is it really possible to have face-to-face encounters with God under the old covenant? What does it refer to? Scripture says no one has seen God, but God, the only at the Father's side has revealed him. Because in the new, of course, Jesus revealed and declared, we know who God is. Yes, so, you know, it is an intimate language that is used there, Nina. If you actually go, if you can find the Tanakh, which is the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh is the Hebrew Bible, and there's one Tanakh in the library, church office library, and I went to these scriptures in Deuteronomy chapter five verse four and number 12. Number 12, he tells Aaron and Miriam, I speak to other prophets and visions and dreams, but not so with myself and Moses, with him I speak face-to-face. And so, you know, the language that is used, little translation in those words is, it says with him I speak mouth to mouth. That means, it simply means that, you know, I speak with him very intimately. That's all it is. You know, it's, yeah, then that's all I can elaborate on. What I understand of that is that he spoke with Moses like he spoke with nobody else in the old covenant. And he says that so I don't, I speak to him plainly, clearly, not in visions or in dreams. That means it's clear communication, you know, and this is part in Exodus 33. It says when Moses pitched a tent outside of the camp of Israel, and as he walked in, cloud came down, the glory of God came down, and there he spoke with God face-to-face. I mean, yeah, just like that, you know, I'm going to meet a friend for coffee. So, correct, yes. Yeah, that's what I understand from it. And now we know in the new covenant that it has been made so beautifully possible for us through Jesus. You know, some of us wish that, oh, you know, we were in the Old Testament, we had encounters like that, like Moses did, but we don't understand what we've been given. We don't understand what we've been given, right? And yeah, that's what I would say. And I mean, again, I'm going back to 2011, I'm sorry, just going back to the past, because that year was marked with something like very defining, distinct year in my life. And you know, I was remembering reading about the passage, about face-to-face with God, and you know, I was in the zone, like show me your face, show me your face, and you know, I want to have these encounters with you, just like, you know, what Moses did, and I want to see what Isaiah saw and all that. And you know, there's also the song by Don Potter, show me your face, Lord. It just stays with me, you know, forever. And then again, you know, the Holy Spirit begins to teach me in his gentleness, in his mercy, is like, hey, you know, I will reveal Jesus to you. And then he begins to take me to his word. And then he shows me he is the word. And you know, and yeah, so that's what it is. So it helps me understand that in the new covenant, Scripture clearly says it's a better covenant than the old, right? So yeah, and we're all invited to have this free intimate fellowship, you know, with our God, with the one true God. Are you all with me? Okay. I think we have spoken up for this session. We'll pause here and we'll take a break and we'll come back. Nina, I hope I answered your question. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you.