God can only dwell among a sanctified, consecrated, dedicated, holy people! Why? Because He is of purer eyes than to even look with favor upon evil, iniquity or sin and those last three words pretty much sum us up. Listen, if He had to turn away from His only begotten Son on Calvary, because of our stinking sin, and His Son was sinless, perfect, holy and pure, but became sin for us, 2 Cor. 5:21. What do you think He will do with us who willfully sin even after having a knowledge of the Truth? Come on now, be honest! A holy, pure, righteous, perfect God cannot, I repeat cannot, dwell among a sinful people and He cannot and He will not answer their prayers! Psalm 66:18 says, “If I regard (hide and don’t confess) iniquity (avon – evil, wickedness, unrighteousness, sin) in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” Isaiah understood this principle of God not dwelling in the midst of an unclean people; read chapter six of his book, “Woe is me! For I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;” Then an angel, a Seraphim took a live coal from off the altar of God and laid it on his lips and said, “Lo this has touched thy lips, and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is purged.” When was the last time a Seraphim laid a live coal on your lips? Maybe that’s why your prayers are not being answered, your lips are unclean and uncircumcised! Isaiah went on to write at the end of his book in chapter 59:1-2, “Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, neither His ear heavy that it cannot hear; BUT, you iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you that He will not hear.” Is sanctification and separation important to prayer, not any more than holiness and purity.

The word ‘Separated’ basically means to ‘Set Apart,’ from the world but unto God. It’s not good enough to be only separated from; we must be separated unto! Paul said in Rom. 1:1 that he was, “separated unto the Gospel of God,” I like that. In 2 Cor. 6:17-18 Paul says, “Wherefore, come out from among them, and be ye separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” C.I. Scofield points out that, “Separation in Scripture is twofold, from whatever is contrary to the mind of God and unto God Himself. The underlying principle is that in a moral universe it is impossible for God to bless and use His children who are in compromise or compliance with the evil in the universe. Separation from evil implies, separation in desire, motive and act, from the world, in the ethically bad sense of this present world system and from false teachers who are described as “vessels…to dishonor” 2 Tim. 2:20-21. Separation is not from contact with the evil in the world or the church but from compliance with and conformity to it.” Some people and organizations hold to second, third and fourth degree separation, which there is not room to discuss in this blog.

Why did they need to be sanctified? Because, Deut. 23:14 says, “For the LORD thy God walks in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee, and to give up thine enemies before thee; therefore shall thy camp be holy, (kodosh – holy, sacred, consecrated, set apart to God) that He shall see no unclean (ervah – nakedness, nudity)  thing in thee, and turn away from thee.” The same word is found in Deut. 24:1, a very rare word for uncleanness. God walked in the midst of the camp to deliver them from their enemies, therefore their camp had to be (kadosh) holy or He would turn away from them. Has He turned away from you lately? If you are not where you ought to be with God, whose fault is that?

Let me ask you a different soul searching question, where does God dwell today? What is His tabernacle? Our bodies right? I Cor. 6:19-20, get a hold of those two verses, they will change your attitude if not your life. “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have of God, and you are not your own? For you are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God’s.” He not only walks but lives in the midst of our bodies which is the Temple (naos) of the Holy Spirit. Why, to deliver us from our enemy, Satan. catch this now, therefore your camp, or your body must be holy (kadosh) just like the Israeli camp in Deut. 23:14, that He may see no unclean thing and turn away from helping us. You remember Achan in Joshua 7, the whole nation was punished and men died because of one man’s sin. If there is sin in the camp God can’t bless the camp. Hab. 1:13 says, “God is of purer eyes than to look with favor upon the evil of iniquity.” He can’t look at it, think of His Son on Calvary, “Eli, Eli, la’ma sabach’thani?” “My God, My God, why has Thou forsaken Me?” Matt. 27:46. Sin nailed His Son to the cross, He hates sin, and so should you and I! Repentance (meta-nuos – means, ‘To change the mind, the attitude, the demeanor, direction, about something.’) You should hate sin as much as God hates it. Listen to Heb. 12:4, “You have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin!” But Christ did, for You!

Now there are three basic theories that attempt to answer the question, “What shall I do with the, Old Man?” And right away some of you are thinking, I have a few ideas of my own of what to do with,’the old man.’ But I am referring to the old nature, not your husbands or fathers. The first theory is ‘Suppression,’ hold him down, but his lid keeps popping off at the wrong time. Second is ‘Eradication,’ wipe him out, but he keeps turning up like a bad penny when you least expect it. Third is ‘Counteraction,’ which is the most Biblical. Drive him back, this appears to be the best Scriptural view and there are three tenses to this view. The past tense is the believers perfect standing before God through Christ’s imputed righteousness, which happens at the moment of salvation. Perfection in the Newer Testament means, completeness and maturity not absolute sinlessness. You will never attain that in this life.

Paul was perfect in his position in Christ, not in his experience with Christ at the same time, read Phil. 3:12-16. So you can see from that portion of Scripture that Paul was perfect in position but not in experience at the same time. Heb. 10:14 says, “For by one offering He has perfected forever them that are sanctified.” What offering? v.10, “By which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” Listen to I Cor. 1:30, “But of Him (God) are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption;” (Beautiful!) How did we get in Christ? God put us in Him! 2 Cor. 5:21, “For He God, has made Him (Christ) who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him (Christ).” Powerful verse and principle for prayer. It is possible my friend to be positionally sanctified despite sinful behavior. Look at I Cor. 1:2 and 3:1-4, Paul is writing to a bunch of carnal Christians but he says in 1:2, they are sanctified in Christ Jesus and called saints. So looking at sanctification in the past tense we see it is a statement, an act, and a position. It is imputed righteousness accounted to us and refers to deliverance from sin’s penalty, that is, spiritual death. Next time we will look at sanctification in the present tense; That is the process of progressing towards Christ-likeness. Positionally we are in Christ, BUT practically we run from Christ! And that my friend puts more pressure upon our prayer lives, than anything else in this desert journey of ours. So, until next time, I guess we will see you, “…Between The Lines…”

“Prayers In The Desert” – ‘Num. Ch. 1-6’ Part #7 – 4/14/13