Lev 10:3a, Then Moses said to Aaron, "It is what the Lord spoke, saying, 'By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, And before all the people I will be honored.'"…
	We are in the midst of our deliberation on the fact that God is to be approached and considered always in terms of His holiness and His honor. This statement made in this morning’s passage is just as sure today as in the day it was uttered. As well, it is just as vital in the manner of our coming into the presence of God. We are not playing at some game of religious institutionalism. We are not just practicing customs and habits in a societal pattern of behavior. We are not just following the traditions that have been handed down from one generation to another. 
	Our coming before the Lord God Almighty in worship and praise and prayer is the most serious element that is ours as His creation of humanity. God did not make statements in the Bible that are no longer to be considered in the light of His essential Being. In that truth, we are earnestly encouraged to consider our place in the plan and the purpose of God by the Writer to the Hebrews in Heb 13:7+8. Heb 13:7+8, Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, yes and forever. 
	Just as God was to be considered as holy then, so much the more is He Holy for us who are privileged, through the blood of Jesus, to come into His immediate presence. The more we learn of Him, the more we must declare that He is worthy of all praise and honor and reverence and glory from the totality of His creation. 
	We must fully remember and value and abide by the Word of God, especially as it declares the truth of our relationship with God through the death and resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Only Begotten Son of God. His life on this earth made manifest the full and true reality of Who God is and all that He has done. On the basis of just how much we have learned about Our Heavenly Father through the perfect example and expression put forth by His Son, so we are encumbered with the duty and the responsibility of giving Him every aspect of honor and adoration that He deserves for loving such as us unto Himself.  
	We must not lightly gloss over what was procalimed to the Prophet Eli as recorded in 1 Sam 2:30. 1 Sam 2:30, "Therefore the Lord God of Israel declares, 'I did indeed say that your house and the house of your father should walk before Me forever'; but now the Lord declares, 'Far be it from Me — for those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me will be lightly esteemed. 
	This reiterates the fact that our gathering together before the Lord is of such vital concern and to be performed with great care and reverence in our hearts and minds. It is not to be something that is lightly esteemed, just done to be done and then get on with the rest of the day. That type of attitude was the same as was practiced by Eli’s sons in their utter disregard for the place of honor that was theirs in order to come into the presence of God as His priests. They despised the task at hand and only sought to enrich themselves at the cost of their duty unto the Lord. They suffered the severe consequences of that attitude precisely because God does take His honor and His reverence and His glory in His people as the most grave and serious element of the life that He has created. 
	The Prophet Isaiah understood this as we can read together in Isa 52:8-12, if you would please turn to it. In this passage, the prophet makes known how the people of God are to fully honor Him by keeping, at the forefront of their thoughts, the truth that God is the Holy and Awesome Lord God Almighty. All their actions were to reflect the realization of this truth. Isa 52:8-12, Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices, They shout joyfully together; For they will see with their own eyes When the Lord restores Zion. Break forth, shout joyfully together, You waste places of Jerusalem; For the Lord has comforted His people, He has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord has bared His holy arm In the sight of all the nations, That all the ends of the earth may see The salvation of our God. Depart, depart, go out from there, Touch nothing unclean; Go out of the midst of her, purify yourselves, You who carry the vessels of the Lord. But you will not go out in haste, Nor will you go as fugitives; For the Lord will go before you, And the God of Israel will be your rear guard. 
	Because God is to be considered with utmost reverence and appreciation for the fact of His Holiness, His people, called by His name, are to keep themselves from the impurity of this age and touch nothing unclean. All those who are the Lord’s are to shout joyfully together in the fact that He is our salvation and He is our Redeemer. Accordingly, all the rest of creation is to see the salvation of God’s mighty hand in the manner in which He guards and keeps and sustains and is glorified by those whom He has chosen unto Himself. We present to the world surrounding us the reality of what it means to be the Redeemed of the Lord in the manner in which we refrain from allowing this world’s lies and deceptions and wickedness to have any part in us because we serve the Holy and Sovereign Lord God Almighty.
	Let us now read together Ezek 20:40-44, and discern what the Prophet Ezekiel relayed concerning the manner in which we are to see ourselves as God’s Chosen People. Ezek 20:40-44, "For on My holy mountain, on the high mountain of Israel," declares the Lord God, "there the whole house of Israel, all of them, will serve Me in the land; there I shall accept them, and there I shall seek your contributions and the choicest of your gifts, with all your holy things. "As a soothing aroma I shall accept you, when I bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands where you are scattered; and I shall prove Myself holy among you in the sight of the nations. "And you will know that I am the Lord, when I bring you into the land of Israel, into the land which I swore to give to your forefathers. "And there you will remember your ways and all your deeds, with which you have defiled yourselves; and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for all the evil things that you have done. "Then you will know that I am the Lord when I have dealt with you for My name's sake, not according to your evil ways or according to your corrupt deeds, O house of Israel," declares the Lord God.'" 
	Notice that it is through His people that God will prove Himself Holy in the sight of all the nations. This world will see the reality of God in the manner in which He deals with His people and how we deal with the privilege of being in the Lord’s presence. This is all part of why it is urgently demanded that we come to God with the conscious and determined awareness that we come into His Holy presence bringing Him honor and glory and reverent estimation. 
It is never on the basis of our actions and our earning some aspect of this privilege through any manner of our good deeds or behavior or worthiness. The truth is that we are only worthy of eternal damnation of our selves. Nothing that we ever consider as good works will be sufficient to even allow us a millisecond of His consideration. 
	He will bring His people to the place in which they are fully cognizant of the truth that He, Alone is Holy. It will be because we understand the full impact that only He can save us and only He is Holy and Righteous and Just. He grants us access into His holy presence through the covering of His Only Begotten Son because that is His desire for an eternal communing with His people. 
Everything that is of value and beauty and worthiness is only on the basis of Christ in us, our hope of glory. This was proclaimed so forcefully by the Apostle Paul in Col 1:25-28, if you would follow along in your Bibles. This is one of those tremendous passages that should be underlined and marked for constant reference and reflection. Col 1:25-28, Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God, that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations; but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. And we proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, that we may present every man complete in Christ. 
	Our Lord, Himself, let us know, in John 12:23-28, that God’s glory was fully vested in the Son and in the obedience of the Son unto the bringing in of eternal salvation to those who would call upon His name. It could only happen as the Father so loved us that He gave His Son to die in our stead and to be raised again as our righteousness and our holiness. 
John 12:23-28, And Jesus answered them, saying, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. "He who loves his life loses it; and he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal. "If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall My servant also be; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him. "Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, 'Father, save Me from this hour'? But for this purpose I came to this hour. "Father, glorify Thy name." There came therefore a voice out of heaven: "I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again." 
	This is the heart with which we each need to come before God. It is set absolutely in the cherished Son of God, Our Lord and Our Savior. In Him, we are covered by His righteousness and His holiness to so bring glory and honor unto God in the truth of Christ living forth His life in those whom He has redeemed. 
	This is the heart that was expressed again in John 13:31+32. John 13:31+32, When therefore he had gone out, Jesus said, "Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him; if God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and will glorify Him immediately. 
	Our final passage of the morning is found in Heb 12:18-29. It is a lengthy one which deals with the truth that God is to be reckoned in our hearts as holy today as He was by Moses and Aaron. We are as well required to bring the stipulated honor that God is to receive. It is just that, now in Christ, we are enabled to bring such glory and honor unto Him because we come to Him through His Only Begotten Son. This passage reveals how the Children of Israel considered the holiness of God and the differentiation of understanding what is now ours in Jesus. 
Reading together, then, Heb 12:18-29, For you have not come to a mountain that may be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, and to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word should be spoken to them. For they could not bear the command, "If even a beast touches the mountain, it will be stoned." And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, "I am full of fear and trembling." But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel. See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less shall we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven. And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven." And this expression, "Yet once more," denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, in order that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire. 
	Notice that it is not God that has changed in any manner in the fact of our coming unto Him in the recognition of His holiness and His awesome power. It is reiterated that …our God is a consuming fire. What has changed is the fact that Jesus has opened our hearts to want to be in His presence. He has opened the means by which we have complete freedom of access before the throne of God. 
However, it is still urgently critical that we bring unto God only that which will be honoring and will reflect His holiness of Essence and Being. We dare never take Him for granted or as just some entity that would overlook our careless demeanor and behavior. It is our duty and responsibility to honor Him and to honor Our Lord Jesus Christ’s sacrifice in the manner in …which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe… So be it!
	Then Moses said to Aaron, "It is what the Lord spoke, saying, 'By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, And before all the people I will be honored.'"… Amen. 

This morning’s benediction is Ps 113:1+2. Praise the Lord! Praise, O servants of the Lord. Praise the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord From this time forth and forever. Amen.