In his sermon 'Holiness in the Camp,' Peter Allison delves into the concept of holiness as described in 1 Thessalonians and Leviticus 13. He emphasizes that God's will is for believers to be sanctified and abstain from sin, particularly sexual immorality. He interprets the quarantine laws in Leviticus not just as health measures, but as a demonstration of God's holiness and a call for His people to maintain purity. Allison stresses that holiness is not simply adherence to rules but a transformation made possible through union with Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. He asserts that holiness is essential to salvation, and believers are to engage in a serious battle against sin. Holiness is portrayed as an intrinsic part of a Christian's identity, reflecting God’s nature and His glory. The sermon underscores that the pursuit of holiness is a continuous journey, as believers are called to grow and abound in it.

Please turn with me to 1 Thessalonians chapter I begin reading at verse 1. Finally, then brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more just as you receive from us how you ought to walk and to please God. For you know what commandment we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you should abstain from sexual immorality, that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust like the Gentiles, who do not know God, that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this manner, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned and testified. For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness.

Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us his Holy Spirit. May the Lord consider our situation, affliction, and deliver us as we remember His precepts. Almighty Heavenly Father, as we now turn to this part of Your Word, we ask for your Holy Spirit to illumine our understanding, to open our eyes, to remove the impediments of our own sin that would cloud our understanding. We ask that the light of your word might shine upon us. We ask that your truth might go forward.

We ask that we might be changed through your word and sanctified by it. We ask that you might do all this through a vessel of clay that the glory might be yours and yours alone. In Jesus we ask, amen. Holiness in the camp. Holiness in the camp.

We read from Leviticus 13, this section on quarantine, and all the detail and examination of these various illnesses, many of which we don't really know what they were. They seem to be things that were unique to that time, as many illnesses are. You might think that that was primarily concerned, that those laws were primarily concerned about the health of the community or some think that those were just figurative or allegorical or to be understood as allegorical. But we understand that all of the laws and the temple worship and this was something that involved the activity of the priest. All these things were given as a pattern of what was happening in heaven.

As a pattern, the whole temple itself was a pattern of the heavenly temple. And so we have to see in this passage in the vidicus as not primarily just allegorical things because it is talking about physical sicknesses. It's talking about they were to isolate people and they were to quarantine people. And they were to put people outside the camp. These were real diseases and real actions that were to be done.

And yet, this isn't just about, this isn't even primarily about how to preserve the health of a community. It is about primarily the holiness of God. The holiness of God. The reason that people were isolated, the reason that people were put outside the camp when they had these various illnesses was yes, you know, to protect the assembly, but the primary reason they were put out is so that they didn't defile the camp in the midst of which God dwelt. God is a holy God and he dwells in our midst.

And so this this whole process was primarily to teach that God is holy, to demonstrate, to impress upon us the holiness of God. And holiness, you know, means to be separate from. To be separate from. God, God is a holy God. He is called holy, holy, holy.

In fact, in Revelation, as we've seen in the afternoon, He's nine times holy. There is no other attribute of God that is repeated like that. God is never said to be love, love, love. He's said to be holy, holy, holy. And God calls us, His people, to be holy.

We are the people of a holy king. We are clothed in his holy robes and journeying to his holy city. Do we look like this holy God that we serve? That's what he calls us to be. He said, my will, this is the will of God for you, your sanctification, your being made holy, your being set apart, Just as it was illustrated in the Leviticus 13 quarantine laws, God's people, God calls us to holiness.

For as long as God has had a people, God has called his people to holiness. And God's Word speaks more about us being holy than it speaks about our being anything else. And see, in God calling us to be holy, God is calling us to be like Himself. There's at least five times in the scripture God calls us to be holy because He is holy. And the number of them are Leviticus 11, Leviticus 19, Leviticus 20, Leviticus 21.

God is calling his people to be holy because he is holy. In the vidicus then, this passage that we read in the midst of these four or five calls of God's people to be holy because he is holy, we have to understand that all of these laws, These quarantine and isolation laws were given to teach us about God's holiness. Peter says, as he has called you, as he which has called you is holy, So you be holy in all manner of conversation because it is written, Be you holy for I am holy. So to be holy then is to be like God. Holiness is a glorious perfection that belongs to God himself.

In the first song that is recorded in Scripture, Moses describes God as glorious in holiness. His glory is His holiness, just as His riches are His grace. His holiness, Stephen Chernoch said, is His crown, His mercy, His treasure. His holiness is his crown, his mercy is his treasure. Among all the gods, and it's not referring to idols, But among all the gods, it's referring to all the potentates, all the principalities, all the powers.

Among all these people, among all these gods, who is like the Lord, glorious in holiness? So, we as a people of God are called to be holy. God's will for us is our sanctification. For God did not call us to uncleanness. Paul told the Thessalonians God has not called us to uncleanness, but in holiness.

God has called us in holiness. And to be holy then is to be a separate people. It's to be a separate people. These laws, I think they do apply to us today and that we can draw from them these principles. And we see in these laws teaching the Israelites how they were to be separate.

We see a very biblical practicality. We see first of all that the civil rulers did have authority to quarantine those who were sick, those who had to isolate those who had some indication, some potential for being sick. But it was a very limited time, seven days, and then there was a re-examination. There was some indicator, there was something that indicated that they might be sick. There was a rigorous process, a very detailed process for who, for determining who should be quarantined and who should be isolated.

And there is an interesting here in that text, there was a recognition that disease could be spread by contact, hence the isolation. There was a recognition that disease could be communicated through respiration and hence the covering, the New King James has mustache, but that's really the upper lip. If you're covering your upper lip, you're covering your mouth. That's how Calvin took it, that is they were speaking about covering their mouth. So there's a recognition that in this text that disease comes from breathing, or diseases spread from breathing, and hence the covering of the mouth for those that were sick.

And no one was exempt. Even Miriam, when she contracted leprosy, was put outside the camp. You see, God protected society. God's holiness protects God's church and society. But it also protects society from all those who are sick, but it also protects society from complete economic devastation.

There is a practicality here in this in that there is a limited amount of risk that is being accepted. So not everybody was quarantined because that would wreck economic devastation on a culture. Is there some risk that there might be some infected people? Possibly, but this risk is accepted in the means for the purpose of protecting all of society. And so as Paul told the Thessalonians in his Leviticus 13 illustrates, graphically illustrated to the Jews in Israel's day, God calls us to be holy.

He desires us to be holy. He calls us to be holy and he desires us to do what he calls us to do. Now you might think it's obvious that God desires us to do what he commands us to do. But I was surprised to learn a while ago that there are some, even within our limited small community of Reformed faith, who don't accept that premise that God desires us to do what He commands us to do. But Paul leaves no question here in this passage.

He tells us that God's will, God's desire for us is that we be holy. God's will for us is our holiness. God desires that we be wholly like him and he's commanded us then to be wholly like him and he began before the foundation of the world to accomplish this desire in his people. You see. A holy people is the purpose for which God elected a people to himself.

Ephesians one, four says that he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before us. The purpose of this choice, this election, before the foundation of the world is that we should be holy. This is the purpose for which Christ died. This is the purpose for which Christ died. Does that surprise you?

Did that catch you off guard? You mean he didn't just die so that our sins can be forgiven? No, he died to make us holy. Paul tells husbands to love our wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of the water by the word that he might present it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy without blemish Christ died he loved the church and gave himself for it that he might sanctify it that he might set it apart that his this body his bride might be holy Titus says our great God and Savior gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto Himself a peculiar people zealous of good works. That he might purify to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works.

You see there can be no victory over sin, No mortification of it, no setting aside, besetting sins. There could be no holiness apart from the cross of Christ. In His high priestly prayer, Jesus prayed, for their sakes, speaking of His people, speaking of you brothers and sisters, for their sakes I sanctify myself that they might also be sanctified for the truth. You see none of us, none of us can have any holiness whatsoever apart from being united to Christ. So God desires us to be holy.

It's the purpose for which he elected a people for himself, it's the purpose for which Christ died to make us holy, and it's the purpose for which God sent his Holy Spirit. Romans 8.13 says, if by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the body, you will live. If you by the Spirit, we can't do that apart from the Spirit. This is a very fundamental truth. And sometimes in our circles, you know, we can lose sight of some of these fundamental truths.

A former elder in our number called me a few years ago to say farewell that they were leaving our group denomination. I didn't inquire any details in that. I appreciated the call. But a few years later, I came across a video on the Internet, just randomly came across it of them sharing their testimony. If they're a new church and they related how they had lost sight of the gospel at their previous church.

And how Christianity, for them, had become simply a set of rules or a code of laws to follow. Do this, you know, wear this kind of clothes, don't wear that kind, do this, don't do that, say these things and don't say those things, and then you're holy. And for them, that's what had happened. They had forgotten that it is by the Spirit, and it's only by the Spirit, that we mortify the deeds of the body. And it's only through our union with Jesus Christ.

So, you know, they had come to the place where they thought they had found grace by throwing out the law. You see, what they had really lost was That holiness flows only out of our union with Christ and it's by the power of the Holy Spirit That we are made holy so that he changes our very nature our very desires So now we're not doing these things in our flesh externally So they if I do these I'll be holy but rather they are flowing out of a new heart of a new life of a new creature Out of somebody who is in union with Jesus Christ And who because of that union is living more and more like the one with whom we are in union. It becomes the desire of our heart to do these things. It's something that comes from within us, as opposed to something that comes from outside of us, externally. You might think of it as a tree that has nice leaves.

Now if the tree is not healthy, the leaves might be pale and yellow, malnourished, lack of sun. They're not healthy. And you might come along with a green crayon or magic marker and color the leaf so that it looks nice and green, and it might look good in a picture, but it doesn't change what's inside that leaf. You see, and if we're just following a bunch of external rules without being in vital union with Jesus Christ, without living in the power of His Holy Spirit, then all we're doing is coloring a leaf with a green magic marker to make it look green. And maybe that looks green to others, but it doesn't change the reality of the health of that tree and that leaf.

This is the purpose for which God sent His Holy Spirit. Holiness is necessary to salvation. This isn't just an optional thing. This isn't a bonus, being holy. It's not just a matter of how great our reward will be in heaven.

This isn't a matter of being more or less fruitful. It's an essential, vital part of our very salvation. Joshua told the children of Israel that if they continued in their sins, they could not serve the Lord because God is a holy God. And Paul told the Hebrews that without holiness, we cannot see God. Without which we cannot see God.

That pronoun there, which, is singular masculine and it refers only to holiness. Pursue peace and holiness without which no one will see God. Sanctification is the process through which we are saved. Sanctification, which is a growing in holiness, is the process through which we are saved. 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 13 says, God has from the beginning chosen you to sanct to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth.

God has chosen you to salvation, Paul said, through sanctification and and belief of the truth. We can't be saved without believing the truth. We have to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. But neither can we be saved without holiness, without being sanctified. See, both of these are essential to our very salvation.

Do we as sons of God have a desire to be like our Father God, to be with Him one day in glory, to dwell with Him for all eternity? If that, if the thought of dwelling with a holy God for all eternity is somewhat uncertain to you. You're wondering, well, what is the beauty of that? And then maybe you don't know this holiness that Paul is calling us to and he's saying is a vital part of our salvation. Do we as sons of God have a desire to be like our Father God, to be with Him, to dwell with Him for all eternity.

Of course, you know, what Christian doesn't? John says that everyone, everyone who has this hope purifies himself. Everyone that has this hope pursues holiness. So what then are marks of holiness in God's people? What does holiness look like in God's people?

Well, to be holy is to be conformed to God's nature, to have an inward desire to please the Lord. The law of God is a transcript of the nature of God. It's a reflection of who God is, what he loves and what he hates. That's why David could say of the law of God that it's wonderful, lovely, and more desirable than fine gold. Like Paul told the Thessalonians, you know the commandments.

How we ought to walk, abstain from fornication, don't defraud your brother. Ezekiel 18 gives a fairly long list of the behavior of a holy person. I'd like to just read a few of those verses in Ezekiel. Ezekiel. If a man is just, verse 5, and does what is lawful and right.

If he has not eaten on the mountains, nor lifted up his eyes to the idols of the hearts of Israel, nor defiled his neighbor's wife, nor approached a woman during her impurity, nor has he oppressed anyone, but has restored to the dead or his pledge, has robbed no one by violence, but has given his bread to the hungry and covered the naked with clothing, if he has not exacted usury or interest, nor taken any increase, but has withdrawn his hand from iniquity and executed true judgment between man and man. If he has walked in my statutes and kept my judgments faithful that he is just, he shall surely live, says the Lord God. If he begets a son who is a robber or a shudder of blood, who does any of these things, and does none of these duties, but is eaten on the mountains, or defiled his neighbor's wife, if he is oppressed, the poor and needy, robbed by violence, not restored the pledge, lifted up his eyes to idols, or committed abomination. If he has exacted interest or taken increase, shall he then live? He shall not live.

If he has done any of these abominations, he shall surely die. His blood shall be on him. If, however, He begets a son who sees all the sins which his father has done and considers but does not do likewise, who has not eaten on the mountains, nor lifted his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, nor defiled his neighbor's wife, has not oppressed anyone, nor withheld a pledge, nor robbed by violence, but he has given his bread to the hungry and covered the naked with clothing, who has withdrawn his hand from the poor and has not received usury or increase, but has executed my judgments and walked in my statutes. He shall not die for the iniquity of his father, he shall surely live." The Beatitudes in Matthew 5 are another description of a holy person, like poor in spirit, peacemakers, meek, merciful, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, pure in heart. Galatians 5 gives us a list of the fruit of those who are led by this Spirit, by the Holy Spirit.

God told Israel when he renewed the covenant with them, delivering them from Egypt, God said that if they would obey Him and keep His covenant, then they would be a peculiar treasure to Him above all people. A kingdom of priests, a holy nation. But I'd like to, so certainly we could describe holiness that way, but I'd like to give you this morning two marks of holiness, two marks of holiness that characterize God's people and holiness in God's people. Holiness is the first excellency or perfection that overwhelms all those who encounter the living God. It's the holiness of God that overwhelms them.

The Seraphim standing before the throne of the Holy One of Israel cover their faces. Moses hides his face unable to look at the glory of God in the burning bush. The Israelites could not look at the glory of God reflected on the face of Moses. Minoa and his wife fall to their faces on the ground, unseeing the glory of God ascending in the fire. Unseeing one like the Son of Man in Revelation 1, John fell at his feet as if dead, or seeing the Holy King seated on his throne.

Isaiah cries out, Woe is me, I am undone, Because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts, this holy God, this holy, holy, holy God." And so I would submit to you this morning that the first mark of holiness, the first mark of holiness is to have a deep sense of our sinfulness before the Holy God. God. If we aren't overwhelmed by our sin, then we don't know the first thing about holiness. Paul, the one who said he was as eminent as any other apostle, also called himself the chief of sinners. To grow in sanctification, to pursue holiness ought to mean that we have a bigger and bigger sense of our own holiness.

Now how can that be? If we are growing in sanctification and growing in holiness, we are putting to death the deeds of the flesh and we are committing less sins, why would we have a greater sense of our own sinfulness? It's because we understand more and more the holiness of God. God is infinite in holiness, infinite in holiness. And the more we become holy, the more we understand our sin against an infinitely holy God the more cognizant we become of it and the more grieved we are by it Because we see more and more clearly that our sin is against an infinitely holy holy holy God I think the second fundamental characteristic of those pursuing holiness is that they are engaged in a battle to death with their own sin.

We are engaged in a battle to death. Are you engaged in a battle to death with your own sin. One will kill the other. It is a battle to death. Either our sin will kill us or we will put to death our sin." Paul describes this battle in Romans 7, crying out, Who will deliver me from this body of death?

And he encouraged the Corinthians to run in such a way as to obtain the prize, to run with a purpose in mind, not to box as shadow boxing beating the air. Rather, he said, I buffet my body. He's treating his body like the horse in a chariot race, which must be kept well in hand by the whip, if you're going to win that race. He said, I buffet my body and I bring it into subjection, lest by any means when I've preached to others, I myself should be a castaway." See, the comfort, brothers and sisters, of the Gospel of Jesus Christ this morning is that God will accomplish His desire. God will accomplish His desire in you and in me.

The Father's election, the Son's sacrifice, the Spirit's indwelling will all accomplish their purpose. All who have been justified will be sanctified and they will be glorified. So the Thessalonians were well accomplished in pursuit of holiness. Paul praises them in his letter to them. He praises them for their labors of love.

He praises them for their work of faith and their steadfast hope. But Paul calls them to abound more and more. He calls them to abound more and more. Doesn't matter how holy we might be, or unholy for that matter. A vine that is unfruitful is a dead vine.

You see, it doesn't matter how big that vine or that tree used to be. It doesn't matter how unfruitful that vine or tree used to be. What matters is, is it still alive? Is it still growing? Is it still bearing fruit?

See that passage from Ezekiel that we read, there the righteous who turns to wickedness dies regardless of the righteousness before, but likewise the wicked who turn from his wickedness to be holy, he shall live. He shall live. Brothers and sisters, we become like what we worship. Those who worship idols become like those idols, deaf and dumb, lacking sense. But those who worship the living God in spirit and in truth become like that God in holiness.

I'd like to read you a letter. Some of you may have heard this before, but I think it is a wonderful illustration. It's a wonderful illustration of what Paul is calling and exhorting us to this morning, and that is to pursue holiness, to pursue holiness, and to abound, to abound in it. I'm gonna jump in in the middle, but give you the necessary details. There is a man in Germany, whose name was Asgar, Oscar, his name actually is a Persian word for beautiful long hair.

And this man did have long silky hair down to his waist and an equally long silky mustache to complement it. And When the man writing the letter first met him he said he looked like somebody who jumped out of the pages of a 1960s catalog of who's who among the hippies He is truly an exceptionally gifted artist however until his recent conversion he had been putting his God-given talent to the service of crime. And he shared his story, Oscar. About 15 years ago, As a 17-year-old boy from a poor family, he decided to leave his home and his homeland and venture out seeking a better future in Europe. On his way in Bulgaria, he was beaten and robbed of everything he had by the Bulgarian police and the border guards.

According to him, that incident appeared to have sealed his fate. He was stranded. In order to survive in that inhospitable land, he put to use his only skill, his artistic genius, to forge passports and visas. And It wasn't long before he had a network of gypsies working for him, stealing tourists' passports across Europe, which he then would alter and sell to prospective buyers for thousands of dollars. He told me he had Eastern European government officials among his clients, as well as gangsters and mafia bosses.

Then one day, last year, a German passport of a young woman was among the stolen passports brought to him. He found something very unusual about the picture on the passport, something radiating innocence, purity, godlikeness, all that his own life lacked. So he set out to find the owner of the passport. With the aid of his gypsy friends, he finally traced her to a small Bulgarian village where she was apparently a nurse. When he met her he found an overwhelming power emanating from within her which made an otherwise ordinary woman exceedingly attractive.

He said when he handed her the passport she did not say anything, she took it and looked at him but it was as though her gaze burned a hole through him. He felt like she had decoded his mind and read all that was hidden. In her presence a profound sense of shame, mingled with deep adoration, had come upon him. He described it this way, it was as though I wanted to cover my face and fall at her feet. As time went on, he began to find excuses to go see her and she welcomed his visits.

He went to great pains to point out that it was not a physical attraction, it was a spiritual attraction, the source of which was within her, something very beautiful. On one occasion he marshaled up courage and said to her that he was in love with her. In turn she graciously acknowledged his love but said to him that she was already married, married to Jesus Christ, her Savior. And then she said to him, the one you have fallen in love with is not me. It is the person who lives in me, the Holy Spirit.

God is showing you grace. Leave your servitude of sin. Go and serve Jesus Christ." Tearfully he told me that as she spoke to him, he felt as though he was standing before her naked and exposed. He was confused by her statements. How did she know about his criminal life?

What did she mean when she said she was married to Christ? Who was the Holy Spirit living in her? A couple of days later, he went back to see her again, only to discover she had vanished. There was no sign of her, and no one knew where she had gone. He was mystified.

He began to search for her all over Europe. After a while he assumed she might have gone back to Germany, so he decided to go to Germany. In Germany his search proved futile. And that is where the writer of our letter encountered him. And he goes on to write, I was in...

When I first saw Oscar, he looked perplexed and depressed. He could not make sense of his encounter with this mystery woman. He yearned to find her. I explained to him that what I thought she had meant by being married to Christ. I impressed upon him that he ought not to pursue her even if he could find her, which I doubted what awaited him was a broken heart.

She was too pure to engage in an open-ended relationship with a man, and she had already said she had given herself to the Lord. And I reminded him of her words, that one you have fallen in love with is not me. She was simply a vessel for the invisible, beautiful Holy Spirit who lived in her. And I then told him a story of an encounter which happened to the writer of this letter 32 years earlier as a young Christian. He said Princeton University was celebrating the 100th birthday of one of its graduates, a boy from Kentucky who had served as a scholar missionary in Persia for 72 years.

A friend of mine was invited to attend and he asked me to go with him. So we drove from Chicago to New Jersey and in Princeton I saw a frail 100 year old man in whom the presence of Christ burned like the sun. I was too young of a Christian to appreciate the significance of the mystery of the presence of God in a person who was so emptied of himself and full of the Spirit of God, making an old man exceedingly beautiful. On the second day of the event, after lunch he was strolling to his room. I ran to him and said, Dr.

Miller, I really, really like you. He stopped and reached for my hand in the most gracious manner. He said in flawless royal Persian, it is not me whom you like, it is the one who lives in me you really, really love. 32 years have passed since that meeting, I never forgot his words. As I grew in my Christian faith, I understood what he meant and how true it was.

Behind the frail, stooped body and wrinkled skin of a 100-year-old dear saint of God, there was something so powerful, so beautiful, glowing like nuclear fusion out of his innermost being. It was none other than the Savior himself." And I told that story to my new friend Oscar. And I told him, the intense attraction he felt was similar to what I had encountered. It was the beauty and purity of the Lord himself which draws us like an irresistible magnet. Brothers and sisters, that's a earthly description of the beauty of holiness as God in his Holy Spirit dwells with his people.

We wear holy robes. We are a holy people. We are recipients of a holy message. We serve a holy king. We are to be a holy people.

Separated, sanctified, set apart to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Lord dwell with us that we not only worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness but that we also begin more and more in our living to reflect the beauty, the beauty of holiness, the beauty of the Lord himself dwelling with us. Let us pray. Almighty Heavenly Father, we acknowledge that we are not in ourselves beautiful in any way. And that if there is any good thing in us, it is your work.

You know Father, as we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, We ask that we might not do so in the power of our flesh, but that we might look to you, the author and finisher of our faith. That we might look and seek the power of your Holy Spirit. For that is the only power that is able to equip us to do these deeds. That is the only power that can beautify us. Lord as we are in our homes this week, maybe more than normal, We ask as we interact with our families, as we live under different stresses, Lord we ask for the power of your Holy Spirit to rest upon us, to sanctify us, that we may grow day by day in the fruits of your Spirit, that we may abound in holiness, that we might be holy even as you are, and that that might be reflected in a beauty to all around us.

A beauty not of our own aroma, but of your Holy Spirit, living with us, God with us, God dwelling with us. Lord, this we ask in Jesus name. Amen.