Stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel! – Thomas Brooks

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty!” Isaiah 6:3

Certainly there is nothing which renders God so formidable and dreadful to unholy people as His holiness does. “Leave this way, get off this path and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!” Isaiah 30:11.

Oh that you would not preach so much, nor talk so much to us of the Holy One of Israel! Oh that you would cease from molesting and vexing us with message upon message from the Holy One! Why can’t you talk and preach to us of the merciful One, the compassionate One, the affectionate One, the pitiful One, etc., and not be still a-talking to us of the Holy One, the Holy One! Oh, we do not like to hear it! Oh, we cannot bear it!”

Nothing strikes the sinner into such a terror as a discourse on the holiness of God; it is as the handwriting upon the wall, Dan. 5:4-6. Nothing makes the head and heart of a sinner to ache like a sermon upon the Holy One. Nothing galls and gripes, nothing stings and terrifies unsanctified ones like a lively setting forth of the holiness of God, Hab. 1:13.

But to holy souls, there are no discourses which more suit them and satisfy them, which more delight and content them, which more please and profit them than those do, which most fully and powerfully reveal God to be glorious in holiness. Well, this is an everlasting truth he who truly loves the holiness of God, and loves God for His holiness is certainly made partaker of His holiness.