Men will be unholy

II Timothy 3:2
By Hayley Boud

To understand what it means to be unholy we first have to understand what it means to be holy. There are many things that are holy in the Bible;

The people of Israel Exodus 19:110 We are also God’s people
The alter in temple Exodus 29:36 We are God’s temple
The priests Exodus 28:41 We are God’s priests
A building Nehemiah 3:1 We are Christ’s building
Soldiers Isa 13:3, Jer 51:27 We are God’s soldiers
The mountain Exodus 29:23 We have to climb the mountain of trails to get holy
The Sabbath Genesis 2:3 We are living the 7th day (the last day before Christ comes back)
A war I Sam 7:9; Ps 110:3 We are fighting against sin
A fast Joel 1:14; 2:15
The New Jerusalem Revelation 21:2

An action can be holy (Romans 16:16), the Word of God is Holy (Romans 1:2), God is Holy (Isaiah 1:4; 40:25), God’s Name is Holy (Is 57:15), a person can be Holy (Mk 6:20), a part of your body (I Tim 2:8), your calling (II Tim 1:9).

Now I was wondering if a piece of land or a material thing can really be holy, how can a mountain be holy? Perhaps it was just holy because God was there and itself was not holy. The temple was therefore a holy place because God was there and the Holy of Holies was where God was. The Word of God is therefore Holy because it is God Himself and so if we are to be Holy we need God in our lives and if our actions are to be Holy we need God to act in us.

“Quadesh”
Means apartness, holiness, sacredness, a holy thing (e.g. arc), holy vessels, sacred abligations, something consecrated, a dedicated thing, holy of holies (innermost part of the temple), a temple, holy tabernacle.

People or things that were dedicated to God were devoted to Him and to His service and could only be used for God’s glory (e.g. Samuel) and were withheld from ordinary use. We don’t have the right to use our bodies as we please because we dedicated our lives to God, we devoted ourselves to Him and so to be Holy we must keep ourselves from ordinary use and from worldly things. We are God’s holy vessels and as the vessels in the temple could only be used for God’s glory, so should we.

I think everybody knows that story of Belshazzar (Daniel 5) who took the vessels from the temple in order to drink from. Remember God’s reaction? He wrote on the wall, ‘Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin’ meaning that God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it, you have been weighed on scales and found deficient and your kingdom as been divided and given over to the Medes and Persians. So God is unhappy if we use what belongs to Him for something other than His glory and we therefore must be careful not to do anything apart from what He has agreed to. If not you will find your kingdom (body, heart and soul) will belong to another nation (satan).

“Qadash”
Means to be clean, to sanctify, purify, to consecrate, to be selected, to be pure, holy, sacred, devoted. A state in which people or things are set a side for use in the worship of God. Must be withheld from ordinary use and treated with special care as something which belongs to God and defilement makes it unusable (Deut 22:9; Ez 44:19; 46:20).

To be holy we must be clean and pure which means we must do our best to stay clear of sin and if we do fail, we need to repent make ourselves clean again because if we don’t we will make ourselves unusable.

“Hagios”
Means to be chaste, pure, holy and separate from sin

“Hosios”
Is different to Hagios because it isn’t about the moral significance but just the ritual significance.

This is the performer of holiness but in character; acting holy rather than being holy. It is important that we ARE holy, not just in our actions but in our being. The way to be holy is to be filled with the Holy Spirit since Himself is Holy.

In summary, to be Holy we have to be;
SET APART – CLEAN – PURE – DEVOTED – FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT

So to be unholy, obviously, we have to be the opposite to that;
Without God’s spirit, living in the world and for ourselves rather than God, disobedient to God. This is what we will see in the end days and this is why the end days will be so hard to live in because people will not obey God and will live according to their own ideas which will be selfish.