I direct your attention this
morning to Romans 11, verse 36. The last verse of the chapter. Romans 11, verse 36. I believe this is the strongest
verse in all Scripture that testifies to God's glorious glory. For of Him And through Him, and
to Him, speaking of God, speaking of the Lord Jesus, are all things
to whom be glory forever. Amen. For of Him, God's the source. Through Him, God is the sustainer. To Him, God is the recipient. So the only fitting conclusion
is to Him be glory forever. I have two titles this morning.
I have a short title and a long title. I'll give you the short
title. It's God's Glorious Glory. The long title is God's Glorious
Glory is Gloriously Glorious. Now, you say that five times
real fast, and I'll use that as the title, but I think we'll
stick with God's glorious glory. That's hard enough to say. The
Word of God. This is so important. God's Holy Word, the Bible, God's
Word to us, is not first and foremost about man. A lot of
people think that. A lot of people preach it that
way, It's not about man. All false religion is about man. It's man-centered, about man,
but not God's Word. Every word, every verse, every
story in Scripture, every law, every promise, every prophecy,
every teaching, every judgment in Scripture directs us to one
thing, the glory of God. You see, where God's holiness
and God's power and God's love and mercy and justice are revealed
and magnified in His Son, the Lord Jesus, God gets the glory. Creation exists for God's glory. God said, fear not, I am with
thee, even everyone that is called by name, for I have created him
for my glory. I have formed Him, yea, I have
made Him." Why? For God's glory. The heavens
declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork. God gets all the glory. To God be the glory. History. We've often said His
story. It's His story. History is His
story. unfolds according to His purpose of glorifying Jesus Christ
as Lord over all. Listen to this. Having made known
unto us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure,
which He hath purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the
fullness of times, he, God, might give it together in one, all
things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on
earth, even in him in whom also we have obtained an inheritance
being predestinated according to the purpose of him who works
all things after the counsel of his own will. And here it
is, that we should be to the praise of his glory. who first trusted in Christ.
It's all about His glory. To God be the glory. Linda picked that song out. I
didn't request you to sing it. Well, really, the Lord picked
it out. Salvation is God saving sinners, not just to rescue them
from hell, but so that they might be to the praise of His glory. Our redemption, like everything
else, is for that reason, the praise of His glory. God's glory shines most brilliantly
on the cross, in the cross of Christ. When our sin was placed
upon God's Son, God displayed the full weight of His righteous
judgment and justice while at the same time, We talked about
that between services, Lou. Revealing His boundless riches
of His mercy and His grace toward us. And in God's justice, and
in God's mercy to us, He gets all the glory. God must punish
sin wherever and on whomever it's found. God in his glory
can by no means clear the guilty, even when it's charged to his
perfect sinless son. He would cease to be God. How glorious is that? And the glory of God is seen
in the end of all things. One day very soon, now listen,
every knee is going to bow and every tongue is going to confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord. How and why? Through the glory
of God the Father. That's what it says. So the Bible is all about the
glory of God revealed in the person and the work of Jesus
Christ. And this is the glory that defines
truth and drives redemption and anchors eternity. This is where
so many things are called into question. This ongoing argument
and debate of God's sovereign election and man's free will
is resolved with God's glory. That's right. Which message,
which teaching, which doctrine gives God all the glory? Which gives man all the glory?
God's election, God's choosing, salvation being of the Lord,
that gives God all the glory. The message of Christ alone,
grace alone, declares God's glory alone. But man's choice and man's
works and man's righteousness, man's effort, that glorifies
man. If it doesn't glorify God, it's
not a God. Preaching the free will, worth,
works, righteousness of man, it's nothing short of an attempt
to rob God of His glory. God says, I'm the Lord, that
is my name and my glory will I not give to another, neither
my praise to graven images, Isaiah 42a. He will not give His glory
unto another. Isaiah 42, 11. Man cannot rightfully
take what belongs to God alone. And so why does he try? Pride. Pride is the cause of man's attempt
to rob God. Men and women alike refused to
see and acknowledge the glory of God's creation, even in His
eternal power and Godhead, which are clearly seen, Romans chapter
one. Because that, when they knew
God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but
became vain, and their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. When we profess
ourselves to be wise, we become fools. We remove all doubt that
fools are what we are. And what did they do? They changed
the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like unto
corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping
things. That's all idols were. Most of
the gods of Egypt were just stupid things. Half man, half fish,
birds, you know, whatever. Jeremiah 9.23, listen to this. Thus saith the Lord, let not
the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory
in his might. Let not the rich man glory in
his riches, but let him that glorieth glory in this, that
he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord which exercise
loving kindness and judgment and righteousness in the earth.
For in these things I delight, saith the Lord." God gets all
the glory. Whenever men and women glory
in their wisdom, strength, wealth, anything for that matter. They
are robbing God of the honor and glory that's due Him alone. How so? Because everything that
we have is a gift of God to us. Everything. Everything. Our clarity
of mind. Our strength of body. Our capacity
to work and provide for ourselves. It doesn't have anything to do
with us. It has everything to do with
God's mercy to us. Therefore, He gets all the glory. That's the truth of the matter.
Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy Name give glory. For Thy mercy and for Thy truth's
sake. Psalm 115, 1. God will not have self-glory. God resists that nonsense. What
do we have to glory about, honestly? Nebuchadnezzar boasted, is not
this great Babylon that I built by the might of my power and
for the honor of my majesty? Nebuchadnezzar, you don't have
any power. You don't have any majesty, but
that which God has gave you and God instantly humbled him, driving
him to live like a beast because Until he unlearned, or he learned,
that heaven rules and God rules, and God's not gonna share His
glory with another. In Acts chapter 12, verses 21
through 23, Herod received praise as if he were a god. They said,
well, this man speaks like God, and he didn't give God the glory,
and immediately the angel of the Lord smote him with worms. God gets all the glory. The one
who takes the credit for themselves, for their own salvation, will
meet a similar end. That's what awaits those who
attempt to rob God of His glory. The self-exalting glory of man
is nothing before God. You're not a threat to God. God's not intimidated by your
ignorance or mine. God's brought man's glory to
naught. You know what that means? Nothing.
Why? That no flesh should glory in
His presence. He that glorieth, let him glory
where? In the Lord. No greater attempt of man to
glory in himself than when he claims to be saved in, by, and
through himself. The majority of people in this
world today claim to be saved. You won't find many people that
say, no, I'm lost. You say, oh yeah, I'm saved. Most declare their salvation
to be by free will choice and decision that they themselves
make. Ask them. And that appeals to
their pride to say so, and it glorifies their self-sufficiency
to declare so. It reveals their personal desire
to be in control. Men claim to choose their own
path, decide their own destiny, determine their own fate. It
seems empowering to them, makes them feel morally significant. If I choose, then somehow I matter. Only one major problem with all
that. Man's dead. Dead in trespasses and sin. That's
talking about spiritual death. I know we, by nature, we walk
around, we do things. but spiritually we're dead. A
dead man can do nothing. Dead and trespasses and sin means
incapable of spiritual life. Just as a physically dead person
cannot move, breathe, act, respond, obey, seek, accept, make choices. Man's will is enslaved to sin. Dead. Trespasses are deliberate
violations of God's law. God says no, I say yes. A conscious turning away. I will
not have this man, Jesus Christ, to rule over me. Not gonna have
it. Sin is rebellion against God. Sin is lawlessness. What is not of faith is sin. What's sin? Everything that's
not of faith. Sin is not only outward acts, we say this all
the time, it's desire and pride and unbelief and self-rule. Sin
is man's attempt to dethrone God, as we've already seen, to
rob God of His glory. Sin is anything in thought, word,
or deed that contradicts God's holy character, rejects His sovereign
authority, or falls short of His glorious glory. We see the
origin of sin in Genesis chapter 3. Adam and Eve broke the one
commandment that God gave them. We talk about keeping God's commandments.
We can't keep more. A perfectly righteous man couldn't.
Why do we think we can? We see the spread of sin in Genesis
4 through Genesis chapter 11. We see that the law exposes sin
and exodus from Malachi. We see the power of sin in the
four Gospels. We see the defeat of sin in the
book of Acts through the epistles. And we see the final removal
of sin in the book of Revelation. The result of sin, you know what
it is? Separation from God. The worst part of hell is not
going to be The worst part of hell is gonna
be separated from God. Isaiah plainly and simply declared,
God's hand is not shortened that he cannot say. In other words,
his hand hadn't grown weak. He's still mighty to deliver.
God is. Neither is his ear heavy that
he cannot hear. God's ear hadn't grown deaf.
Listen, God's not hard of hearing. Many of us are, but not God. It's because of our sin that
He will not hear. You see, the problem's not with
God. The problem's never been with God. The problem's not with
God's law. God's law is perfect. The problem
is with us who cannot keep that law, and that the law is unable
to save because He's weak in the flesh. That's talking about
us, not the weak about God's law. Your iniquities have separated
between you and your God. Your sins have hid His face from
you that you will not hear. The problem is with man. God
is fully capable, able to save and fully willing to hear. The barrier here is not God's
weakness. The problem here is man's sin. It's always been the problem.
And humanity is not cut off because God has become unwilling. Sin
created a wall of separation. Sin alienates man from God. Sin blinds. Sin hardens. Sin cuts man off from God. And
He's the source of life. You cut yourself off from God,
there is no other source of life. Without reconciliation, man remains
under judgment without hope. How are we going to be reconciled?
God's got to initiate it. And He does to some. And for
that, He gets all the glory. God doesn't need us. What makes
men think that God needs them? We need God. Jesus Christ came
to remove that barrier of separation. Only He could by His sin atoning
death. And I suppose this would be a
good time to ask you once again, who should get all the glory?
Who should get it? Jesus Christ is the one thing
needful. He should get all the glory.
And the problem is not with the great physician's ability to
cure. The problem is with our disease.
It's sin. Our sin has separated us from
the great physician. Kind of like static on a radio.
The problem is not with God's broadcasting. The problem is
with man's receiver. It's corrupted. Spiritual life
comes only through God's mercy and grace through Jesus Christ,
our Lord. And that's why God gives all
the glory. And the believer will always
give God all the glory and all the honor and all the praise
because they'll always be totally dependent on Him for life through
God's mercy and grace to them. Why? We can't get away from it. We know what is in us. We know
what we're capable of. Dead means dead, doesn't it?
What can a dead man glory in? He can't give himself life, Ephesians
2.1. He can't seek God, Romans 3.11.
He can't change his nature, Jeremiah 13.23. So where's boasting then? Where is His glory found? It's
excluded, Paul said. Like Lazarus in the tomb. Wrapped
in grave clothes, bound, silent, no stirring, no reaching forth,
no holding your hand out for help, no pleading, dead. Only God can make the dead alive.
He gets all the glory. Only God can draw sinners to
Himself. He gets all the glory. Only God can grant repentance
and faith. He gets all the glory. Lazarus
come forth, and he that was dead came forth. Who gets the glory? Who got the glory that day? Huh? Did Lazarus? No, he was dead. The one who spoke life to him
gets all the glory. And we've got to stop looking
inward for this life. We've got to look to Christ alone
who can give life. And we cannot look until He gives
us life. So, He gets all the glory. When Moses asked God to show
him His glory, we alluded to this in the Bible study. How
did God do so? Well, He revealed His goodness
in His name. His glory is a revelation of
His character. God does not receive glory from
outside of Himself. The sun does not shine because
something shines upon it. Now the moon does, but the sun
don't. The light and the heat and the
power of the sun is its very nature. Likewise, God's glory is by His
very nature. His power, His light, His strength,
that's His nature. He gets all the glory. And it may not seem like it,
but history is moving toward one great goal. I know this because
God's behind it. The universal acknowledgement
of God's glorious glory. The earth will be filled with
the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea,
Habakkuk 2.14. The new Jerusalem has no need
of sun or moon for the glory of God gives it light and its
lamp is the Lamb of God, Revelation 21.23. The child of God lives
for God's glorious glory. It's our purpose. Paul said,
whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory
of God. Do we? I fail miserably, but
I want to and I strive to. Need to strive a little harder
by God's mercy and help. It's our purpose, it's our joy.
In thy presence is fullness of joy at thy right hand. There
are pleasures forevermore. That's where our joy is found,
in the glory of God. My father can do anything. He can do everything. He gets
all the glory. The glory of God is not only
his highest honor, it's our greatest joy. We brag on Him. It's our mission. Declare His glory among the heathen,
His wonders among all people, for the Lord is great and greatly
to be praised. He is to be feared above all
gods, for all the gods of the nations are idols. But the Lord
made the heavens. Psalm 96, three through five. You know, men make and believe
and trust and serve their idols. And you know what? The greatest
of men's idols is the idol of self. But the Lord who made the heavens,
He alone gets the glory. And that's been the problem ever
since sin entered into the world. And it's still the problem today. And that's the problem of glorifying
in self. In Isaiah chapter 14, we're told
that Lucifer's sin was exalting himself to be like the Most High. This was the temptation he presented
to our first parents in the garden. Well, you'll be like God. In Ezekiel chapter 28, the king
of Tyre's heart was lifted up and he said, I am God. I'll be
like the Most High God. I'll sit in the seat of God.
But he was a man and he wasn't God. And God showed him real
quick he wasn't. In Daniel chapter 3, the great
Nebuchadnezzar set up a golden image of himself and he demanded
that every nation and people bow to it or be cast into the
furnace. And those three Hebrew men said,
I'm not bowing to that. They threw them in the furnace.
Did they burn up? No, they didn't even smell like
they had smoke on them when they pulled them out. In Daniel chapter
4, he and Nebuchadnezzar glorified himself and he said, is this
not great Babylon, which I built for my mighty power? We just
read that. For the glory of my majesty? God said, no. So, you don't go out in that
field and eat grass like a big old cow. In Acts chapter 12, we alluded
to this. Herod sat on his throne in royal
apparel, received praise of God, and did not give God any glory.
What happened to him? You know. He was eaten by worms. In the
last days, men shall be, listen, lovers of their own selves. Lovers of pleasure rather than
lovers of God. Second Timothy chapter three,
verse two through four. Is that not the day in which
we live in? That's exactly how it is right
now. In 2 Thessalonians 2, it is said
of the man of sin, speaking of the Antichrist, that he will
exalt himself above all that is called God and that is worshiped,
so that he, as God, sitteth on the temple of God, showing himself
that he's God. But he's not God. And if it were
possible, even God's lake would be to see. But it's not possible.
Because they know that God in heaven gets all the glory. In chapter 14, the people of
Lystra claimed and cried out that Barnabas was the Greek god
Zeus, and that Paul was Hermes, another god of mythology. And they brought sacrifices to
worship them as gods. And remember what Paul and Barnabas
did? They ripped their clothes and
rejected their worship. What are the results of giving
worship to any other than God? What's the outcome of endeavoring
to rob God of His glory? Nebuchadnezzar was driven insane
till God brought him back to his senses. The king of Tyre
was brought low. Herod was struck dead. And the
Antichrist will be destroyed by the Lord Jesus Christ. And
today, friends, this religious world has made their free will
an idol A God, so to speak, that they've attributed their salvation
to. Are you saved? Yes, I'm saved. Well, how do you know you're
saved? Because I made a decision. I made a choice. I have decided. No, you haven't. No, you have
not. They glorify the will of man.
They make their will their God by exalting themselves above
God. Man exchanged the truth of God
for a lie and worshiped the creature Himself rather than the Creator. In the book of Judges, every
man did what was right in his own eyes. You remember that?
Which is nothing but self-will. Men boast in their choice instead
of God's grace. Don't they? In Deuteronomy 8,
verse 17, men said, My power and the might of mine hand hath
gotten me this well. That's what people say today.
I'm a self-made man. You're a self-made dead man.
But friends, what do we have to do? What do we have that we
did not receive? Isn't that what Paul said in
1 Corinthians 4? And if we received it, why do
we boast as if we didn't receive it? God's salvation is robbed
of grace when man makes the decisive factor his choice and not God's
mercy. I decided, I gave Jesus my heart. God's salvation robbed of grace. It's not of him that wills. It's
not of him that runs. Then what's it of? Of God, but
of God that shows mercy. Trusting in our will is trusting
in man. In Jeremiah 17, verse five says,
cursed is the man that trusts the man. Do you hear that? You
trust in yourself, you're cursed. That man makes flesh his arm
and his heart has departed from the Lord. So let's conclude here
as we started in Romans chapter 11. This time, look up at verse
33. Oh, the depth of the riches,
both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are
his judgments and his ways past finding out. God's wisdom and
knowledge are infinite. God's judgments are unsearchable. They're past finding now. Unless
God reveals them, we'll never see them. And that's why God
gets all the glory. Look at verse 34. For who hath
known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counselor?
Men preach Christ and God today as though they're teaching him
something. Let me tell you what I've done
for God. You didn't do anything for God. Who's known the mind
of the Lord? Who's been His counselor? God's
mind is beyond human comprehension. None can fathom His thoughts
and purpose. None can perceive His eternal
counsels. He needs no counselor or advisor. I have a young man that's a financial
advisor. He ain't got much to work with.
But he's my advisor. I don't need a financial advisor.
He owns the cattle on Thousand Hill. Everything's his. Who's
his counselor? Who's his advisor? That's why
God gets all the glory. Verse 35, or who hath first given
to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again. You see, God
is self-sufficient. He's not indebted to anyone.
He doesn't need our gifts. He doesn't need our worship.
God needs your worship. No, He doesn't. Doesn't change
Him. Doesn't change Him. Doesn't make
Him less God if you worship Him or not. But if He's gonna be
your God, you're gonna worship Him. And you're gonna willingly
worship Him. Because of who He is and what
He's done. He doesn't require obedience.
We require to be obedient. We're required to be obedient,
but He doesn't require to exist or accomplish His purposes. It
doesn't matter. He remains God, and He gets all
the glory. Since no man can give to God
first all praise, honor, and glory due to Him alone. You and
I can claim no merit. We can only receive the grace
that He gives. That's why God gets all the glory.
Verse 36. For of Him, and through Him,
and to Him are all things, to Him be glory forever. Amen. So we see that God is the
source of everything. Everything originates from Him,
creation, providence, salvation. It all comes from His hand. That's
why He gets the glory. God is the sustainer of everything. Everything continues and exists
through Him. He created all things and He
upholds all things. That's why God gets all the glory. He's the ultimate purpose of
everything. Everything exists to Him. The purpose of creation,
providence, and salvation is to glorify this glorious God. He gets all the glory. And here
Paul's doxology states that because of all these things, all glory
belongs to God forever. Now then does. Not unto us, O
Lord, not unto us. But unto your glorious name,
give glory for the sake of your mercy, for your truth's sake. That word truth in the original
Hebrew means faithfulness, reliability, and steadfastness. That's why
God deserves all the glory. His faithfulness, His reliability. You can count on Him. His salvation
just for being God. He gets all the glory.