It's a great blessing to be here.
Would you please turn in the Word of God to Isaiah chapter
42. This is a book of Christ. What's this tell me about Christ?
And he says, Behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect, in
whom my soul delighteth, That has to be Christ. I have put
my spirit upon him. He shall bring forth judgment
to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up,
nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed
shall he not break, and a smoking flax shall he not quench. He
shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail. nor be discouraged, till he hath
set judgment in the earth, and the isles shall wait for his
law. Thus saith God the Lord, he that
created the heavens, and stretched them out, he that spread forth
the earth, and that which cometh out of it, he that giveth breath
unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein,
I am the Lord. and have called thee in righteousness."
Holy Christ. "...and will hold thy hand, and
will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people
for a light of the Gentiles." Here's what he had to do for
me and for you. To open the blind eyes, to bring
out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness
out of the prison house." We were imprisoned to the law
of God. I am the Lord, this is my name, and my glory will I
not give to another, neither my praise to graven images. This morning we're going to have
the great blessing of hearing the gospel of God's grace in
Christ. How do we know we've heard the
gospel? It's very simple. Who gets, and
here's the key word, all of the glory? If you hear a message
that gives glory to anything other than the triune God, you've
heard a lie. And how do I know I believe it?
Well, when you ask someone, how do you think you're saved, usually
the first word out of most people's mouth is, what? I did this, I
did that. They're trying to steal God's
glory. If you hear it from a believer, you'll hear, God had to do everything
for me. He had to do everything in spite
of me. And to Him goes all. all the glory. That's our goal. You know, the old catechism.
What's the purpose of man? First of all, to glorify God
and enjoy Him forever. That's our goal this morning.
We want to glorify God because if we're able to do that, we'll
be blessed. Shall we try to pray? Lord, we I pray that we see what
a great blessing and privilege it is to be here this morning.
Lord, we've come to you praying that you would send your Spirit
and that you would speak to our hearts and that you would give
us faith to believe what is said and that we would be able to
give you all the glory. We pray for your servants, your
gospel preachers and their wives, and pray your blessing upon them,
Lord, that you would put their words, your words, in their heart
and their mouths. Oh, give them the ability to
speak, Lord. And we pray for your people that
you would allow us, cause us, Lord, to hear, to put aside our
distractions Lord, that you would give us the ability to believe
and rejoice and to see that all our hope is in you and that we may give you all
the glory. We ask this in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ that he would take our prayers and make them
acceptable for your glory. Will you open your Bibles with
me to Exodus chapter 33. Exodus 33. Do you ever struggle with the
question, what's life really all about? What am I here for? What's its purpose? Is it as so many people are living
just to excel among my peers and be successful, accumulate
more wealth? Someone says, well, that's a
shallow reason for living. No, he said, mine is to improve
the lives of others. I had someone tell me recently
they live their life for their children and grandchildren. That's
their purpose in life is for their family. That's why they're
here. Someone else says, well, my purpose
is to leave the world a better place behind when I'm gone. Well,
you know what? It's not getting any better.
It's not getting any better. Someone says, well, my purpose
in life is to escape judgment. It's to be saved. It's even if
I'm saved by the skin of my teeth, I don't want to avoid the wrath
of God. I want to go to heaven. Someone says, well, my purpose
in life is to serve God. That's my purpose in life. Well,
how is it that we serve God? How is it that we serve God?
I look at my acts of service towards God and I find them to
be very insufficient, insignificant. Moses in Exodus chapter 33, and
Michael touched on this in reading that text from Isaiah 42, my
glory, Will I not share with another?"
In Exodus chapter 33, Moses had seen the Lord at the burning
bush. He had heard the voice of God.
He had seen the bush burning and yet not consumed. He had
been led of God back into Egypt to bring the children of Israel
out. He observed. the plagues that
God sent. He saw the Red Sea divided. He saw the manifold
miraculously from heaven. He struck the rock and saw the
water come out of the rock. And he saw the mountain quake
and he had heard the voice of God up on that mountain already
once and received the law of God. And he still wants more. And so Moses says in Exodus chapter
33 at verse 18, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. You would think that, well, Moses,
you've seen the glory of God. Moses says, Lord, I want to see
your glory. Truth is, Michael, as you mentioned
in that old first of the catechism questions, what is the chief
end of man? To glorify God and enjoy Him
forever. So how do we glorify God? How
do we glorify Him? I want you to rejoice in believing
that the chief end of everything is the glory of God. I want you
to rest in that. I want to believe that. That
the purpose of this world and the purpose of your life and
the purpose of everything that's happening and the purpose of
our salvation is the glory of God. That's it. All of us by nature view our
world as we are the nucleus of it. You know, we just look out
from ourselves and we see ourselves in the right smack dab in the
center of our own little universe, don't we? And we get confused
when we think like that because we can't reconcile the things
that are going on around us to our desires and our needs and
our problems and our objectives and our hopes and dreams. And
so everything is out of whack, isn't it? Well, I got news for
you this morning. You're not at the nucleus of
the universe. God is. And He's ordering everything
to His glory. The purpose of your life and
the purpose of everything else in this world is the glory of
God. It's not to leave the world a
better place. It's not even our salvation. It's God's glory. It's God's glory. Now the word
glory, used many, many times in the Word of God, translated
means to seem. to seem. That's what it means. In other words, how does God
seem to you? What is your opinion, your estimation
of God? If your estimation of Him is
that He is to be glorified, then the honor resulting from that
good opinion is His glory. It is my estimation, it is my
opinion, yea, my belief that all glory belongs to God. Is that your estimation? Is it
your, does it seem right to you? Does it seem right to you? That
the end result of everything is the glory of God. And that whatever God is pleased
to do in order to achieve that end is good and right. Does that seem right to you? We looked at a passage Wednesday
night that I want us to go back to again briefly. It's in Numbers
chapter 14. Numbers chapter 14, the children of Israel rebelled
again and again and again against God. Does that remind you of somebody?
You know. Why do I keep doing the same
thing? And what reason do I have to believe that God's going to
continue to forgive? Moses, as a type of Christ, intercedes
on behalf of the children of Israel. He prays for God to forgive
them. And I want you to notice in this
prayer that Moses makes no mention to God of their need. Lord, they need for you to save
them. Lord, they need for you to forgive them. He makes no
mention to God of their good intentions. Lord, they didn't
mean it. They'll do better. Just give them another chance.
Moses makes none of those pleas when he intercedes for the children
of Israel for God to forgive them. Listen to this prayer. Exodus chapter 14, Numbers chapter
14, beginning in verse 11. And the Lord said unto Moses,
How long will this people provoke me? And how long will it be,
e'er that they believe me? For all the signs which I have
showed unto them, I have been so good to them, I have provided
so much for them, and they rebel and rebel and rebel. How long
am I going to put up with them? And so God says, I will smite
them. I'm going to destroy them. with pestilence, and I'm going
to disinherit them and make of thee a greater nation and mightier
than they." I'm going to start over, Moses. I'm going to start
over with you. I'm going to destroy all these
people. I'm going to start just with you. And Moses, I mean,
the Lord's got, I mean, He's already said that's what He's
going to do. So Moses now has to pray for the people and ask
God not to do that. So what does He say? Moses said
unto the Lord, then the Egyptians shall hear it. For thou broughtest
up this people in thy might from among them. and they will tell
it to the inhabitants of this land, for they have heard that
thou art the Lord among this people, and that thou, Lord,
art seen face to face, and that thy cloud standeth over them,
and that thou goest before them by daytime in a pillar of cloud,
and in a pillar of fire by night. Now if thou shalt kill all this
people as one man, then all the nations which have heard of the
fame of thee will speak, say, They've heard of your esteem
among these people. Because the Lord was not able
to bring this people into the land which he sware unto them,
therefore he hath slain them in the wilderness. And now I
beseech thee, let the power of my Lord be great according as
thou hast spoken, saying, The Lord is longsuffering and great
in mercy. forgiving iniquity and transgression,
and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children of the third and fourth generation.
Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people, according unto
the greatness of thy mercy, as thou hast forgiven this people
from Egypt even until now. And the Lord said, I have pardoned
according to thy word, but as truly as I live, all the earth
shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. Moses interceded
for the people of Israel and pled with God for God's glory. Lord, if you do this, the people
of the world are going to think that you're not able to save.
Lord, your glory is at stake here. And my petition to you is all
for your glory. And God said, I heard your prayer,
and I will answer, and the earth will be filled with my glory. The chief end of your life and
my life is the glory of God. It's not your needs being met.
It's not your life being made more comfortable. It's not your
problems being solved. It's not even the salvation of
your soul. It's His glory. And when Moses said, Lord, show
me Thy glory, convince me more thoroughly, that the chief end of all things
is thy glory. Cause me to believe that. Cause
me to be more concerned for your glory than for anything else. You know what that'll result
in? It'll result in a life that glorifies God. If the Lord's
pleased to show us His glory. if he's pleased to cause us.
And Moses noticed and Moses had to say, Lord, show me thy glory.
I haven't said, if you don't, if you don't revere your glory
to me, then there's no way I have of knowing your glory. Go back
with me to Exodus chapter 33. Truth is, This world, I don't know if anybody
here has ever been the victim of identity theft. I understand
it's a pretty big problem, and I've known a couple of people
that have experienced it, and it's devastating. I mean, it's
devastating. You go to use your debit card
or your credit card one day, and it's rejected, and you can't
figure out why, and you call the bank to find out that every
single account you've got is zero. It's been emptied. Somebody
has taken your name and gotten all of your personal information
and stolen your identity. You know that's exactly what's
happening in religion today. That men have taken the name
of our God and they've stolen his identity. How assaulted you
would feel if you were the victim of identity theft? How much of your sense of glory
would be stripped from you to feel that vulnerable you would
feel? And yet, that's what men do to God. They rob Him of His
glory. They set themselves up on the
throne of God. They use His name. They call
Him Jesus. But they don't believe that he's
able to save his people. They believe that they've got
to do something. They take the glory of God to themselves. That's exactly what's happening
in the world today. You have your Bibles open to
Exodus 33. glory of God all begins and ends
with grace. Look what Moses says in verse
12, Moses said unto the Lord, see thou saith unto me bring
up this people and thou hast not let me know whom thou will
send with me yet thou has said I know thee by name and thou
has also found grace in my sight. Lord I can't do this by myself
that's what Moses is saying. Moses, Lord, you told me you
were gonna send me some help, and I'm not capable of leading
these people. You said that I found grace in
your sight. You said that you chose me out
from among a people and were gracious towards me. Now, therefore,
I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, show me now
thy way that I might know thee. Lord, teach me. the right way,
the way of righteousness, the way of peace, the way of truth.
Lord, don't let me go into a way that seems right to me. "...that I might find grace in
thy sight, and consider that this nation is thy people." And
God said in verse 14, "...my presence shall go with thee,
and I will give thee rest." Moses, I'm going to show you my glory. I'm going to go with you and
I'm going to give you a place of rest. And he said unto him, If thy
presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. Lord, if you're
not going to go with me, don't let me get off on my own. Don't let me go my own way. Just
lead me right here until you're ready to go with me. For wherein shall it be known
here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is
it not that thou goest with us? Lord, your presence, your presence
is our hope. Your presence is our rest. Your presence is our glory. And if you're not going to be
present with us, Lord, just keep us right here until you're pleased
to make your presence known. And so shall we be separated.
I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face
of the earth. And the Lord said unto Moses, I will do this thing
also that thou hast spoken, for thou hast found grace in my sight,
and I know thee by name." I've chosen you. You're mine. You found grace in my sight.
I'm going to fulfill the promises that I've made to you. And Moses
beseeches the Lord. He pleads with Him. And he says
to God, Oh, just show me Thy glory. Show me that Your glory is the
chief end of all things. And enable me to believe that.
Enable me to rest in knowing that thou doest all things well
and That all my salvation is in your hands not in mine Guard
me against Stealing your identity to myself Don't let me set myself
upon the throne of God Don't let me do that And he said The Lord is going
to answer this prayer now. He said, I will make all my goodness
pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ asked the
rich young ruler, Why callest thou me good? For there is none good but God. David said, his goodness and
mercy will follow me all the days of my life. The Lord Jesus
Christ is the only one that's good. Paul said, in me, that
is in my flesh, dwelleth what? No good thing. No good thing. So when the Lord says to Moses,
I'm going to show you my glory by causing my goodness to pass
before you, I'm going to show you who the Lord Jesus Christ
is as the way. And he is my glory. The Word became flesh and tabernacled
among us, and we beheld His glory as the only begotten of the Father,
full of grace and full of truth. And our Lord prayed in John chapter
17 when He said, Father, I have glorified Thy name upon the earth. Now glorify Me. The glory of God is what everything
in this world and in your little peanut life and my little peanut
life is all about. It's the glory of God. It's so
much bigger than we think it is. Last week I asked the question,
how big is your God? How big is He? Is He big enough? to seem, in your opinion, in
your estimation, to have the right to get all the glory in
creation? Do the firmaments declare His
glory? Do the lilies of the field, are
they arrayed in more glory than Solomon was in all of His glory? Oh, if the Lord ever shows us
His glory, if He ever shows us His glory, it just, I tell you,
it puts everything in perspective. It causes everything to make
sense. This thing's all about God. It's not about me, it's about
Him. I'm going to cause my goodness
to pass before you. I'm going to show you my glory
by revealing to you the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And your chief end in life will
be to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. In other words, rest
in Him. Rest in Him. So what does the
Bible say, whether you eat or whether you drink or whatsoever
you do, do it all to the glory of God. What does that mean?
Does that mean that I've got to somehow glorify God in every
little thing I do? Glorifying God is a condition
of the heart. Don't evaluate your works to
see if you're glorifying God. Is God being glorified in your
heart? Do you estimate Him to be the
one that is in control of all? Lord, I can't eat without You.
Whatever food I put into my mouth, I'm dependent upon You to give
it to me. I can't drink without You. If you don't provide for
me water to drink, if you don't give me thirst, if you don't
enable me to take in this water and make it work, I can't do
it. Lord, you get all the glory. Whatsoever you do, Lord, I can't
walk, I can't talk, I can't breathe. My heart can't beat again without
you. To glorify God means that you
esteem Him glorious, that you're completely dependent upon Him
for everything. Everything. And that's especially
true in salvation. You can't come to God. The children of Israel told Joshua
in Joshua chapter 24, we'll serve God. We'll choose God. Remember Joshua said, choose
you this day whom you will serve, whether it be the gods on the
other side of the flood or the gods of Egypt, but it's for me and
my house, we'll serve the Lord. We choose God. You know what
Joshua said? You can't serve God. He's holy. They thought, well, we'll make
this choice and we'll just exercise our will and we'll do it. And
Joshua said, you can't. To believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ is a work of sovereign grace. Now remember, Moses has
asked the Lord, show me thy glory. And now the Lord said, I'm going
to show you my glory. I'm going to cause my goodness to pass
before thee. Now look at the text. And I will proclaim the
name of the Lord before thee. His name is who he is. You don't separate the name from
the person. You know, as I said, Michael Etheridge, I'm not thinking
about how to spell Michael Etheridge's name. I'm thinking about my brother
and my friend, Michael Etheridge, and all that I've known about
him for the last 20-something years. You know, your name is
who you are. You say, I'm going to cause my
name to be known to you. And don't miss the last part
of verse 19. And I will be gracious to whom
I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. You asked to know my glory? Here's
my glory. I save who I want to save. That's my glory. I'll have mercy
upon whom I will have mercy. and whom I will, I'll harden.
And I'm going to do this all for my glory." See where identity theft is real
in the religious world today? Oh, God loves everybody. He wants
to save you. Won't you let Jesus into your
heart? What kind of God is that? Who
gets the glory in that gospel? I'll tell you who gets the glory.
You do. God's voted for you. The devil's voting against you.
God's done everything he can to do to save you, but now it's
up to you. Now it's up to you. You break
the tie. You have to make a decision.
You've got to make what Jesus did work for you. Who gets the
glory? Michael, who gets all the glory
in salvation? I'm going to cause my goodness."
Moses, you want to say, here's God's glory. Here's His glory. Salvations of the Lord. And you
know what else? Damnations of the Lord. Turn
with me to Romans chapter 9. Verse 15, for he saith to Moses,
I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. That's what God said when Moses
said, show me thy glory. So then, it is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.
God gets all the glory. For the scripture saith unto
Pharaoh, even for this same purpose, have I raised thee up, that I
might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared
throughout all the earth." I'm going to be glorified. God said,
I raised up Pharaoh as a vessel made by me to destroy. to show forth my good. Therefore he hath mercy on whom
he hath mercy, and whom he will, he hardeneth. That will say then
unto me, Why doth God find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
If what you are saying is true, if salvation is all of God, then
how can God find fault with me? Nay, but, O man, who art thou
that replyest against God? Shall the thing form, saying
to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the
potter power over the clay, To make some vessels of honour,
and some of dishonour? What if God, willing to show
his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering
the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, and that he might
make known the riches of his glory to the vessels of mercy? When God's pleased to show forth
his glory, then you know that but for the
grace of God He would cast my soul into hell
and be right in doing it. Now that's a God to be worshipped.
That's a God to be feared. That's a God who gets all the
glory Moses said, Lord, show me thy glory. And he said, I'll
show you my glory. I'm going to cause my goodness
to pass before you. And I'm going to declare my name unto you.
And I'm going to have mercy upon whom I will have mercy, and whom
I will I'll harden. I'm the potter, you're the clay.
I'm going to make some vessels of honor, some of dishonor. Some
I'm going to make them just to destroy them, so that the vessels
of my mercy will know my glory. Go back with me to Exodus 33. Verse 20, And God said, Thou
canst not see my face. For there shall no man see me
and live. And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me,
and thou shalt stand upon a rock." You want to see my glory? There's
only one place to see my glory, and that's having your feet firmly
planted upon the Rock of Ages. And in that place there's also
a cleft. Look what he says, And the Lord
said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon
a rock, and it shall come to pass, while my glory passes by,
that I will put thee in the cleft of the rock. I'm going to hide
you in this crevice of this rock that's near me, lest my glory
consume thee. And I'm going to cover you with
my hand, so that the fullness of my glory does not overwhelm
you. And after I pass by, I'm going
to remove my hand for just a moment and give you a peek at my backside. And there, you will know my glory. The glory of God is seen in where
God has already been. That's His backside. It's not seeing Him where He's
going. Moses said, Lord, if you're not going to go with us... Moses
wanted to know where the Lord was going to lead him, but more
important than that, he wanted to know the Lord was going to
be with him. Wherever you lead us, Lord, be with us. Show me
your glory. I don't know what Moses was expecting.
Perhaps Moses was expecting some vision of the future, but God
didn't give him that. He gave him a picture of the
past. If we're going to know anything about the glory of God,
it'll come when the Lord removes his hand, puts us in Christ. and allows us to see what the
Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished on behalf of his people 2,000
years ago when he went to Calvary's cross of his own will. And he bore in his body the sins
of his people and suffered the wrath of God in order to satisfy
God's holy justice and put away our sin. There's the glory of
God. You want to see God's glory?
You want to see God's glory? Don't look for a feeling. Don't
look for an experience. Don't look for some extraordinary
blessing that's going to be sent from heaven into your life. Look
back. Look back to Calvary. Look to
the backside of God and you'll see His glory. When He satisfied
His justice, When He plunged the sword of His wrath into the
heart of His own dear Son and shed His precious blood for the
covering of our sins, that's His glory. That's His glory. Turn to me to Jeremiah chapter
23. I can't leave this subject without reading this passage
of scripture. Jeremiah chapter 9, verse 23, Thus saith the Lord, You know that's what preaching
is, don't you? I love being able to just stand and say, thus saith
the Lord. We're not giving you our opinion. We're not giving
you our interpretation. We're saying this is what God
says. This is right from the Word of
God. Thus saith the Lord, let not
the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory
in his might, or the rich man glory in his riches. Oh, men,
we want to find glory in all those things, don't we? But let
him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth
me, that I am the Lord which exerciseth lovingkindness, judgment,
and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight,
saith the Lord. You know what God delights in?
He delights in His glory, and He delights in those of His children
that delight in His glory. What is the chief end of man? The chief end of man is that
he glorified God. and enjoy Him or rest in Him
or trust Him forever. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we ask that You would deliver us from ourselves and cause us
to rejoice in Thy glory. For we ask it in Christ's name,
Amen. Number 258 in the hardback tenor. Let's stand together.