There are doxologies, will you
sing one at the end of each service, isn't it? Now unto him, now unto
him who is able to keep you from falling and present you faultless
before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy to the only
wise God, our saviour be glory and majesty, dominion and power,
both now and ever. Amen. There are two words that
are often repeated in all of those doxologies, isn't there?
The glory of God, and then the concluding word, Amen. Amen. Do you realise that Amen is the
most common word in the human language? We have, we are, when
we're saying amen, we're saying the Hebrew word, and it was,
the Hebrew word became the Greek word, and it became the Latin
word, and it became the English word, and it became the word
all over the world. Do you know what it means? It means true. It really means, let it be so. It speaks of faithfulness. God's
word is true. It speaks of fulfilment and firmness. It means it's an expression of
absolute trust and confidence in our God. And so here we have
the Lord Jesus Christ, the faithful and true, the witness of our
great God coming to this situation not long before his crucifixion.
And it's a remarkable story and it's a remarkable providence
that it will all be there. So what is the glory of God?
What is the glory of God? When Moses said, show me thy
glory, what was Moses asking and in what way did God respond? And we'll look at Exodus chapter
33 in a few moments, but I want us to remember that God's glory
is the motive for all that he does. Glorify thy name, glorify
who I am. He says in Isaiah 42, these are
well known verses, I will not, my glory, I will not give to
another. How precious it is for the Lord
Jesus Christ to pray that the glory that the Father has given
Him is the glory that the saints will have. What remarkable union
we have it in union with Him, not separate from Him. And of
course you might recall in Ephesians that glorious declaration of
the absolute wonder and sovereignty of God and the eternality of
His love for His people. Again and again and again it
says, to the praise of the glory of His grace, is why He does
all things. To the praise of His glory of
His grace. The heavens declare the glory
of God. His glory is great. In Psalm 21, we'll look at it
and I want to repeat it again and again. His glory is great
in thy salvation. If you're saved, is God's glory
great in that salvation? It is if you're a sinner and
he does all the saving and he gets all the glory. If there's
some shared glory in some activity of yours that's a part of that,
then his glory is reasonably good in your salvation. And His
glory is great, it's preeminent in all things in our salvation. Sin is a description, isn't it,
of falling short of the glory of God. It's missing the mark,
isn't it? And it doesn't matter whether
you miss the mark of the glory of God by a millimetre or a million
miles, you've missed the mark. There is glory in Him. And of course we We are reminded
again and again of our absolute dependence and utter inability
in all things spiritual unless the God of glory does a work
in the hearts of his people. And that's exactly what it said,
isn't it? We preach not ourselves, 1 Corinthians 4. We preach not ourselves, but
Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.
For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has
shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That's what
happens in conversion, brothers and sisters. That's what happens
in salvation, isn't it? It's the glorious gospel of Christ
who is the image of God, shines upon his people. And where does
he shine? Where does he shine? We just
read it. shined in our hearts. In our hearts. This glorious
God has shined in our hearts, and if he's shined in our hearts,
what matters most in the hearts of God's children as they walk
through this world that he would be glorified. That he would be
glorified. Salvation is seeing his glory. And to see him in his glory is
to see man in his creatureness. Isn't it? Isaiah saw the Lord
Jesus Christ in the temple and he saw his glory. And what was Isaiah's immediate
response? Woe is me. Woe is me. And the only possible solution
to my woe is if an angel, a messenger of God, comes and takes a live
coal from the very altar of sacrifice of God. representing the death
of the Lord Jesus Christ under the wrath of God, and puts it
on your lips. It doesn't just show it to you,
it becomes a personal reality. This is what Isaiah saw when
he saw His glory. And what did Isaiah then do when
he saw His glory? If you've seen His glory, you'll
speak of Him. That's what Isaiah did. We speak
of Him. We don't have much to say about
ourselves, but we speak of Him. To see God in his glory is to
see us as we really are. Every operation of grace, every
operation of grace in salvation is associated directly with the
glory of God. We just read it in John 11, isn't
it? If you believe, you'll see the glory of God. Believers see
the glory of God in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. One
of my favorite verses in the scripture, and I admire it from
a distance, and I'd love to be able to admire it more closely.
But listen to what Abraham, the father of the faithful, did.
He staggered not at the promise of God. He believed what God
said. through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory
to God. What a testimony that God gives
of this father of the faithful. I'm more prone to cry out, Lord,
I believe, help thou my unbelief, than to cry out as Abraham, to
have this testimony. He staggered not at the promise
of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory
to God. And this is what he did. Verse
21 of Romans 4, being fully persuaded that what he had promised He
was able. He was able. That's what giving
glory to God is, isn't it? Just saying to God, you're able.
I'm hopeless. I'm hopelessly inadequate in
this situation. All the situations in my life
that are before me are way, way, way beyond me. He is able to
perform. and it's imputed to him for righteousness.
He gave glory to God. Repentance gives glory to God,
isn't it? For those in Revelation 16, they
repented not. Lack of repentance is not giving
God the glory. They repented not to give God
glory. The believer's life, according
to 1 Corinthians 10, What a good description. May
it be true, may the Lord work this in our lives. Whether therefore you eat, or
drink, or whatsoever you do, do Do you realise what that means?
That means that there's absolutely nothing insignificant in your
life ever. There is nothing insignificant
in our lives. You do it all for the glory of
God. May it be true. May it be true
in our lives. God's glory is seen in creation.
The glory of God is over the whole earth. The creation speaks
of His glory. And every time we have an opportunity
to be thankful, what are we thanking for? We're thanking God for the
glory due Him, because He is absolutely sovereign and we're
in His hands. He absolutely rules over everything
that wriggles in this universe and everything that doesn't wriggle
and we're in His hands and what a wonderful place to be in the
arms of God Almighty. But thankfulness, thankfulness
is giving God the glory. You know the story probably from
Luke chapter 17 and I won't tell you all the story but ten lepers
came to the Lord Jesus Christ and they were healed. And only one returned. Isn't that remarkable? What a
picture of us. Have received so much and are
so unthankful. Only one returned and glorified
God. And he did it with a loud voice.
And nine of them went on their way. Healed by God Almighty and
unthankful. Can you say, if Christ the Lord is glorified,
I'm satisfied. What brings God the most glory
is what is best for me all the time. He is the God of all glory. He's the God of the glory and
His glory is revealed in His graciousness to us. And that's what worship is about.
When we come to the house of God, to worship God, it says,
give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name, Psalm 29. You worship the Lord in the beauties Can you pray Moses prayer? As I said at the beginning, one
of the wonderful things is that God says, if you believe you'll
see my glory. The apostles beheld the glory
of God Almighty. It is possible while you walk
on this earth to behold the glory of God. And listen to what Moses
said. He said, Lord, show me thy glory. But it was more passionate than
that, wasn't it? He said, Lord, I beseech thee,
show me thy glory. I beseech thee. I need it. I'm in desperate need of seeing
his glory. and that glory is going to be
seen in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. What an extraordinary
mercy from God that we can actually behold his glory. So turn with
me because here God gives us a description of his glory. What
is his glory? Show me thy glory, says Moses. What is his glory? And why does
Moses say it now in Exodus 33 when he had seen the most remarkable
scene? He actually saw a bush that burned,
a bush that burned and didn't need any of the fuel of the bush
to keep it burning. He had God Almighty speak to
him from that bush and say, I am, I am, I am and I'm sending you,
I am and I love you, I am. He's the great I am. He's the
I am over all things. He's not I was, and he's not
I will be. He's the I am. He's the I am
now. Whatever he was then, he is now,
isn't he? Moses had seen, if you recall,
in the previous 30 chapters, Moses had seen so much of the
power of God. He had seen so much and heard
so much from God. He'd experienced so many remarkable
things. He'd been sent back by God to
bring Israel out of Egypt. He went back, he was a part of
a nation, the only nation on the history of this earth which
was created directly by God. They are a representative of
the elect of God, aren't they? Because Abraham was an Iraqi
idolater when God chose him. And then he says, I'm not having
Ishmael, you've only got one son. You only have one son and
his name's Isaac. And Isaac has twins, and only
one of them is a child of God. Only one of them, and that is
Jacob. Jacob was loved by God. This is a nation created by God.
It was created by providence, by promise, by preservation. You think of the remarkable preservation
of that tribe. How did they get to be in Egypt
to start with? Those 11 brothers sent Joseph
down there, sold him and thought he was dead, and then deceived
their father. And the father spent 20 years
grieving over the loss of his son, Joseph. And yet, when Jacob
said like we do all the time, everything's against me, he didn't
realise that just around the corner everything was exactly
for him. How often that is our case, brothers and sisters. That
was a nation created by God. It was a nation grown in Egypt
by God. He planted them down there to
grow them. And this nation had witnessed the judgment of God.
They'd witnessed all of those plagues on Egypt. They'd seen
a superpower destroyed by one man and a word and a stick. Isn't that remarkable? One shepherd
comes there with a stick and a word from God and a superpower
is destroyed. And we think China's big and
America's big. Dear oh dear. Okay. And he'd seen the Passover, Moses
had seen the Passover, and he'd seen that pillar of cloud and
that pillar of fire. But in Exodus chapter 32, Moses
is up on the mountain, and this is the context of Moses seeking
to see the glory of God. Listen to what they do in Exodus
chapter 32. And I beg of you, as you read
accounts of sinners in the scriptures and see accounts of sinners in
this world, I beg that you are given the grace to say, not there
but for the grace of God, go I. That's a Pharisee's prayer. There go I. You think that you're
not capable of doing what these people did. then you are sadly
deceived and may God open your eyes. Let's just read in verse
32 and I'll try and read it quickly and you can get, you know, something
of the picture. up, make us gods which shall
go before us. For as for this Moses, the man
that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we know not what's
become of him. And Aaron said unto them, break
off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives
and your sons and your daughters and bring them unto me. And all
the people break off the golden earrings which are in their ears
and brought them unto Aaron. And he received them at their
hand and fashioned it with a graving tool. After he'd made it a molten
calf, they said, listen to what they said. These be thy gods,
O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And when Aaron saw it, he built
an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation
and said, tomorrow is a feast. Listen to what he said, a feast. unto the Lord. You've got to
remember that while this was going on, they lived that day
because they went out and found manna in the desert to feed them. And beside them was a rock. Pouring
had enough water to feed, to give drink to two million people
and all their cattle and animals. Tomorrow is the feast unto God
Almighty, Jehovah. And they rose up early in the
morning and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings and
the people sat down to eat and to drink and to play. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Go, get thee down, for thy people which thou hast brought out of
the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have turned
aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them, and they
have made a molten calf and worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto
and said, these be thy gods, O Israel. God is a witness. I love to think that he's a witness
to all of my life, all of the time. And Moses intercedes, and
you can read the rest of it at your leisure. But the challenging
thing for Moses At the beginning of verse 33, the Lord said, I'm
not going with you, I'm going to send an angel to go with you.
And Moses then prays in verse 12 of Exodus 33, and this has
been the prayer of our church in many ways ever since the Lord
began to work amongst us. And Moses said unto the Lord,
See thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people, and thou hast
not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Thou hast said,
I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. This is the prayer and this is
the request of someone who is the recipient of the grace of
God and knows it. Now therefore I pray thee, if
I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way, that I may
know thee, and that I may find grace in thy sight, and consider
that this nation is thy people. And he said, God said, my presence
shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And Moses said unto God, unto
him, if thy presence go not with me, Carry us not up hence. Don't let me take another step
if you're not with me. That's the prayer of a man who
has received the grace of God. And the Lord said unto Moses,
I will do this thing, verse 17, also that thou hast spoken. For
thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name. And
then he said, I beseech thee, I implore thee. This is not some
idle thing in Moses' life now. Show me thy glory. Show me thy glory. Show me thy
glory. And this is it. This is the glory
of God. This is the glory of God, according
to God almighty. I'm interested. I'd love for us to pray that
prayer. I'd love for it to be a prayer that's on our hearts
often again and again. Show me your glory. I want to
see how glorious you are. If I can see how glorious you
are, all the circumstances of my life will be drowned in your
glory and the reality of who you are. And this is what God
said, verse 19 of Exodus 33. He said, I will make all my goodness
Pass before thee. Now we just read about Aaron.
Let's think about the goodness of God. Listen to what Aaron
says when Moses confronts him about what he's done. You've
read the story, haven't you? You've read what God's description
of what happened was. And Moses said to Aaron, what
have you done? And he says unto them, Whosoever has any gold, let him
break it off. So they gave it to me. Listen
to what Aaron's excuse is. Isn't this pathetic? They broke
it off and I cast it into the fire and there came out this
calf. How does God forgive a sinner
like that? How does God forgive sinners
like you and me? I will make all my goodness. That's the goodness of God. The
goodness of God is seen in the salvation of His people. His goodness in the face of such
appalling sin. Is there a sin in the scriptures
other than the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ, which
is so blatant and so obvious, and in the face of such extraordinary
evidence? These are our sins laid before
us, brothers and sisters. And then he says, I will make
all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name
of the Lord before thee, and will be gracious to whom I will
be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. What's his name? His glory. To see his glory is to see his
name. Turn with me to verse 5 of the
next chapter, verse 34. And if you want to know how religious
men respond to that, you just read Luke chapter 4 and see what
they did to the Lord Jesus Christ when he declared this exact same
thing in the place of Nazareth. They took him outside the hill
to throw him off. They wanted to kill him. The Lord's name,
listen to his name, and the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed, The Lord God, merciful and gracious. Long-suffering and abundant in
goodness and truth. What a great description, what
a glorious description of our God. The Lord, the Lord God,
merciful and gracious. Long-suffering, how long-suffering,
brothers and sisters, is our God with sinners like us! How abundant is His goodness! How abundant is His goodness
in the Lord Jesus Christ? How abundant is His goodness
in His provision for all things in our lives? How abundant is
His goodness in causing us to see the glory of God in the face
of His Son? How abundantly good is He in
keeping His people in faith and love? How abundant is He in preservation
of His people? He's abundant. He's abundant. He is abundant,
our God, in these things. Keeping mercy, verse seven, keeping
mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and
sins. And that will by no means clear
the guilty. Visiting the iniquity of the
fathers upon the children and upon the children's children
until the third and fourth generation. What were these people that God
was going to be abundant in goodness and truth? What were they? Were they guilty? Were they guilty? He says, no means by no means
clear the guilty. There's absolutely no way of
seeing that verse having any other meaning than in the life
and the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. How can God be merciful and gracious
to sinners as guilty as Aaron and the other thousands who were
there at the foot of that mountain? Only the Gospel causes this to
be understood. God's children I like that woman who was brought
to the Lord Jesus Christ, an open, guilty sinner in John chapter
8. She was guilty before the law
of God. She deserved the wrath of God. She deserved the death
of God. And the Lord Jesus Christ turns to that guilty woman and
says, where are thine accusers? Neither do I condemn you. Why?
Because that's what happened at the cross, isn't it? All of
the sins of all of God's people were laid on the Lord Jesus Christ. He was made sin for us. He was made a curse for us. That's
what God's goodness and graciousness is. That's what His mercy is. All my sin, all the sins of all
of God's children are laid on the Lord Jesus Christ, that we
might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Grace and glory
meet in the Lord Jesus Christ. And sinners meet God in the Lord
Jesus Christ and are declared to have no sin ever. That's what it is to be justified.
God put all of the sins of all of his people on the Lord Jesus
Christ. He owned them in Psalm 69 and Psalm 40 and various other
places. He owned them as his sins because
of his union with his people. And so, child of God, Brothers
and sisters in the Lord, guilty as charged and perfectly innocent. Guilty as charged. That's why
the name of the Lord, isn't it? His name is glorious in your
salvation. Is God's glory great in your
salvation? Because what did you have to
do with it? What was your contribution? Your contribution is sin. Your
contribution is sin. I will be gracious to whom I
will be gracious. God will reveal his glory in
his graciousness, in his mercy. Sovereign grace is glorious grace. Sovereign grace means that we
can walk through this world and we look upon all of the fallen
children of Adam that are around us and look upon them in their
depravity and their helplessness and their sinfulness and their
weakness and we still have a God who is glorious in their salvation
because their salvation is entirely His doing. It's not a cooperative
act at all. And what's the response? Sovereign
grace is the only grace there is. Sovereign grace is glorious
grace. And sovereign grace gives all
the glory to God. And that's what God is gonna
get out of all this. He's gonna get glory for himself out of
this. He's gonna get glory to his faithfulness and his promises.
What's the response? Look at with me in Exodus 34
verse eight. What do you do? as a gracious,
someone who has received the grace of God, like Moses has,
and someone who has called out for God to show you mercy, and
he's done it again. And I want us to remember, before
we go to verse 8, I want us to remember that the Lord, go back
to verse 21, This is how Moses was brought
into the presence of God. And I just love this verse. He
says, the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me. Don't you love that? There's
a place by God. There's a place by God. There's
a place near God. And thou shalt stand upon a rock. And we have absolutely no doubt
about who that rock is. You'll stand upon the Lord Jesus
Christ. And it will come to pass that while my glory passes by
that I'll put you in the cliff to the rock. The rock will be
split open. It speaks of the death of the
Lord Jesus Christ and I'll put you in there. What happened on
the cross? I was crucified with Christ.
I was crucified with Christ. My sins were dealt with 2,000
years ago. My sins were dealt with before the foundation of
the world. We were justified from before the foundation of
the world, but I was justified in the reality of history and
in the reality of what this book says when the Lord Jesus Christ
took my sins and he bore them away, and they are gone. They
are gone, which is why God can say, I can no means clear the
guilty. I can no means clear the guilty.
But I'm going to forgive iniquity, transgressions and sins. Just
quickly about that triumvirate of sins. Iniquity, the Hebrew
word and the Greek word means to be equal. It's what you do
to try and make up for what you think you need to do to get in
the presence of God. Transgression is just breaking
His law and sin is what you are. And sin comes out of us because
of that's what we are. What's the response? Let's go
back to verse 34. Moses made haste, Moses made
haste, I just love that. Moses made haste and bowed his
head towards the earth and worshipped, and worshipped. That's what you'll
do if God answers the prayer to show you his glory. Did the glory of Christ immerse
the heartache and the tears of Mary and Martha and all those
that loved him in the ocean of his love? It did, didn't it? It seems so difficult, the circumstances
of our lives are so difficult. But God's glory will be revealed
in the way he deals with those he loves. For the Lord God is
a sun and a shield. The Lord will give grace and
glory. No good thing will he withhold
from them. that walk uprightly. God's glory is great in thy salvation. Is God's glory great in your
salvation? Is God's glory great in your
salvation? If you're a sinner, it is. It's the one qualification, isn't
it? He came into this world to save sinners. His glory His glory
and his bride's walk in this world are intimately
united. I want to close with an amazing
verse. We read in 1 Corinthians 10 that
whatever you do, do all for the glory of God. Listen to how Paul
speaks to the Thessalonians in 2 Thessalonians. Chapter 1 verse
11, wherefore we pray also always for you that our God would count
you worthy of this calling and fulfil all the good pleasure
of his goodness. What's he describing as? The
work of faith with power. That, that, The name of our Lord
Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and you in Him. I can understand half that equation,
brothers and sisters. The other half I can hold on
to and love by faith. that the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ may be glorified in you and you in him according to the
grace of our God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. That's the New Testament word,
isn't it? Amen. God does it all for his glory. Been started by reading Romans
11. What a remarkable description.
Oh, the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge
of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past
finding out. For who has known the mind of
the Lord or who has been his counselor? Or who has first given
to him that it shall be recompensed unto him? For of him and through him and to him are all
things. How many things? All things. To whom be glory forever. Amen. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we pray
that you'd allow us the grace of praying Moses' prayer. and
the wonder of knowing that in our Lord Jesus Christ, that glorious
rock that followed those people through those wilderness wanderings,
there is a place that's by you. And the rock split is a place
for us to be hidden. May you find us, Heavenly Father,
hidden in your dear and precious Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. so
that all you see when you look for us is Him and in His glory. His glory is great in our salvation,
our Father. Make us to be thankful and cry
aloud glorifying Him, for we pray in His precious name and
for our good, our Father. Amen.