songs full of praise and songs
full of glory. And I have traditionally gone back
to somewhere in the Gospel accounts to bring a message around Christmas
time about the Incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I
went searching and searching and searching and I kept coming
back to Acts chapter 7. Stephen is to give his defence. He's been arraigned before the
court. And here he is, the high priest
in chapter 7 verse 1 says, are these things so? He's actually
asking Stephen, does he plead guilty or innocent to the charge
of blasphemy? And then Stephen begins his defence
and he makes these remarkable statements. And I would just
like us to ponder them because it's It's all about the appearing
of our God, the appearing of our God in the form of the Lord
Jesus Christ, but also the appearing of our God in history prior to
that, and the appearing of our God to his people. And he said, men and brethren
and fathers hearken. Again, the call of the church
is will people just listen? Harkon, the God of glory, appeared
unto our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before
he dwelt in Charon. And he said unto him, Get thee
out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the
land which I shall show thee. And then He came out of the land
of the Chaldees. We've just read in Luke chapter
1 that prophecy and promise of Zechariah, isn't it? that we
should be, Zechariah 1.71, that we should be saved from our enemies
and from the hand of all that hate us, to perform the mercy
promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the
oath which he swore to our father Abraham. And so it is a message
of the Incarnation that Stephen begins with. It's a message of
God coming and appearing to His people. And that's the promise,
isn't it, of the Lord Jesus Christ. The promise of the Lord Jesus
is that He will actually come personally to His people and
He will meet with them and He will dwell with them in John
14. that night before he died in John 14, 18, he says, I will
not leave you comfortless, I will come to you. It's a great promise
of the Gospel, isn't it? The Lord Jesus Christ himself
personally will come to you. And yet a little while and the
world sees me no more, but ye see me because I live. you also shall live." He's alive. He's alive to visit His people.
And that day, that day of His visitation, at that day, John
14, 20, you shall know. There are things that the people
of God know because of the Incarnation and because of the presence of
the Lord Jesus Christ. You shall know that I am in my
Father, and ye in me and I in you. Stephen began by declaring
the God of glory and he ended his earthly days in Acts chapter
7, he ended his earthly days here being full of the Holy Ghost,
Acts 7.55, looked steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory
of God. and Jesus standing on the right
hand of God. And he said, Behold, I said,
Heaven's opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right
hand of God." That's the journey of God's people, isn't it? Having
visited his people, having visited Stephen, Stephen began by declaring
the God of glory. He finished his earthly pilgrimage,
declaring the God of Glory, and now for this last many two thousand
years Stephen has been with that choir, that heavenly choir that
came to those shepherds and sang to those shepherds. that heavenly
choir is bearing witness, and they're singing, aren't they,
the four and twenty elders in Revelation. They're singing,
they cast their crowns before the throne saying, Thou art worthy,
O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power, for Thou hast
created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created. Stephen's been singing, isn't
he? Worthy is the Lamb, worthy is the Lamb that was slain to
receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour
and glory and blessing. That's the heritage of God's
children in this world, isn't it? That's the heritage of God's
children into all eternity. All eternity is about the God
of glory appearing. appearing and he has some simple
words to say when he appears. He says, get you out and you
come and I'll show you. And Abraham just came out. Let's pray. Heavenly Father we
pray that on this day that you would cause us to remember the
glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. and that we might know, Heavenly
Father, as He's promised, know His presence with us, His power
over all things, that He rules all things, for the glory of
Your holy name and for the glory and the good of His people. And
we pray, Heavenly Father, that You would bless our time together,
that You might be the one who speaks and You might again reveal
the Lord Jesus Christ to us. that we might know something
of His glory, Heavenly Father, and find His glory and His glorious
reign and rule over all things, to be the source of our rest
and our peace, that He triumphs gloriously. when he suffered
on Calvary's tree and shed his precious blood. And now the saints
in heaven, like our friend Stephen, are singing of it. May we join
our songs with theirs, our Father, by your grace this morning. For
we pray in Jesus' name, in his glory. Amen. So I just wanted
to quickly spend a little bit of time looking at this whole
issue of glory and looking at it in the context of where we
are in Acts chapter 7 and the context of that religious world. There are five things that the
Jews of this day acknowledged were missing from their temple.
It's extraordinary, isn't it? When these things are missing,
it doesn't mean that religion has stopped. Religion becomes
more intense and more zealous despite the fact that they acknowledged
that God had sovereignly taken from them these five things,
the Urim and the Thummim, those lights and perfections, those
stones whereby the high priest was given extraordinary insights
into the promises and prophecies of God and could get wisdom,
could get light and could get perfect wisdom, gone. never mentioned
again. Evidently gone. The Jews knew
they were gone. There was something else that was gone. The Ark of
the Covenant was gone. There was no mercy seat in that
Holy of Holies in that second temple. There was no mercy seat
there. There was no fire upon the altar. That fire that began coming from
Heaven to consume those sacrifices, that fire on the altar, that
fire that represents that sacrifice, that perpetual sacrifice of our
Lord Jesus which is always acceptable to the Father, is gone. The other
thing that was missing was the Shekinah glory. There was in
the temple, there was over that Mercy Street, there was a visible
manifestation of the presence of God, the Shakhina Glory, the
Divine Presence. The other thing that was missing
is the spirit of prophecy. If you actually relate those
five things to religion today, you will see that even though
there is great zeal in religion, those things are still missing. Paul said that he wanted to live
in such a way that he would make the Jews jealous. There are very,
very few Christians who are making the Jews jealous today. They're
actually comforting the Jews by telling them how special they
are. But the lights and perfections, aren't they, are gone. That blood
atonement, that mercy seat, that place where people meet with
God on the basis of shed blood is gone from so much religion.
There's a lot of talk about Jesus and a lot of talk about God and
there's a lot of talk about the cross, but the true meaning of
the Ark of the Covenant is hidden. There is an absence of that fire
on the altar, that absence of that perfectly acceptable sacrifice. The Lord Jesus in modern theology
has just tried hard. tried hard and his work is effective
if you do something. But these things are activities
between God and God, aren't they? That sacrifice on the altar represents
the Lord Jesus Christ, that fire from heaven represents the wrath
of God consuming that sacrifice and being perfectly acceptable,
that sweet odour that went back to God, that his wrath is appeased
in the death of his Son and sins are put away. And there is. There's lots of talk and lots
of singing at this time of the year about glory, but the manifestation
of the glory of God is not there, that Shekinah glory. We obviously
don't see that manifestation as the people in the Old Testament
times did, but all of these things were typified and pointed to
the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the glory of God, as we'll
see. And the spirit of prophecy is
missing, isn't it? that people will hear all sorts
of things. They'll hear from dead theologians, they'll hear
from living theologians, they'll hear from church fathers, they'll
hear from all sorts of others. But there is, as Amos promised,
there is a drought of the word of God, which is why in these
opening sermons in Acts, again and again, there is this call,
isn't there, Harkon, let's listen. Listen, and God might speak.
God might speak. He speaks to his people. It is
fascinating, isn't it, in the midst of those things that are
so evidently missing. missing from that temple and
missing from modern religion, missing from so-called worship
of God. There is that great promise of
Haggai. Haggai promised that the glory of the second temple
will be greater than the first. With all those things missing,
that temple was promised to be more glorious than the first.
And the glory of that temple, of course, is the visitation
of the one who the temple was all about. All of those things
were about the Lord Jesus Christ. That was the glory of the temple.
He is the true Temple of God. He is the true One who brings
light and perfection. He is the true Ark of the Covenant. He is the Altar and the Fire
upon the Altar. He is the manifestation of the
Glory of God. He is that Shekinah Glory. He is the one who speaks the
very words of God and he speaks words. He speaks words with power. He says, my words are spirit
and life. They actually energise and they
create life. Just as when he spoke at the
beginning of time, he spoke a universe into creation. Just as he spoke
and he spoke to Lazarus and he created life, he created new
life. He speaks, and that's what we
come to meet together, don't we? We come because we want to
hear from God. And the Lord Jesus appeared,
the God of glory appeared unto Abraham, and the Lord Jesus Christ
came suddenly, according to Malachi 3.2, He came suddenly to His
temple, and all those, at that time, all the signs and shadows
and the types And figures, all of that is now just subsumed
because reality is here. You don't need all those pictures
when you have Him. And all the fullness of the Godhead
dwells in the body. God was manifest in the flesh. So it's not for nothing that
Stephen, a man who has a Greek name and comes from outside of
that Jewish nation, may have been a Jew, but no doubt one
who came from outside. He's the one who brings this
message, this message to this religious world, this religious
world that knows something. in some way of the things that
they are missing and yet clings on to what they have of their
earthly religion. And he says, Harkon, men and
brethren and fathers, the God of glory appeared unto our father
Abraham, See, Abraham is the father of all the faithful, isn't
he? He's the father of all them that believe. Those that have
faith have the faith of our father Abraham. Abraham received the
promises. The promises were given to him
and to seed. The promises were given to Abraham,
but they were given to Abraham's seed, the Lord Jesus Christ. They were promises to him, and
they were covenantal promises. We read about them. Zechariah,
at the beginning of that first sermon, mentions these covenantal
promises. and they were given to Abraham.
They were given to Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia. They were
given to Abraham when he had no knowledge of God whatsoever
and he was a pagan idolater, a pagan Gentile idolater. Isn't it extraordinary that the
Jews would claim Abraham as their father and then found it so offensive
that the Lord Jesus showed kindness to Gentiles and that the Gentiles
were going to be called and gathered in, and the glory of God was
going to go to the Gentiles. He was a pagan idolater. He wasn't
a Jew, nor was he in Jerusalem, nor had he even heard of Moses
and the law. Abraham is just a picture of
grace, isn't it? That God comes and He appears
solemnly and He appears suddenly and He appears in reality and
He appears speaking to His people and leading them and guiding
them. That's why Zechariah said that
he's visited in the first sermon that we read in Luke chapter
1. The first sermon talks about
the Lord Jesus visiting his people. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel
for he hath visited and redeemed His people. The first sermon
begins with a declaration of the glory of our God and the
accomplishment of His work. He's begun and He's visited and
He hath redeemed His people. And that day sprang on high in
verse 76. And thou, child, shalt be called
the prophet of the highest, for thou shalt go before the face
of the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of
salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins,
through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the Dayspring on
high hath visited us." When the Dayspring on high visits, there's
going to be a revelation of who he really is, and that revelation
is going to be a revelation that reveals him as he is in his glory. There are two words in the scriptures,
and I don't often want to talk about Greek and Hebrew words,
but they're really fascinating. The word for glory, he speaks
of the God of glory, the God of glory, this glorious God. But the word glory in the Old
Testament is the word kabod, the Hebrew word, and actually
in reality it means weightiness. It means weightiness. It has
the idea of substance to it. It's not just this fancy notion. We have just looked at what the
religion of that world was. It has an emptiness. When God
appears in glory, there is a weightiness, there is a splendour, there is
glory and honour. All of those words are wrapped
up in it, but the word kava is the word that's used. And so
when Samuel's daughter-in-law heard, and she was about to give
birth to a child, And she heard that her two brothers-in-law
had died and the Ark of the Covenant had been taken away. And the
Philistines had captured the Ark of the Covenant because they
were using it like a rabbit's foot, the Jews. They took it
out into battle with the Philistines thinking that taking a box out
there was somehow going to win them the victory. gave birth to that child and
died, and she said, you'll name the child Ichabod. You see, the glory has departed.
Ichabod means the glory. Ichabod means the glory has gone. So that's the Hebrew word that's
used throughout the Old Testament. So the glory has this idea of
weightiness, of substance. The New Testament word is the
word doxa, and doxa extraordinarily means opinion or judgement in
reality. That's exactly what happens,
isn't it, when the Lord meets people, when the Lord comes in
glory and comes in weightiness and heaviness, there is, there
is with that, there is this sense of judgement, there is this sense
of opinion. It means, of course, doesn't
it, that as he reveals himself, our whole notion, our whole notion
of who God is and who we are and our whole notion of this
world and this world religion is all turned upside down. It
also obviously means radiance and glory. It is the term that's
used to describe the God of glory. No wonder Moses said to God on
Mount Sinai, after all the problems of the golden calf and the 3,000
Jews that were killed at the hands of their brothers at the
foot of Mount Sinai because of their idolatry, Moses' next statement,
isn't it, in Exodus 33, is he says, show me your glory. Show
me your glory. Let me see your glory again. The glory of God had appeared
in a cloud. It was that Shekinah glory that
overshadowed that tabernacle. Moses said, show me your glory.
And what did God say to Moses in Exodus 33.13? He says, He's going to hide him
in the cleft of the rock. And when God's glory is seen,
in Exodus 33.18, And he says in verse 19, and
he said, 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. So he hid him, he hid him as
it were in the Lord Jesus Christ and he revealed himself to him.
You've got to remember that Moses just prior to that He says, I
know thee by name, and thou hast found grace in thy sight. Now
therefore I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, show
me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in
thy sight, and consider that this nation is thy people. You see, seeking to see the glory
of God again is not something that's unscriptural, is it? Moses
already knew God, Moses had already seen the glory of God. Moses
had seen the glory of God descend on Mount Sinai, but he asked
it again. Yet again might I see, might
I see the weightiness of God, might I see the Godness of God
yet again. That's where my comfort will
be and we get to see it. We get to see it when we are
hidden. So I just want to have a look
for a little while at this word glory and then look at what it
means for this to be appearing. It is this God of Glory that
Stephen brings to light before these people. He is the Father
of Glory in Ephesians 1. I'll just read out some verses,
you don't have to look them all up with me. The God of our Lord
Jesus Christ, Ephesians 1, 17, the Father of Glory may give
unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge
of Him. He is the Father who gives. He is the God of our Lord Jesus
Christ and it's the Father of Glory And the Lord Jesus received
majestic glory, for he received, 2 Peter 1.17, he received from
God the Father honour and glory when there came to him a voice
from the excellent glory. There came a voice from heaven
when Peter saw him on that Mount of Transfiguration. He saw, as
it were, the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ revealed, his humanity,
that veil of his humanity removed just for that brief time, and
he saw the glory. And we've got a more sure word,
brothers and sisters, you're holding it in your laps, says
Peter. He goes on to say we have a more
sure word of God. It is the glory of God. Stephen, as I said, finished
his life in Acts 7, his earthly life. He finished his life looking
up to heaven. And what did he see? And he being
full of the Holy Ghost, he looked steadfastly into heaven, and
he saw the glory of God. and Jesus Christ standing on
the right hand of God. To seek the glory of God is always
to seek in conjunction with the Lord Jesus Christ. He saw the
glory of God. That's the sin that Romans 1
speaks of, doesn't it? That man has changed the glory
of God, the glory of the incorruptible God, into an image made to look
like wild beasts. There is in this glory, there
is a strength and a power, isn't it? In Colossians 1, we are strengthened
with might according to His glorious power. And all of that glorious
power is in the Lord Jesus Christ and it's revealed in the Lord
Jesus Christ. In Luke chapter 9 verse 26. And the Lord Jesus comes. He
will come. He will come in glory, wasn't
it? He says in Luke 9.26, For whosoever
shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son
of Man be ashamed, and he shall come in his own glory, and in
his Father's glory, and of the holy angels. for whosoever be
ashamed of me and my words. He'll come. The promise is that
He'll come. It's one of the great joys of
contemplating the life of Abraham. Abraham saw all this at a great
distance, wasn't he? And he was given those promises
that we read of in Romans and Hebrews. He was given those remarkable
promises and yet he had nothing. He didn't even have a parcel
of land. He bought a parcel of land in
that land that he was shown. He didn't ever have anything
he owned. But he was looking, wasn't he? He was looking for
a city, he was looking for a heavenly city. It is something that he
is all embracing of the Lord Jesus Christ at the end of his
life here. He says to the father, he said,
The hour has come, the hour has come, John 17.1, glorify thy
son that thy son may also glorify thee. and he wants this glory. He wants
this glory not just for himself, but this glory is a shared glory.
He says at the end of that prayer, and the glory which Thou gavest
me I have given them, that they may be one even as we are one. It is something that covers all
of the attributes of our God, this weightiness, this honour,
this glory. And it's always for Him and for
His own. God's children share in His glory. That's the prayer of the Lord
Jesus Christ. We share in that presence and
in that weightiness and in that honour. We share it because we
are joining and united to Him. It's remarkable how Paul speaks
to the Thessalonians in 2 Thessalonians 2.11. He says, Wherefore we pray
always for you that our God may count you worthy of this calling
and fulfil all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work
of faith with power. It's a remarkable prayer, isn't
it? That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified
in you and you in Him according to the grace of our God. It is
part of those remarkable promises in Romans 8, isn't it? That we
are foreknown of God, chosen by God, predestinated by God, Moreover, whom he did predestinate,
them he also called. Them also he justified. Whom he justified, them he also
glorified. He glorified them. He's glorified
them. It is this glory. It is this
glory that Abraham saw. It is this glory that Moses saw. This is the glory that Stephen
saw. What drove Stephen to do those
remarkable acts of self-sacrifice and courage? What remarkable
events drive the people of God all through history? It is actually
seeing the glory of God. It's seeing Him as He is in His
glory. That's worth a promise, isn't
it? He says, you'll see the glory of God in the morning, and the
glory of God shall be revealed. And the glory of God appeared
on Mount Sinai, it appeared in the cloud. And the Lord says
in Deuteronomy 5.24, Behold, the Lord our God has shown us
His glory. Arise, shine, for the light is
come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. Isaiah 60
verse 11. The heavens declare the glory
of God. The heaven is declared when we
look around at these heavens and look around at this creation.
It is remarkable in Isaiah 6, the angels who sing, holy, holy,
holy is the Lord of hosts. And then they make this remarkable
statement, the whole earth is full of his glory. The whole earth is full of his
glory. So that makes something of all
the other glories, isn't it? What are all the other glories?
They're empty, vain glories. The earth is full of His glory.
If only God would give us eyes to see it, if we could look around
at this creation and look in wonder and awe and say, my God
did that. My God did that sunset. My God
did that sunrise. My God created those things. My God rules over those things.
All those colours are His colours. All that beauty of form. I have
a friend on the internet who sends me pictures of birds every
day, about a dozen pictures, and I'm just blown away. I'm
just wondering when it's going to finish, but it doesn't seem
to go. And hundreds and hundreds of them, and some of them are
just so ridiculously beautiful, you just wonder why did God paint
that. He painted it because he just
did it for his pleasure. But he did it so that we would
see that the whole earth is full of his glory. And he gets glory
by his activities, doesn't he? He gets glory by the way he rescues
and he redeems his people. He gets glory upon Pharaoh and
his hosts. in Exodus 14. He said, I'm going
to get glory. You will find my salvation by
standing still and I'll get glory because I'll do all of this.
I will do all of the redeeming and the rescuing and the protection
and care of my people. I'll do it all. I'll do it all. And He'll bring His people. He'll
bring His people into His presence. That's why those angels in Isaiah
chapter 6, the house was filled with smoke. It was filled with
the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was Jesus, the Lord Jesus
who Isaiah saw in that temple. And when they dedicated that
first temple, what happened? The glory of the Lord filled
the house. But there is, as I said, the
weightiness, there is a heaviness, there is a substance to it all.
It's just not fluffiness, is it? The sight of the glory of
the Lord on top of Mount Sinai was like a devouring fire on
top of the Mount. He sets, our God, He sets His
glory among the heathen. He sets His glory and He sets
His glory among the nations. The Gentile lambs, the Gentile
lambs proclaiming the Gospel. Stephen who came from those lambs
declaring the glory. This is declaring his glory among
the heathen. He just continues to declare
his glory. His glory our God, declared in
his praises. I was going to read some of the
promises in Zechariah chapter 2 verse 5. He speaks of this Jerusalem,
this Jerusalem after that first temple was destroyed and the
second temple was there. For I, saith the Lord, will be
unto her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory
in the midst of her. Ho, ho, come forth and flee from
the land of the north, sayeth the Lord. I have spread you abroad
as the four winds of heaven, sayeth the Lord. Deliver thyself,
O thou Mount Zion, thou dwellest with the daughter of Babylon.
For thus saith the Lord of Hosts, After the glory hath he sent
me unto the nations which spoiled you, for he that touches you
touches the apple of his eye. For behold, I will shake my hand
upon them, and they shall be a spoil to their servants. And
you shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me. Sing and rejoice, O daughter
of Zion, for lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of
thee, saith the Lord. And many nations shall be joined
to the Lord in that day, and shall be my people. And I will
dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that the Lord
of hosts has sent me unto thee. And the Lord shall inherit Judah
his portion in the holy land, and shall choose Jerusalem again. Be silent, O all flesh, before
the Lord, for he is raised up out of his holy habitation. He comes and He meets with His
people. He comes in promise. He comes
in covenant, mercy and grace. And no wonder the people of God
continually in the scriptures are singing of His glory. He says, lift up your heads,
O ye gates, Psalm 24, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors,
and the King of Glory shall come in. Who is the King of Glory?
The Lord is strong, the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty
in battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates,
even lift them up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory
shall come in. Who is this King of Glory? The Lord of Hosts. He is the
King of Glory. the earth. He begins that psalm,
the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof and all they
that dwell therein. He is a God of glory and He is
a God who rules in sovereign power. This is the God that Stephen
was reminding this Sanhedrin, these religious leaders of Israel.
This is the God of glory that he was reminding them of. One
of the wonders of the Incarnation is that in In coming in glory
He comes in appearance to His people. This is eternal life
that you know Him, that you have met Him. You have met Him in
His glory. You have seen Him as He really
is. You will meet Him as He really
is on the day when you leave this earth. But oh, what a wonder
of salvation and what a wonder of grace and mercy that you can
meet with Him now. and know him now and find him
delightful. If you meet him now, you will
find him glorious. If you meet him now, you will,
like Abraham, you will hear a word from him. The word that Stephen
heard, he said, get thee out of thy country and get thee from
thy kindred. You are as a blood-bought child
of God. You're no longer your own. You've
been bought with a price. And you've been bought with a
price of His word coming with power. And you'll meet Him as
He is. And you'll meet Him, if you meet
Him in glory, you'll meet Him in a way that causes you to reverence
Him, to fear Him. To know Him is to see Him as
glorious. And there will be, when He comes
to Zion, when He comes to His people, as He promised in Isaiah
59, 19, so shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west
and His glory from the rising sun. They shall. It's a promise
of God. When they meet Him in glory,
they're not going to meet this pathetic wimp who tries hard.
They're going to meet a God who reigns and rules in sovereignty,
and He is glorious. He's glorious. And when the enemy
shall come in like a flood, and the Spirit of the Lord shall
lift up as a standard against him, and the Redeemer shall come
to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob,
saith the Lord, As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith
the Lord. My spirit that is upon thee,
and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart
out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out
of the mouth of thy seed-seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth
and forever. where there is an appearance
of God, there will be a word that comes from Him. And there
will be a word that comes and reveals Him. And we will be revealed
in glory. There will be a weightiness.
There will be an honor. There will be splendor. There
will be glory. There will be an opinion that's
changed. There will be a judgment that's
settled. There will be a raininess. There will be glory. All of it.
will come as it did to Abraham. It comes suddenly. It comes at
a time of love. See, Saul heard these words and
had heard the sermons and heard the sermons and dissected them
and gone home and debated them with his religious people. But
there was a time of love. There was a time when God came
and visited Paul and he came suddenly and he came in remarkable
power and he came in radiance and he came in glory. Such was
the radiance that Paul met with that he was blinded for those
days. and he was led by the hand, in whom the God of this world had
blinded the minds of them which believed not, lest the light
of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should
shine under them, For 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. This is
what happened in conversion, isn't it? Shined in our hearts
to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. And when he appears, and when
that power appears, all the power and all the wisdom and all the
sanctification and all the righteousness of the creature is swept away. And there is a new opinion. There
is, no doubt, a remarkable transformation in the children of God. There
is a weightiness about God. We keep trying, don't we? We
want again and again, we keep meeting with people and the thing
that we long for so often is for them to take the things that
we say with sufficient reverence and weightiness, to contemplate
even for a little while their eternity and their destiny. And
yet we find, like this Sanhedrin that Stephen was dealing with,
we find people clinging to their religion. There is this overwhelming
flood that comes and it sweeps away the refuge of lies. What a wonderful thing when it's
swept away here and the glory of God is revealed. Not only
is all that refuge of lies swept away, but there is an attractiveness,
and there is a beauty, and there is an awesome wonder, and there
is a reverence and a transformation in the words of God. They become
life. They become light. And as with
our friend Abraham, there's a call, and there's a separation, isn't
there? There's a call to come out from among them. Don't be
a participant in their evil deeds. Come out. come out, come out
of thy country, come out from thy kindred, in the things of
God, we have to deal and live in this world, we have to work
and we have to interact with people. We still have to do all
of those things, but when it comes to spiritual things, we
are separated unto God, by God. to himself. There is a leaving
and there is a cleaving and there is a path to travel. He says,
come into the land that I shall show thee. Abraham didn't have
a clue where he was going. He said, you just come. Such
was the appearance of the glory of God that Abraham simply left. There will be in this appearing,
there will be the creation of faith. I'd like to finish with
a couple of passages of scripture that we know well but it's always
good to come to them. Abraham came. I love the next words in Luke's
description of him. Then came he out. Abraham didn't wait a minute. He came out. Let's read Romans 4 verse 13
and then we'll turn to Hebrews 11 and we'll close. In Romans
4.13 it speaks of the father Abraham being the father of the
circumcision and having received his promise. For the promise
that he should be heir of the world was not to Abraham or to
his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of
faith. For they which are of the law For if they which are
of the law be heirs, faith is made void." That word of means
origin. If anyone traces the origin of
anything in their relationship with God to the things that they
have done and the things that they might do, Faith is made
void and the promise of none effect, because the law worketh
wrought. For where no law is, there is
no transgression. Therefore, I love this verse,
therefore it is of faith, it is of faith, Abraham believed
God, that it might be by grace. Grace is always going to enact
faith, and true faith is always going to be a faith that clings
to grace because of who the God is and the glory of our God,
to the end. This is the end result of it,
isn't it? It's by faith that it might be by grace to the end. The promise might be sure to
all the seed. We have promises that are so
sure, brothers and sisters, they're blood-bought promises. not only
to that which is of the law, but that which is of the faith
of Abraham, who is the father of all. As it is written, I have
made thee the father of many nations, before whom For him
whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, makes alive
the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were,
who against hope believed in hope that he might become the
father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, so
shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith,
he considered not his own body now dead when he was about a
hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb.
He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but
was strong in faith, giving glory to God." So when the God of glory
appears, And it truly appears there will be a necessary response. The glory will go back to God,
won't it? All those who have glory revealed
to them give glory back to God, giving glory to God. This is
how we give glory to God. How do you give glory to God? been fully persuaded that what
he had promised, that he was also able to perform. That's how we give glory to God.
He's made a promise. Is it true? Is it sure? Absolutely. Absolutely. And he goes on to say, and therefore
it was imputed to him for righteousness. Now it was not written for his
sake alone that it was imputed to him, but for us also. for us also, to whom it shall
be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our
Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offences and was raised
again for our justification. Therefore, because of this grace
and because of this faith and because of this power and these
promises of God, therefore being justified, justified in the Lord
Jesus Christ on Calvary Street, declared by God to be without
sin in His presence, in the glory, to be there in the glorious presence
of God without sin, therefore being justified by faith. We have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ. By Him also we have access by
faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope
of the glory of God. God's children wait and rejoice
in hope. We'll be called to come out. We'll be called to come into. And Hebrews 11, I'll just finish
here. By faith Abraham, when he was
called to go out into a place which he should afterwards receive
for an inheritance, obeyed. And he went out, not knowing
where he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in
a strange country dwelling in tabernacles, with Isaac and Jacob,
the heirs of him of the same promise. For he looked for a
city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." That's the city. That's the city
where our God will take all of his glorified ones to be with
him.