I want to bring the message this
morning out of Daniel chapter 9 verse 4. The title of the message
is, How can I stand before this God, this great and dreadful
God? How can I, a sinner, stand before
this God? Now Daniel prayed in verse 4
and he says, And I prayed unto the Lord my God and made my confession. and said, O Lord, the great and
dreadful God, keeping covenant and mercy to them that love Him
and to them that keep His commandments. The prophets of old knew that
the God of heaven and earth was great and dreadful. He's not
like the weak, sorrowful God that men are preaching today,
who cannot do anything unless you let Him. Or as they say,
He has no hands but your hands, no feet but your feet. Today
they call him the man upstairs. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, the God of Peter and Paul, and the Apostles, and the God
of true believers everywhere, is a great and dreadful God.
I know that the Bible says that he is a God of grace. He's a
God of all grace. He's a God of mercy. He delights
to show mercy to sinners. And I love to preach him as such,
but we must never preach one truth and ignore another. Paul said, I have not shunned
to declare the whole counsel of God there in Acts 20.27. Men through their preaching today
have belittled God so much that no one fears Him, no one respects
Him, no one reverences His name. But I know this, the God of heaven
and earth is a great and dreadful God and He to be had in reverence
and awe. When Isaiah saw the Lord high
and lifted up and his train filled to court, he cried, Woe is me,
I am undone. And I say, let us not be found
in the same company with those who worship a God who cannot
do anything without our permission. Now the God of heaven and earth
is great and dreadful in his holiness. We have no concept
of what true holiness is. Revelation 15 verse 4 says, Who
shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? For thou
only art holy. God only is independently, infinitely,
immutably holy. He alone is absolute purity.
If you want to talk about holiness, you have to talk about God. One
writer said this, Power is God's hand, omniscience His eye, mercy
His bowels, eternity His duration, but holiness is His beauty. It
says in 2 Chronicles 20.21 Praise the beauty of His holiness. The
holiness of God is that which gives all honor unto His attributes. Listen to these scriptures. Exodus
15.11 says that He is glorious in holiness. In Psalm 99.5 Exalt
the Lord our God for He is holy. Verse Peter 1.16 Be ye holy for
I am holy. God is so great and dreadful
in his holiness that the seraphims cry day and night, holy, holy,
holy, Lord God Almighty, while they cover their faces. We are
to give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness. It's what it
says in Psalm 30, verse 4. I'm glad he's holy. That means
he'll do right. In Psalm 22, the psalm of the cross, our Lord
cried, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And then he
says in the next verse, but thou art holy. He's called the Holy
One of Israel. We must once again proclaim the
Holy God who cannot bear sin. He cannot look upon sin with
indifference. God is great and dreadful and is justice. God
is a just God and to be praised as such. As one writer said,
the terrible avenger is to be praised as well as the loving
redeemer. He's to be praised in his acts
of justice as well as his acts of grace. It says in Isaiah 45,
21, I am a just God and a Savior. He is a just God. God will not
save any man or any woman at the expense of His justice. His
justice will be honored or men and women will perish. Now listen, the justice of God
and the wrath of God is not something we need to apologize for as though
it were some defect in His character. The Scripture says that He is
a just God. and he will by no means clear
the guilty. He said the soul that sins shall surely die. Justice
cries out for the death of the sinner, no matter how small the
sin. And God has demonstrated his
justice in times past. The fallen angels, they were
cast into outer darkness without any hope of salvation. The flood
in Noah's day, Only Noah and his family and those animals
were saved in the ark. Everyone else outside that ark
perished under the wrath of God. The plagues of Egypt, God killed
the firstborn in Egypt. But the greatest display of God's
justice is Calvary, when God spared not his own son. When
he was made to be sent for us who knew no sin, God spared him
not. The justice of God is not like
Ours he said in Psalm 50 21. You thought I was all together
like yourselves We'll see we get into court and we plea bargain
we get lesser sentences That's not the way justice works with
God the justice of God marks every idle thought and demands
full punishment for it full satisfaction There's no plea bargain with
God for a lesser sentence and then God is a great and dreadful
God in his sovereign reign and Just ask Pharaoh. It says in
Malachi 1.14, he says, My name is dreadful among the heathen.
In Psalm 135.6, he says, Whatsoever the Lord please, that did he
in heaven and in earth and the sea and all deep places. In Isaiah
46.10, he said, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure. He says in Daniel 4.35, He doeth
according to his will in the army of heaven, among the inhabitants
of the earth, and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What
doest thou? It says in Job 33.13, For he giveth not account of
any of his matters. Only a sovereign has that right.
And especially in this matter of salvation, he says he will
have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he'll
harden. He'll leave them alone. God saves whom he will, and he
passes by whom he will. That's scripture. He chose Israel
and passed by all the other nations. He let the fallen angels go. He passed by all those fallen
angels and he saves men. Our lives are in the hands of
the sovereign God of heaven and earth. It's not in my hand. It's not in your hands. It's
in His hands. He's the potter. We are the clay. Then God is great and dreadful
in His power. How frustrated would the purpose of God, the
justice of God, how frustrated would it be without the power
of God? By the word of His power, He
created the heavens and the earth, and to this day they are held
in check by that same word. It says in Psalm 62 11, God has
spoken once, twice have I heard this, that power belongeth unto
God. God is no weak God. He's one of absolute power. One
writer said this, the power of God is that ability and strength
whereby he can bring the past whatsoever he pleases. God alone
is all power. We only have it as he gives it
to us. Now here's the great question. How can I, a sinful man, stand
before this great and dreadful God? How can I stand before one
who is so holy? One who is so strict? How can
I stand before God? I know this, I must die. And
I must stand before Him. It's important unto me, I must
die and after this the judgment. Nobody, no one is going to miss
the judgment. I know how I cannot stand. I
cannot stand by my works. All our righteousness are as
filthy rags. God said that. He said, By the
deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified, and by the doing
and keeping of the law no flesh will be justified, because no
man can keep it perfectly. I cannot stand by my heritage.
The Jews said, We'd be Abraham's seed. Most of them have died
lost. I cannot stand there by my religious
duties. It has to do with this, keeping
the covenant in mercy. God keeping it. And God showing
mercy to us through this covenant. Now as you know, God made a covenant
with Adam. He said, do this and thou shalt
live. And Adam broke that covenant
and therefore we fell under that curse and we died in Adam. But
there was a covenant made and ordered in all things ensured
before the world began. Before he ever created Adam,
before he ever spoke that covenant to Adam, he spoke another covenant
to his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. This covenant of grace and mercy
was made with the Son of God concerning the people. The Father
called forth his Son and enjoined the work of saving a multitude
of sinners that he chose, and the care of every one of those
sinners was laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ. God said, I have
laid help upon one that is mighty. In John 10.28 it says, Neither
shall any man pluck them out of my hand. He says in John 10.29,
My Father which gave them me is greater than all. In John
17.12 it says, Those whom thou hast given me I have kept and
none of them is lost. He said, I have finished the
work which thou gavest me to do. He said in Hebrews 2.13,
Behold I and the children which God hath given me. God gave Christ
to people in this covenant of grace. Christ became responsible
in bringing many sons to glory, even to the point of being called
the covenant himself. In this covenant of grace, he
stood as the federal head and representative of every one of
those centers given to him. Just as Adam represented his
whole human race, even so Christ represented all that the Father
gave him. He stood as their mediator in
this covenant. He stood as their advocate, their
surety. Just as Judah stood as a surety
for Benjamin over in Genesis 43 verse 9, Christ agreed to
come into this world and take upon himself our nature except
for sin. For as much as the children are
partakers of flesh and blood, he likewise took part of the
same. He came and lived a perfect life of obedience for them. He
came and worked out a righteousness for them. His perfect life was
as necessary as his death. We need a righteousness before
God and we have that righteousness in Jesus Christ. Then he went
to the cross and he was put to shame. The shame that we deserve,
that every one of his people deserve. He suffered and died
for them. It says the Messiah shall be
cut off, but not for himself. That's what it says in Daniel
9.26. He arose from the dead. He ascended on high and he entered
into the Holy of Holies for us. And he intercedes for us now
as our high priest and advocate. He intercedes for every one of
those whom he represented. Now here's the question, how
can I stand before this great and dreadful God? Here's the
answer, Jesus Christ. I can stand before this great
and dreadful holy God who so strict in justice, I can stand
before him in his Son. There is no other way to stand
before God except in Jesus Christ. In Christ we are justified from
all things of which we could not be justified by the law of
Moses. That's what it says over in the
book of Acts. Christ said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No man comes unto the Father but by me. But in Jesus Christ,
we can come. We can come before God. We can
come before the throne of grace. And we can find mercy. We can
find forgiveness. We can find cleansing. We can
find all we need. Paul said to those Colossians,
in him ye are complete. We are complete in the Lord Jesus
Christ. We lack nothing in him. So I
say to you, come to Him, look to Him, in Him we can stand before
God Almighty. May God bless His Word.