I want to speak to you today
on the subject of the glory of God. The glory of God, and we
will look at several verses of Scripture, beginning with Psalm
19. So if you want to follow along,
turn in your Bibles to Psalm 19. Now, the subject of God's
glory is far too great to deal with in 15 minutes or even 15
years. So I want us to only, we can
only consider a few essentials. And I'm going to talk about the
glory of God in two things, creation and salvation. The glory of God
in creation and salvation. And before we read here in Psalm
19, I want to quote a verse of Scripture from Isaiah 42. In Isaiah 42, verse 9, the Lord
says, I am the Lord, that is my name, and my glory will I
not give to another. And he says the same thing in
other places. Now, glory, glory means praise,
honor, or credit given to someone. And verse after verse in God's
Word tells us that all glory belongs to God. All praise, all
honor, all credit for all things. All right, let's look at Psalm
19 at the creative glory of God. Psalm 19 begins this way, The
heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth
his handiwork. day unto day uttereth speech,
and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech
nor language where their voice is not heard." In other words,
this is saying that everything that is made declares the creative
glory of God. And no one, there is no one anywhere
who has not seen or experienced this creative glory of God. If they can see the sky, if they
can see the night time, the day time, the sun, the moon, the
stars, the earth itself, then they see that God created all
things, that there is indeed a creator. Now turn over to Romans
chapter 1 with me, Romans chapter 1, and the whole book of God's
Word begins this way. In the beginning, God created
the heaven and the earth. God created everything as it
is now. Except for the effects of sin
on this planet, everything is as God created it in the beginning. And God created man as he is
now, upright. Except for the effects of sin
in his mind, heart, and in his body, Man was created upright
as he is now. Evolution is an elaborate hoax
made up by man to try and disprove God. Look here at Romans 1 beginning
with verse 18. It reads this way, The wrath
of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness
of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. either with
a Bible in their hand or being able to see the truth of God
in creation. He says in verse 20, the invisible
things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen,
being understood by the things that are made, His eternal power
and Godhead. They are without excuse. Verse
21 goes on, because when they knew God, or knew that there
is a Creator, they glorified Him not as God, neither were
thankful, but became vain in their imagination, and their
foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise,
they became fool. And verse 28 says, Since they
did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them
over to a reprobate mind, or a mind void of judgment. professing themselves to be wise,
they became fools. The fool hath said, No, God. They didn't like to think about
God as creator. In all of their knowledge and
their discovery, they didn't like to think about a creator.
So God gave them over to a reprobate mind or a mind void of judgment,
a mind without good sense, absolute fools. That's what man is who
does not see the hand of an almighty, all-wise Creator in all things. He's a fool. All these things
have mine hand made, saith the Lord. And the reason man refuses
to believe in a Creator, Peter said, they're willingly ignorant.
And the reason they are is because if God is the Creator, and He
is, If there is a creator, that means he owns this world, everything
and everyone in it. If you or I make something, we
own it, don't we? And we can do with it what we
will. And that's exactly what God's Word says. Cannot I do
with my own what I will? Yes, he can and yes, he does. And that makes him the judge
too, doesn't it? Everything must answer to its
owner. Now, this brings me to another
aspect of God's glory, God's glory in salvation. Salvation. Now, creation, there's another
word for creation, and it is generate, or God generated life. Turn to John chapter 3 with me,
the Gospel of John chapter 3. God generated life on this earth,
life in man. Scripture says he formed man
of the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life, and man became a living soul. The life of God
in man, or breath. Spiritual life, that's what that
is. And it's different from animal
life. Man is different from an animal. And man was created by
God in the beginning in the image of God. the life of God which
is different from mere animal life. It is the life of God in
holiness, righteousness, wisdom, understanding, reasoning, things
which animals do not have. This is what God created in man,
this life of God, holiness, righteousness, wisdom, and so on. But Scripture
says man died in the garden. Man fell in trespasses and sin,
fell into sin. Man rebelled against God. God
told him the day he would rebel against him, he would die, that
he would die. No, man did not die. Adam did
not die for several years later physically, but he died spiritually
that day. And the Scripture says that all
of us are dead in trespasses and sin. Now, Adam lost the life
of God the day he rebelled against God. The day sin entered his
being, he lost holiness. He lost righteousness. He lost
wisdom. He lost understanding. That's
why Adam became afraid of God. He was not afraid before. He
became ashamed of his nakedness. He didn't think anything of it
before. He was angry at the woman. Not before. He was bitter. You
see, sin had entered his being. And all manner of sin began to
permeate his being. And Adam passed this on, this
sin. He passed it on to all of his
race, the sons of Adam we are called. And man is born dead
in sin. Read Romans chapter 3 through
Romans 7 for yourself. It's clearly told and spoken
of throughout the book of Romans, how that man is born dead in
sin. He comes forth from the womb
speaking lies, guilty, guilty before God, a sinner by birth
and practice. Read it for yourself. All right.
Since God created life in the beginning, generated life, God
alone can and must regenerate life or give new life, spiritual
life. Just as man did not create himself
or decide to be created, man does not decide to save or regenerate
himself. We didn't decide to be born the
first time, neither do we decide to be born again. And this is what the Lord is
speaking of here in John chapter 3. He's talking to a religious
man named Nicodemus, and he said in verse 3, He said, Verily,
verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, or born
from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Unless a man
is born by God, unless God gives him birth, new birth, spiritual
life, he's going to stay dead. He's not going to be a new creature. Nicodemus couldn't understand
this. He was thinking in natural terms. He was thinking with a
carnal mind. And he said, Can I go back into
my mother's womb again? And Christ said, No. He says
in verse 8, A man is born of the Spirit. In verses 6 through
8. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh, but that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Everyone
is born of the Spirit. It's born from above. God must
give spiritual life. God the Holy Spirit decides.
God must move on a human being. God must decide. God must give
them life. God must say. God must. And in John chapter 1 it says
everyone that is born of God, they weren't born of blood, they
weren't born of the will of the flesh nor the will of man, but
they're born of God. God's the one. What could be
plainer? God alone gives natural life. God alone must give spiritual
life. He gets the glory. That's what this is all about.
Do you remember me reading that in the beginning? He said, I
will not give my glory to another. He will not share his glory with
man. A newborn child, a young child
gets its life from its parents. The child deserves no credit
for the life it has. The parent gives that child life. And so it is with spiritual life. God Almighty gives spiritual
life. He plants the seed of His Word,
which seed is Christ, the incarnate Word, the written Word. He plants
this incorruptible seed within a human being. He causes it to
grow. He gives spiritual life. And
just like a young child begins to see and to hear and to call
or cry, so it is in spiritual life. God produces this life,
causing a person to see who God is, to see what they are, to
hear God's voice, God's Word, causes them to begin to call
on God, gives repentance. That's the work of the Spirit.
That's not man-made. He causes someone to come. Christ
said that. He said, all that the Father
giveth me shall come. He said, you will not come unto
me. No man can come unto me unless he is drawn by God. And faith,
to believe Christ, is not an act of the human will. It's a
supernatural act of God Almighty. Faith is not of yourselves, he
said. It is the gift of God. Why? Because God gets the glory. Salvation is of the Lord. He gets all the glory. Turn with
me to Revelation 19. Revelation chapter 19. Do not
be guilty, as Paul said in Romans 1, of some who hold the truth
in unrighteousness, who worship the creature rather than the
Creator. Do not give glory to the sinner
over the Savior. In Revelation 19, and this is
an easy way to remember, in Psalm 19, verse 1, it speaks of God's
creative glory. And in Revelation 19, verse 1,
it speaks of God's saving glory. It reads this way, After these
things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven saying,
Hallelujah, or that is, praise the Lord, salvation and glory
and honor and power unto the Lord our God. He will not share
his glory with another man or mother nature. Now, if you would
like this message on a cassette tape, write to us. We'll send
it to you free of charge until next Sunday. Good day. Thank
you.