Let's go to the book of Hebrews.
The book of Hebrews, chapter 1. The gospel of Jesus Christ,
write it down, is the gospel of the glory of God. And some
writers in Scripture call it the gospel of the glory or the
glorious gospel. Moses, we will see in the book
of Exodus in a few minutes, wanted to see God's glory. And let's
find out today what that glory is and just pour it in concrete
in your own mind and heart that it is the gospel. It's the gospel
of God's grace, the gospel of the blood, the gospel of substitution,
the gospel that God came to earth, the gospel that Christ died in
our stead, room and place, and that He is the way, the truth
and the life and nobody goes to the Father except He comes
through Jesus Christ. Notice this. God, who at sundry
times, different times, and in diverse manners or ways, spake
in time past unto the fathers by the prophets. God spoke in
olden time through the prophets to the fathers. God hath in these
last days spoken unto us by His Son. God has spoken to us by
His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also
He made the worlds. We're digging in deep and yet
a simple truth. Who being the brightness of His
glory, The brightness of His glory. This is the chief characteristic
of His character. The brightness. Christ is the
glory of God. Christ is the brightest glory
of God. Christ shines the brightest. God manifests Himself in Jesus
Christ. Glory. This is glorious. Somebody ought to say amen. This
is glorious. That God, not through the prophets,
but God come to earth. This is the glory. The express
image of His person, who is the brightness of His glory, the
express image of His person, and upholding all things by the
word of His power, when He had by Himself God. Salvation is of the Lord. God
in the flesh. When He had by Himself purged
our sins. Made an end of sin. What did
Jesus Christ do when He finished the work? He sat down. That's what you do, except us
bipolar people. That's what you do when you finish. You sit down. And that's what
Christ did. When He had purged our sins,
He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on the Hyme. Thank
God. It's finished. It's accomplished.
It's done. No more work. No more law keeping
for salvation. None of that. None of that. Now, let's go over to the Corinthian
letter. Let's see. Let's go to Corinthians,
2 Corinthians, chapter 3. You know that God took Moses
up on Mount Sinai and God gave his law. The law is good. The Ten Commandments are good.
The problem is not with God and God's law. The problem is with
us. The only people who have problems
with the law are law breakers. That's who we are. When you look
into that mirror of the perfect holy law of God, you see you
have a black heart. God says, thou shalt not, and
we do. Is that right? Don't do this. Don't do that. And as sure as
shooting, we do it. We're lawbreakers. When you look
into a mirror and you have a dirty face, you don't pick up a rock
and say, that dirty, no good for nothing mirror. The mirror
is a revealer that you have dirt on your face and you need a cleansing.
So is the holy law of God. Nobody in here has kept the Ten
Commandments. And most of you who say you're
seeking to keep the Ten Commandments to go to heaven don't even know
them. So listen, if heaven depended
on me keeping the commandments, I would memorize them, wouldn't
you? I'd try to at least know them.
But by the way, while you're memorizing the ten, there are
over 5,000 direct commandments in the Old Testament. Memorize
them all. Keep them all inside and outside. And be perfect. Now in 2 Corinthians 3, in the
third chapter of 2 Corinthians, let's begin with verse 7. But if the ministration of death,
written and engraven in stones, was glorious, the Apostle Paul
said, when Moses went up on Sinai and God gave His holy law, it
was something to behold. It was an awesome event. The people stood at the foot
of the mountain and the mountain was fenced off, roped off, because
God was on the mountain and God is holy. And God is giving His
holy law. So the people could not approach
God through the law. They were fenced off. And it
was so fenced off that God even said this, if an animal approaches
this mountain, it shall die. Because God is holy. And understand
this very clearly, that there is no approach to God through
the Ten Commandments. He'll kill you, because you're
unholy. You can't approach God without
being holy. You've got to be holy. And we
can't do that. And the glory of the Gospel is
what we couldn't do, God did for us. The Gospel says that
the gate is open, the fence is down. The Spirit and the bride
say, Come, let him that is a thirst come, and whosoever will, let
him come. Come to Christ. Don't try to approach God through
law works. But it was a glorious manifestation
of the law, thunderings and lightnings. And Moses did fear and quake. Even the man of God, the friend
of God, Moses shook at the appearance of God in the law, revealing
God's holy character. Glorious. Have you ever had anything
glorious but so Scary, you had to change clothes? That's what he's talking about
here. I've told you many, many times, those of you who've attended
here for 30-some years, you've heard me tell about the tornado
blowing me off the road in Lancaster, Kentucky, or Danville, Kentucky. In between Danville, I was in
a 98-0s. That caught in a tornado. And
it was so black I couldn't see. The rain was coming down. The
wind was blowing. That 980s began to go like this. And pretty soon it began to go
like this. We were moving the wrong way. Sideways. I'm telling you, it was glorious. So glorious that I needed to
change clothes. It was glorious. But there is a glory that excelleth. The Apostle Paul says this in
the verse, But if the ministration of death, written and engraven
in stones, was glorious, so the children of Israel could not
steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance,
which glory was to be done away with, how shall not the ministration
of the Spirit be rather glorious For if the ministration of condemnation
be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness
exceed in glory." Now, I know that sounds like maybe a little
complicated to understand, but what Paul says is this. The law
was given and it was glorious, but it is a ministration of judgment,
of condemnation. He said there's something more
glorious than that. that exceedeth that giving of
the law. In fact, Paul goes on to say
it so exceeds the giving of the law that what happened on Sinai
seems like nothing at all. So much more glorious. This ministration
of grace. What God has done for poor sinners. Salvation is of the Lord. Listen,
my friend, you need to know this. You can go to church Christmas
and Easter and the rest of the Sundays in the year and die and
go to hell. You can talk about doing good,
going to church, doing whatever you do, but none of it matters
because you are a sinner. You have to be changed from the
inside out. God has to take your hell. A
man. Has to come to earth in your
stead, room and place. It's the gospel of the glory.
Now, look at verse five of chapter four. There's a glory that excels.
Paul said, for we preach not ourselves, and we don't preach
the law, we preach Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your
servants for Jesus' sake. For God, now which God was that? The God who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness. The God who said, let there be
light, has shined in our hearts. Think about that. To give the
light of the knowledge of the glory of God. Where is the glory
of God? It's in the face of Jesus Christ. He that hath seen the Son hath
seen the Father. Here's the gospel of the glory.
Over in the book of Exodus, the 33rd chapter, let's go over there
for just a moment. And Moses is asking God for this
favor. Now, you'd think Moses had seen
enough. He'd been at the burning bush.
He'd been on Mount Sinai. He'd met up with God there at
the bush, and God said, take off your shoes, you're on holy
ground. Anytime you meet up with God, you're on holy ground. What
happens when a sinner comes to faith in Jesus Christ? He sees
God. The God-man. The nail scarred
one, the crucified one. Holy ground. This is all about
being on holy ground. This is not the gospel and going
to church should never be ho-hum. How many of you have been to
church and been bored? How many of you couldn't wait till it
got over? Yeah, a few. A few honest people here. How many have gone to sleep in
church? I'll tell you, I didn't go to
sleep in the Oldsmobile. And when you're in the presence
of God Almighty and find out what He has done for you in Jesus
Christ, you can't go to sleep. You just cannot. There's a shout
and a hallelujah. Think about this. Moses here,
let's read, Exodus 33. In verse 11, And the Lord spake
unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And
he turned again unto the camp. But his servant Joshua, the son
of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle. And
Moses said unto the Lord, See, thou sayest unto me, Bring up
this people. Thou hast not let me know whom
thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee
by name. thou hast also found grace in
my 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 might find grace in thy sight and consider
that this nation is thy people.' And he said, My presence shall
go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And he said unto him,
If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. For wherein
shall it be known hear that I and thy people have found grace in
thy sight. Is it not in that thou goest
with us? 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 you have found grace in my
sight, and I know thee by name. And he said, I beseech thee,
Show me thy glory. 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 unto whom I
will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. Show me thy glory. And we ask, OK, what attribute
will God show? Will God show His justice? Will
God show His holiness? Will God show His wrath? Will
God show His mercy? Will God show Moses his sins? Hear the answer, I will make
all my goodness pass before Thee. I wonder what that would do for
us. That's kind of what the preacher
is supposed to be doing, preaching and showing the goodness of God,
where the people of God say, hallelujah. Where the people
of God say, glory, or this is glorious. This is marvelous. That's really what ought to happen
in church. You ought to be more excited than you were last night. Go blue. I will make all my goodness pass
before thee. Oh, the goodness of God. Have
you ever thought about how good God is? Think about creation. How good God is in creation.
I'm seeing robins and redbirds. And God's making the maple trees
begin to pop just a little bit. And those robins and redbirds
sing the most beautiful song of spring. God's good to the
robin and the redbird and the maple tree. The little fish that
jump out of the water and the big bass that catch the insects
that God sends to feed them. God is good. And you know what?
God is good to the worst person in here. He lets you breathe
his oxygen. You curse God and plant a garden
and he makes it rain on your garden. If he got what you deserve, he'd
just make everything wither. But God is good. And we say that
here, don't we? God is good and good all the
time. He's so good. The Bible says,
the Apostle Paul said in the Corinthian letter, why, the goodness
of God ought to lead you to repentance. What ought to happen with the
Christian? When God gives you a job, thank you God, you've
been so good to me. When God puts food on your table,
thank you God. When you get a new house, when
the baby's born with, you know, ten fingers and toes, thank you
God. How thankful we ought to be because
God is good and He's good all the time. But think about this. Think about this petition. Show
me thy glory. Moses knew God was a spirit.
God is spirit. I've been telling you that. The
only God you're going to see when you get to heaven is going
to have nail scars in His hands and feet. Amen. Do you get that? I know that's weighty, but you
need to understand that God is Spirit. And Moses said, Moses
who experienced the law given, Moses said, that won't cut it
with me. There's got to be more to you
than justice and wrath and condemnation. Show me your most glorious characteristic. That's what he asked for. That's
what you and I ought to be asking for, too. Show me your glory. And God will always answer that
in the face of Jesus Christ. This is my Son in whom I am well
pleased. Hear ye Him. I want you to note
this. In verse 13 of Exodus 33, Moses
asked a smaller favor before he requested the big one. In
verse 13, he said to God, show me Thy way. Show me Thy way. You know, nothing pleases God
any more than when He answers you your smaller request than
for you and I to go back and ask Him to multiply it ten times. Amen. When I bought 53 Seneca
and God gave it to us, I said, I want the street. Well, He gave me the little thing.
And all through the Bible you'll find You know, Abraham, when
Lot got in all that trouble and he went down to rescue him from
Sodom, he started out with the big numbers, and then he just
went down. But here's the way we ought to
go to God. For that blessing that you're asking for, listen,
if God gives you a million bucks, ask for 20 million. Is God able
to do that? People around here talk about,
oh, God did such a great thing for me. You know, I got a $50
raise or whatever. I mean, you thank Him for it,
but you don't stop there. God wants you to come back. Our
God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we
ask or think. Is that the way you see your
God? Well, when He gives you a little something, go back and
say, I want 20 times that. And He'll be pleased with it,
too. You've heard me say this many times. If I was going to
ask for God to give me one thing, it would be give me giant faith. I want faith to trust God, because
faith is the victory. If I can just trust God, He'll
do all kinds of things. I got to preaching to myself
last night and about, I don't know, eight thirty, nine o'clock,
I said, I'm going to call the owner of Clutch Cargo. So I called Amir last night.
I said, Amir, you still got my building, right? He said, yes,
it's still yours, Pastor. I said, well, I was just checking. Why wouldn't I ask for that?
Is God able to give us that? Absolutely He's able to do that.
God is Spirit. Think about God is Spirit. So
He's here. His presence is here. But by
faith, I can see the glory, the nails-fired person of Jesus Christ. Show me thy glory. That was a
pretty bold move. First, he kind of snuck up on
God. Show me thy way. And then when
he got that all down pat, he said, now show me your glory.
Show me that chief attribute. Show me yourself. You know, this was several years
ago. President Bush, I wanted to go
over and see if I could get close enough to meet him. And one of
our PR people was working with us at that time to get me in
there. And I got in there and she was kind of following me
around. And I was trying to get, you know, down the line where
the president was coming down the line. And I had my business
card all out. And the president came by and
I handed him my business card. Pontiac Rescue Mission. And this
PR person ran up to me and said, did you just give the president
of the United States your business card? I said, yeah, he needs
to know about us. And the amazing thing was the
president stopped and he said, Pontiac Rescue Mission. Oh, you
run a rescue mission? I said, yes, I do. He said, God
bless you. You know what? It was just as natural for me.
I mean, he's President of the United States. But my God is
a big God. He was a human being, and I had
great respect. But I didn't see anything wrong
with that. Christian people need to think
big. Think as big as your God. He's
able to do for you whatever His purpose is and will is in your
life. And this thing of serving God ought to be a joy and so
exciting. So exciting. God usually comes
through right at the last moment so we know who did it. You know
what I mean? So I've been asking. Keep asking.
He wants you to know who did it. So he gets all the glory,
right? What got me started thinking
this way was I was talking to Quentin and I said, you know,
God deserves all the glory and all the praise and all the honor. And he looked right at me, and
this may sound simple to you, but it really stuck me. He said,
and more. That means you don't exhaust
his praise, right? Quentin said, and more. And I
said, that's exactly right. So Moses knew that God was spirit.
And he had a vague idea, I think. He must have had a vague idea
that it might be possible for divinity to be seen. I've been
in this a long time. The more I study the Gospel,
the more stirred I am, the more amazed I am, the more excited
I am, Moses, I think, suspected That divinity could be seen.
And that's why he said, show me your glory. I want to see
your glory. You know, I think y'all were
asking me about ghosts, weren't you? Yeah. We're going to get
those ghosts out of that house. They were asking me about ghosts.
Well, I don't know about ghosts. I've never seen a ghost. I don't
know how you see a ghost anyway. But I do know, and by the way,
the word Holy Ghost in the Bible is a bad translation by the translators. It's Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit
is not Casper. It's the Holy Spirit. But anyway, Moses knew that.
He said, you can't see a spirit, right? You can't see a spirit.
So Moses said, show me your glory. Let me see you. The Bible, Jesus
said, the wind bloweth. How many of you have ever seen
the wind? No, you haven't. Somebody raise their hand. You
haven't seen the wind. You've seen the effects. You say, the wind's
blowing. How do you know? Well, the leaves. But you haven't seen the wind
blowing. The Spirit. God is Spirit. The great Spirit
God. And Moses said, I want to see
your glory. The truth is that only a God
can comprehend God. That's really the truth. You've
got waters to swim in when you begin to worship God. Don't think
you've got it down pat. Well, I've been a Catholic for
50 years. I've been a Baptist for 45 years. So what? You're still as stupid
as far as who God really is. We all are. We all are. Right? How much have you experienced,
God? How massive? I shouldn't be have
to. Really, we shouldn't have to
be saying that to Christians, should we? We all ought to be
experiencing it and living by faith. Somebody said that Grace
Gospel is trying to take over the city. Yes. Yes, we want to see Christ turn
this city upside down. There's nothing wrong with that.
You know, I thought about this too last night. I thought when
Moses said, show me your glory. Have you ever said anything and
then thought, why on earth did I say that? He's talking to God,
the creator, the majestic one, the omniscient one, the sovereign
one. Show me your glory. Talk about
this a lot. The glory of God. I want you
to just think about this. This is for you who don't want
to argue with me. You just want to rejoice in this.
But think about this. Before the foundation of the
world. God wrote your name in his book. God chose you. Oh yeah, he saw
you were going to be down in Lodibar. He saw you was going
to be shooting up. Yeah, he saw all that. He didn't
come to save good people. He came to save bad folks. Most
of this crowd fits the bill there, right? Including the preacher. Think about that. Just think
about that. The glorious truth That God was gracious to you
in election. That God actually chose you.
And just shake your head in wonder. It's kind of like, you talking
to me? Yeah. God chose you. Isn't that something? And it wasn't because you were
good. No, it had nothing to do with good or bad because there
was no good. You were no good. And I was too. And then think about in time
that God – this is the glory of God – that God came down here
and redeemed you. He bought you. He did it on purpose. He didn't go to the market of
sinners and just say, you know, I'm going to buy all of you. He came down here and bought
you. Yeah. He said, I want that one and
that one and that one, please. That's right. And paid your sin
debt. Isn't that something? You know,
I've said this many times to you. If I said to Miss Pam, you
know, baby, I just love all women. All women are beautiful. I love
all women. I don't think that will float
her boat. No, no, no. But if I say you
are beautiful, I love you and you are special to me. God said,
I love you. I died for you. I took your place. I produced a righteousness for
you, and there's no condemnation for you. That's the glory of
God. And then he called you. Think
about, you were out there wandering around. Think about this. And Quentin
got me on this. Under the bridge, what, 12 years
ago? About 12 years ago? Under the
bridge at I-75 and 9 Mile Road. Under the bridge. Track marks
all up and down his arms. Hadn't seen his wife or children. And God went under the bridge. And Milton, who is now with the
Lord, went down to Hotton Cotton, somewhere in Detroit. And Quentin
couldn't even walk. He and another guy had to pick
him up and put him in the band. Oh, God is good. That's the glory
of God. And I tell you this, on Thursday,
we're going to have happy people in here. We're going to have
a home going. We're going to have a graduation.
We're going to have just a super time here. We're going to be
happy. Absolutely happy. You want to see the glory of
God? Be careful if you ask to see it. So here's what God said
to Moses. You want to really see my glory?
You want something to really blow your mind? I will have mercy
on whom I will have mercy. And I will be gracious to whom
I will be gracious. God could damn this whole bunch
in here, all of us. Put us all in hell. And He'd
still be God and still be righteous. But think about this. He had
mercy on some of us. Yes, that's why when we get to
heaven, we're not going to praise our free will, our works, our
church, our ceremonies, our baptism. We're going to praise Him. He
chose us. He redeemed us. He called us. He justified us. He'll surely
glorify us. And that's why I think Quentin
could say, I'm going home. I'm just going home. I said to
him several times, are you afraid? No. No. I said, do you want to go home?
Yeah, I want to go home. I want to go home. I am so renewed. Today. By watching a believer
die. Or go to sleep. I'm so renewed. I said this to
myself in prayer to God, Lord, make me as strong as Quentin
when it comes for me to die. I don't know. I don't know about
me. I don't trust me very much. It's
going to take a mighty God. You see, you know, when you have
cancer, you eat up with cancer. There is no turning back. There
is no hope. He said to me, Wednesday morning. Pastor, I thought I'd wake up
in heaven this morning. No. But at the appointed time,
you went. It was all planned and purpose.
I kept telling him, because sometimes he'd stare off like this and
we'd be quiet. I'd say, what do you see? I thought
he saw something. He said, nothing yet. Nothing
yet. But I guarantee you this, when
he closed his eyes and gave up his spirit, I can tell you this.
The Lord was there. The angels were there. He will
not lose his elect. I won't have to cross Jordan
alone. Jesus died all my sins to atone. When the darkness I
see, he'll be waiting for me. I won't have to cross Jordan
alone. This last little thing, I've
told a lot of my stories already, but it was so uplifting. I got
ready to go one day and I always went halfway down the steps.
And then I look back to watch him just see how he's doing. And I had my phone, and those
of you who call me, my phone rings with amazing grace, how
sweet the sound. So my phone rang, and his hearing
was perfect. You know, his hearing was just
perfect. And I was looking at him, and
the phone rang, and I couldn't get it out of my pocket in time,
so about one verse there was of amazing grace, and he began
to holler out, It's all of grace! It's all of grace! I hope that's
my testimony too. It's all of grace. Let's stand
and praise our God.