From Psalm chapter 29, I'd like
to read three verses, verse one and two, and then we'll skip
down to verse nine. Give unto the Lord, O ye mighty,
give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give unto the Lord
the glory due unto his name. Worship the Lord in the beauty
of holiness. And then verse nine, the voice
of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve, and discovereth the
forest, and in his temple doth everyone speak of his glory."
The subject this morning is the glory of God. Now this psalm
is described as the psalm of thunder, the psalm of thunder. It is in this chapter that David
is as a shepherd being out in the mountains. He goes through
a violent thunderstorm And so he speaks of that. When he speaks
of the voice of the Lord, he's talking about the thunder in
a mighty thunderstorm from heaven. God speaking from the heavens
in the thunder. Verse 3 says, The voice of the
Lord is upon the waters. The God of glory thundereth. The Lord is upon many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full
of majesty. All of these verses are talking
about the thunder of God from the heavens. And then in verse
5, the voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars. The thunder and the
lightning comes down and breaks the cedars. The Lord breaks the
cedars of Lebanon. And then, as he gets down here
in verse 9, he sees that the voice of the Lord, it inaugurates
the birth of the calves, and discovereth the forest, lays
low the forest, and reveals the internal parts of these forests. And the Lord sitteth upon the
flood in verse 10. Yea, the Lord sitteth, King forever. You see that David has a very
high opinion of the Lord, and he sees God in everything, and
certainly sees Him in these great thunderstorms that swept the
region where he was tending the sheep. Now then, let me talk
a little bit. If there was ever a time when
a man would want to preach, it's when he was preaching about the
glory of God. Now I know by experience that
you cannot preach when you want to. You preach when God enables
you to. You can go through the motions
other times, but there are times when God enables you to, and
I would like that the Lord would enable me this morning to preach
on this delightful subject, the subject of the glory of God. Now this subject is as big as
we are small. Remember that the subject of
the glory of God as big as we are small it is it is as infinite
as I am finite it is as eternal as I am temporal it is as spiritual
as we all are fleshly and It is as incomprehensible as I am
ignorant, this subject of the glory of God. Now, to glorify
God means to suppose an opinion. It means that we have an opinion,
and David's opinion of God was a very high opinion, and if our
opinion is right about God, amen, it'll be a high opinion. God
is an exalted God. He's a holy God and he ought
to receive the glory that is due his name. We ought to have
the right opinion of God. Now glory is the exercise and
the display of what constitutes the distinctive excellence of
the subject of which it is spoken. I want you to get that definition.
Very important. It is the exercise and the display
of what constitutes the distinctive excellence of the subject of
which it is spoken. Maybe I could say it in a little
simpler way. It is the outshining of what
he is, and what he does, and what he is like. That's his glory. That's the thing that is his
distinctive excellence. What he is, what he does, what
he is like. That sets forth his glory. The glory of the herb, as in
the way of illustration, is its flower, its blossom, that's its
glory. No other plant like it in all
the world. It has a distinct glory in that
that its flower is different than all other flowers. We plant,
or we tolerate, I should say, we never planted them, probably
wouldn't have if we would have known some of the problems in
caring for them, keeping from spreading, but we tolerate the
lilac bushes in our yard for 11 months and two weeks just
to see and smell their glory for two weeks, just to be able
to look on those lilac bushes and those beautiful flowers is
the distinctive excellence of those lilac bushes. It's glory,
don't you see? And if you look at those bushes
in the wintertime, you don't see any glory there at all. But
right now, if you were to go out there and drive in that yard,
you see the glory of those lilac bushes. And 1 Corinthians 11
and 7, it says that man is the image and the glory of God. Man,
that was man as he was created, man in his unfallen state. Man is the image and the glory
of God, but the woman is the glory of the man. It says also
in that same chapter that the woman's hair is her glory. The glory of the king is his
crown. He's the only one in the kingdom
that's got one. So the glory of the king is his
crown. The glory of the victor is his
trophy. There's just one trophy that
goes to the victor, and that's the only one there is. And the
victor gets that trophy. That's his glory. That's his
glory. Well, what does he have, that
is, what does God have that nobody else has? That's what makes up
his glory. And so if you read the Word of
God and study the Word of God, I'm sure that you're going to
be able to discover what God is about, what God is, what God
does. And in order that you might give
Him the glory that's due His name. His glory is that which
sets Him apart from anybody else. Now if we are to give unto the
Lord the glory due unto His name, verse 2, and in His temple everyone
speak of His glory, verse 9, if we do this in word and in
prayer and song, we must tell back to God. This is just how
simple it is. If we're gonna give God the glory
due unto his name, we must tell back to God what he has said
about himself. Now that's what worship is all
about. That's what glorifying God is
all about. It's not going out here manufacturing a few little
sayings and a few little ditties that we get up and recite. That's
not what glorifying God is about. Glorifying God is getting up
and talking about what God has said in his word about himself
and telling that back to him. God knows best how to glorify
Himself. God is a jealous God and He's
seeking glory for Himself. And so when He reveals Himself
in the Word of God, this is the purpose of it. That we might
be able to know Him and know something about Him, that which
distinguishes Him, that which is His distinctive excellence,
and be able to tell it back to Him. He wants to hear it. He
wants to hear about himself. You say, well, do you mean that
God is that jealous? Is God that kind of a God? He wants to hear about himself?
He does because he is God and he's the one that deserves glory
and it's due his name. Well, what does God think about
Himself? What has He revealed about Himself? Now, we've said it before and
I think we must say it again, and that is that God is not like
we imagine Him to be, but God is like He has revealed Himself
to be. And don't you ever forget that.
Don't you ever forget that's a statement that everybody ought
to write down and look at every once in a while because religion
today, churches today, they've gotten away from the true concept
of who God is. And that's the reason why I got
all the foolishness going on in Baptist churches this morning.
You got all the entertainment in the religious world because
they don't know who God is. They've imagined God to be like,
you know, they've had this picture in their mind. And they've imagined
God is just like that. And they give up reading the
Bible. Do you know that in most churches in America, the Bible
is never opened in the pulpit? The pulpit is moved over to the
corner and the Bible is very seldom ever referred to. Well,
how are we going to know God if we don't know the book? If
we don't know the only book that reveals the true character and
nature of the living God? Well, Job asked, Can we, by searching,
find out God? God must make Himself known.
And by searching, you can go to the library and get all the
books that men have written about God. But no, my friend, you should
not do that. What you must do is go to God's
book. and begin to read that book,
the book of God and read that book. That's the Baptist book
and we ought to come back to it and begin to read it and begin
to meditate and study. Job said we cannot find God by
just going out and searching around. But the Bible says that
by revelation We can know God. We can know God if He reveals
Himself to us. Nobody can know another person
unless that person reveals Himself to you. You cannot know anybody
unless they reveal themselves to you. And the same is true
about God. The Bible says in Matthew 11
and 27, And no man knoweth the Son, but the Father. No man knoweth
the Son, but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father save
the Son. Nobody knows the Father but Jesus
Christ, and He to Whomsoever the Son will reveal Him. And so, beloved, the Son of God
must reveal the Father. He must make Him known unto our
hearts. Give Him glory. Speak of His
glory in the temple. We shall do so only as He is
revealed to us in the Holy Word. And then we can talk back to
Him and tell Him what He's told us about Himself. And that's
what He wants to hear. I'm telling you that. He don't
want some mealy-mouthed preacher to get up and start carrying
on and spinning yarn about Him and talking about this and that
and something else. He wants somebody to get up and
declare His Word, declare His truth. and reveal his nature
and his character and his work and his purpose as it's revealed
on the pages of the scripture. Now then, in the book of Exodus
chapter 33 in verse 18, I want you to turn there if you will.
And I want you to look at this. Moses came to a place where he
wanted to see the glory of God. He wanted to see God's glory.
He wanted to see His distinctive excellence. He wanted to see
what it was that God had that nobody else had. He wanted to
look at it. And so he said in verse 18, I
beseech thee, show me thy glory. Show me thy weight, show me thy
substance, show me thy glory. And he said, I will make, now
this is what God says about, here's what he said in answer
to what Moses asked. And he said, I will make all
my goodness pass before thee. He said, 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. And he said, thou canst not see
my face, for there shall no man see me and live. Now, what has
the Lord done here? Well, the Lord has revealed unto
Moses his glory. He made him see his glory when
his goodness passed by him. God revealed his goodness to
Moses. God proclaimed his name, Jehovah,
God, the living God, the great I Am. He proclaimed his name
and made Moses to understand the meaning of his name. And
then he said, I will be gracious unto whom I will be gracious.
I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy. This is my glory. This is my character. I will make all my goodness pass
before thee. Let's talk about that a little
bit. I'll make all my goodness pass before you. Now, these things
are very important. He says, the Bible says what
God is saying here is that he's good and that he does good. God
is good and he does good. The Lord is good, Nahum said. He's a stronghold in the day
of trouble. Who is good? The Bible says none
good save one that is God. All goodness is found in God. That's where it's found. Well,
only he is good. Now, beloved, we cannot be good
by deciding to be good. We have to be caused to be good. If there is any goodness in you
and I, if there's ever anything comes out of us that resembles
goodness, ever, Beloved, it is derived or lit to us from God
because there isn't any goodness in us by nature. There is not. Only God is good. Preacher, are
you telling me I'm bad? Yes, my friend. Only God is good. and does good. It is his distinctly
of excellence. His glory is to be the only one
really good in all of his world. God is the only one that's really,
really good. His goodness is uncaused and
His goodness is unobliged. You cannot buy His goodness.
You cannot merit His goodness. He is never obliged in any case
to be good to anybody. Somebody says, I'd like for God
to owe me. I believe that I've been good
enough that God owes me something. Well, you would rob God of His
glory. That's what you would do. You
would stick a knife in God's back and rob Him of His glory. This is the last thing this generation
of religionists will give to God. They will not allow God
to have free favor. They'll not allow him to be in
control of goodness and mercy. This is the cornerstone of his
glory and his alone. I'll be good to whom I please. God said, this is my glory. I
want to be good to somebody, I'll be good to them. Ain't nobody
going to dictate to me the terms. Nobody going to come to me and
bring their little bit of righteousness and say, God, you owe me. You
must be good to me. No, God said, I'll be good to
who I want to be good to. I control my goodness. I am God. That's my glory, that I'll be
good. I'll be good. I am good. But
I'll be good to who I please. I'll be merciful. to whom I please. Now, beloved, we know that we're
living in a time when men reject the doctrine of sovereign mercy.
They reject the doctrine of free grace. They reject it because
they want to be in control of the dispensing of mercy and grace. They don't want a sovereign God
to dispense his own mercy and his grace. But God is free. He's absolutely free. Only free
will in all the world is God Almighty. His will is free. Man's will is biased towards
sin. Man is a sinner, and he's corrupt
from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And man
is not able in any way, shape, or form to handle the business
of mercy. It's in God's hands. God handles
mercy. He dispenses it to whomsoever
He will. The Son of God makes alive whomever
He will, the Bible says. His glory is found in His sovereign
mercy. And if you take that away, you
rob God of His glory. Now it's wonderful to be able
to meet with people who recognize that's His glory. And whenever
they pray, they pray about God saving sinners. When they pray,
they pray in such a way as to give God all the glory for their
own salvation and to give God all the glory for what he's done,
what he is doing. Glory to God, he sent his own
son. He was willing to part with the
best that heaven had and send him down here, willing to do
it. in order that he might have mercy, and it's wonderful to
be among people that believe in sovereign grace, sovereign
mercy, and sovereign goodness, that being in the hands of a
sovereign. Next, out of this word goodness,
there is this thought, and that is the thought of his perfect
righteousness, his perfect righteousness. Turn with me to the book of Romans,
if you will, the book of Romans chapter three, and I'd like for
you to look here. Now in this 21st verse of Romans
chapter 3, we have it spelled out clearly. As is, no, I want
you to look at verse 10. I'm sorry, verse 10. It is spelled
out clearly that there is none righteous, no, not one. Corresponding with what we said
about none being good save one, that is God. There is none righteous,
no, not one. And then go to verse 21. It says,
but now the righteousness of God. Well, God has righteousness. This is perfect righteousness. And the righteousness of God
without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and
the prophets. Even the righteousness of God,
which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that
believe, for there is no difference. whom God, in verse 25, has set
forth to be a satisfaction through faith in His blood, to declare
His righteousness, the emphasis being on His righteousness. The Bible says all of our righteousness
are as filthy rags in His sight. But here's His righteousness. This is the only perfect righteousness
there is in the universe, is the righteousness of our God. To declare in verse 26, I say
at this time His righteousness, that He might be just just God
and the justifier of those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, beloved, we know that God
has sent his son. His son has lived a perfect life. He lived under the law. He obeyed
the law, satisfied every demand of the law, never broke the law,
and he established a righteousness which is absolutely, totally
perfect. And that's the righteousness
that you and I must have if we're going to heaven. And that righteousness
can be had by faith. You believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and the moment a poor sinner believes on the Lord Jesus
Christ, that righteousness of Christ is put down to their account. And in the books of God, that
sinner becomes as righteous as Christ himself. And that sinner
is accepted of God in that righteousness. That's the imputed righteousness
of God. That's the only righteousness that'll get a sinner into heaven.
There isn't any other righteousness. There's no other perfect righteousness
except this. And if you go into heaven, you're
going, and this righteousness is all it's gonna get you in.
You can't get by the gate unless you're righteous. And you can
only be righteous as God is and walk in and out in fellowship
with the God of the Bible and the holy angels and with his
son, the Lord Jesus Christ, unless you're righteous. You've got
to be righteous! And we're all sinners. My soul,
we knew it when we were younger. We knew we were sinners. And
the older we get, oh my soul, I'm more of a sinner now than
I've ever been in my life. And the older I get, the more,
the more, the more! I see that I have no righteousness. Holdin' on, holdin' on, hangin'
on to little old things down through life. You know, little
things we thought meant somethin'. We thought we'd done some special
things, but not doin' this, not doin' that, doin' somethin' else
and not doin'. But beloved, we've come to the
place where that we just know now that we're just utter, total
corrupt sinners. I mean, we're sinners. And we
stand in it from our chin down. We're full of corruption and
sin. And the only thing gonna get
us into heaven is the righteousness of God. That's the only thing.
Perfect righteousness. And that's in this word goodness
here. And I want you to see that. And oh, you're dead today if
you're not in Christ. Your body is nothing more than
a tomb for your soul. Nothing more than a casket for
your soul if you're not in Christ and if you don't believe in imputed
righteousness. You're an infidel if you don't
believe in imputed righteousness. If you don't believe in the righteousness
of God, you don't believe in any kind of righteousness because
there is no other kind. but God's righteousness. I'm
here to declare His righteousness. Now the next thing about God
that sets Him apart, that distinguishes Him, His distinctly of excellence,
if you please, is His immutability. his unchangeable nature. God never changes. He is of one
mind, old Job said, and who can turn him? But the religionist
says, I think I can change God's mind. Well, how do you think
you're gonna do that? How are you gonna change God's
mind? Well, he says, I've got a scheme, and I think I can change
God's mind, or I've got these works, you know, that I've done,
and I believe that I can change the mind of God by my good doing,
or by my praying. I believe I can really change
God by my praying. This generation of church folks
will take you out and they'll tar and feather you if you stand
before them and tell them that you cannot get God to do anything
that he hadn't already made up his mind to do. They'll tar and
feather you. They say, wait, we just, you
mean to tell me people living in our day and time with our
education and our ability, you mean to tell me that all the
things that we can do and that we can't change God? We can't
make God change his mind? We can't get him to do something
he didn't already have purpose to do? No, my friend, you cannot. You cannot. You cannot. And people
don't like that. They don't like the unchangeable
nature of the God of the Bible. You see, my friend, we can come
in here and we can worship this God every Sunday. And if Sister
So-and-so doesn't feel up to worship, then where we can worship. If brother so-and-so, his crossways
won't make it, this God stays the same. The preacher, he's
gone off somewhere, or if something's wrong with the preacher, we just
come and we worship God. We worship God. He's the same,
Jesus said, or the Bible says of Jesus Christ, that he's the
same yesterday, today, and forever. He been the same ever since I
came along, and he's always gonna be the same. Unchangeable nature. Well, whoever heard of a person
who wouldn't change his mind? The religionist says. Well, there
isn't any but God. And that's his glory, my friend.
He doesn't change his mind. That's his glory. Always the
same. Isn't that wonderful? Every one
of us in this room right here, we've changed two or three times
this morning already. Pass out of one frame of mind
into another. We have this and we have that
to deal with. There are circumstances we can't
control. We have different feelings about
a lot of things. We change all the time. But I'm telling you,
the God we worship, His distinctive excellence is, I change not. Therefore, you sons of Jacob
are not consumed. I change not. I'm always the
same, the God of the Bible. And that is to be understood.
Well, that's His glory. We all change and He doesn't.
That's His distinctive excellence, His glory. And so every time
you notice this business of change, and we live with it all the time.
We live with it every day. We live with it all the time.
Ourselves, and the people around us, and the world we're living
in. Just remember this, God's glory, He don't change. He stays
the same. Well, next is the omniscience
of God. The Bible teaches that He's all
wise. He's an all-wise God. This is the outshining of what
He is. He's all-wise. Now the Bible
teaches that His wisdom is perfect and that He has perfect knowledge
of all things. Now have you got anything to
say? I mean, is there something you'd like to add out of your
puny little brain or something you'd like to bring forth here
and sit on the table to somehow or other contradict that? God
is all wise. Everything is known to him. He
knows you're down sitting and you're uprising. He knows your
thoughts are far off. He knows you and he knows everything
there is to be known. We have not filled God in on
anything this morning. We have not taught God anything
today. Is that all right? Now the religionists
might be offended at that. He's not teaching God anything,
they say. Well, that preacher surely is not, because who he
is and what he preaches. He's not teaching God anything.
But this generation is so proud. I heard a man say one time, and
he had to robe on. And he was talking about how
this generation had made such a contribution to God with their
intellectual ability and so on and so forth. This generation
hadn't done anything but stink in the nostrils of God and this
generation will go to hell if God don't in mercy spare them. They'll go to hell. This generation
hadn't taught God Almighty anything. We've got nothing to put on the
table. Nothing well in Proverbs 25 in verse 2 It says that the
glory of God it is the glory of God to conceal a thing It's
God's glory to hide things Hide them from men It's his glory
to to hide himself You know the Bible said the Lord Jesus said
father. I thank thee father Lord of heaven and earth I thank thee
that thou hast hid these things from the wise and the prudent,
and hath revealed them unto babes." I thank you. I thank you that
you've hid them. It's God's glory to conceal a
matter. Somebody said, you know, I lived
for years and didn't understand this. I didn't understand that.
God hid this thing from me for a purpose, for a reason. God
has a reason. But it's His glory to hide things. Now let me apply this to what
I just said. God will not be changed by your
prayers. You remember I mentioned that? He will not be changed
by your prayers. Now we've read the old slogan,
prayer changes things. Well, how much truth there is
in that, you'll have to decide that. I'm not here to talk about
that this morning. Well, somebody says, well now
if God If God knows everything, why is it necessary? Does it
do any good to pray then? Well, if God will not be changed
by our prayers, then it doesn't do any good to pray. Well, yes
it does. Yes it does. Well, somebody says,
won't God do what he wants to do? Yes he will. Yes, he will. God will do just what he wants
to do. You know what the Bible says, Psalm 115, our God is in
the heavens. And he hath done whatsoever he
pleased. That's what it says. You can
look it up. Psalm 115, I believe it's verse
3. He hath done whatsoever he pleased
in the heavens. You say, well, I can't figure
that out, preacher. Well, won't things turn out okay
if I don't pray? No, they won't. You mean to tell
me that God ain't going to change his mind and that it does good
to pray, but yet God is going to do what he wants to do anyway?
And yet things are not going to turn out okay if I don't pray?
Of course you can't understand this because God has concealed
it for his own glory. People who think they have God
all figured out, who can answer all the questions before they're
asked, has robbed God of his glory. And beloved, say what
you want to say. But God has purpose to work through
the prayers of His people. He has purpose to do that. But
yet He is a sovereign God. And God is not going to change
His mind. He has a purpose. He has a will. And He will reveal
that will. But He has hidden this mystery. It is hidden. It's concealed. That's God's distinctive glory.
You pray and God answers. But my friend, who can say how
it could have been being the way it is? God knew from eternity
what He was going to do. He knew exactly what He was going
to do. And we haven't changed His mind.
We haven't given Him some information He didn't have already. God knows
exactly what He's doing. But you pray. You pray like you
could change God's mind. You pray! And you seek the face
of God. Because it's God's will that
you pray. It's God's will. Doesn't he know
what things we have need of before we ask him? Absolutely the Bible
says so. But the scripture says ask and
you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock
and it shall be opened unto you. So God's people are to pray. Pour out their hearts before
God. You say there's a mystery here. Absolutely. And it's the
glory of God to conceal a thing. He's hid it. And so you operate
as you'd operate as a believer, a child of God, you to pray and
cry unto God. Now God is seeking his own glory.
And one thing about a revelation of the glory of God, the distinctive
excellencies of God is that it'll leave a man standing with his
mouth wide open in awe at the God who has all the answers.
God is God. And we need a revelation of Him
and it'll humble us if we ever get one. It'll humble us. It'll
make us different. We'll quit trying to manufacture
something and we'll just start telling back to God what we know
about Him. We'll worship Him in prayers
and extol Him for His knowledge and for His goodness and His
sovereign grace and His mercy and we'll worship the God of
heaven. Now, I must hurry. There's a few things that I want
us to say about the gospel before we finish here this morning.
I want you to turn with me to the book of Revelation, chapter
14. The book of the Revelation, chapter
14. And let's look at verse 6 and
verse 7. And I saw another angel fly in
the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach
unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation and kindred
and tongue and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God,
and give glory to him. For the hour of his judgment
is come, and worship him that made heaven and earth, and the
sea, and the fountains of water. Fear God, and give glory to him."
Now this is the message of the angel, not a literal angel. There
are two kinds of angels, fallen and unfallen, and neither know
the gospel. Neither the fallen angels or
the unfallen angels do not know the gospel. They're looking into
it. They'd like to know. They're looking into it, but
they do not know the gospel. And the redemptive work of our
Lord Jesus Christ was not for angels. He took not upon himself
the seat of angels. He took upon himself the seat
of Abraham, meaning the promised children, in Isaac shall thy
seed be gone." All spiritual born men and women, that's who
Jesus represented. He represented all the elect
of God from eternity. And so the angels are not included. These are the angels of the churches.
These are preachers. Fallen men, redeemed men, who
experienced the gospel and they're going out and they're crying,
fear God and give God glory. Give Him glory. Now, in 1 Timothy
1 and verse 11, it says, according to the glorious gospel of the
blessed God which was committed to my trust. This is 1 Timothy
1.11. The best translation of that
is this, according to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God. according to the gospel of the
glory of the blessed God. These angels, these preachers
are going out having the everlasting gospel to preach to them that
dwell on the earth saying with a loud voice, fear God and give
him glory. And so they're preaching the
gospel of the glory of the blessed God. You say preacher, there's
a lot of gospels out there in the world. Yes. But there's none
like His gospel. There's none like this everlasting
gospel that was committed to the trust of the Apostle Paul.
Paul stood before those Galatians and said, if I or an angel from
heaven preach any other gospel to you than I have preached,
having received it by the revelation of the Spirit of God in my heart,
if anybody else preach, let them be anathema. Let them go to hell
when the Lord comes. There's one gospel, and that's
the gospel of God's own dear Son, and that's the gospel of
His glory. The gospel of His glory speaks
of three things. Quickly, I'll give them to you,
so that you'll be able to understand the distinctive excellence of
this gospel, which is the gospel of His glory. Number one, it
is an accomplishment of Christ. That's what the gospel of His
glory is. Now don't ever forget this. You young people, you remember
this till your dying day. You may not have a preacher.
You may be like the folks in Lewistown tomorrow or next week
or a year or three or four years or five. Only God knows. But
you remember what I'm telling you. The gospel of the glory
of the blessed God is that there was an accomplishment. when Jesus
Christ came in the world, when he came into the world, when
he lived, when he died. When he went to that cross, when
God raised him up, it was an accomplished thing. God accomplished
something through Christ. Now all these petty gospels we're
listening to in our day and time, nothing happened at the cross
as far as they're concerned. Nothing happened, not unless
you take your puny will and join it somewhere or another to God's
will. They've never told us exactly how to do that, but when they
say nothing happened, But I'm telling you there was something
happened on that gory tree outside of Jerusalem where our Lord Jesus
Christ, where He suffered and died, where He hung on that cross. There was an accomplishment.
He accomplished the salvation of His people. He fulfilled Matthew
chapter 1 verse 21. He shall save His people from
their sins. He fulfilled what Paul later
said. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners of whom I am chief. This is to be trusted
and believed by all people that Jesus accomplished something
when he died on the cross. He did it all. He tread the winepress
of the wrath of God alone. He finished the work. It was
his glory to do it all. And he did it all. He did it
all. Now you mark it down. Anybody
ever comes to you with a tale about salvation being partly
your work and partly God's work, or it's a mixture where you and
God get together and stir up something, listen to me, listen
to me. You tell them just go ahead and
pedal that right on down the street. You don't need a bit
of that. The glory, listen, the glory of the gospel of the blessed
God is that when Jesus died, He did it all. He accomplished
it all. All the doing and all the dying,
He did it. And salvation is finished, is
complete, entirely by the Lord Jesus and by Him alone. And you
tell them that. You tell them that. Say, that's
the distinctive glory of the Gospel of the Bible. It's an
accomplished work. An accomplished work. Not something
I'm working on. Not something the preacher's
working on. It's something that is accomplished. Amen? Amen,
that's the glory of the gospel. It's an accomplished work Now
then also it is a message It is a message This gospel of God's
glory. It's a message and this message
is a message of good news and this is good news to people like
you and I I said a few minutes ago, we're standing in corruption
clear to our chins. We're just about to the place
where it's about to suffocate us. And there's only, listen
to me, bad men. The gospel is for sinners. Jesus said, I come not to call
the righteous, but sinners to repentance. The gospel is for
those who know themselves. to be bad before God, unrighteous,
ungodly. Those are the terms of the Bible.
Ungodly men. He that justifies the ungodly. Would you ever line up in that
line? Did you ever get in that line? Oh, have you ever come
and said, this is me, right here, this is me? I'm ungodly. Everything about me is ungodly. Well that's the kind of people
that Jesus, that's the message. We're not getting up here telling
you that God's saving people that's good. There isn't any
good to begin with and we're not telling you that. We're telling
you that God saves bad men. He's saving people that cannot
save themselves. He's saving people that can't
make a contribution. He's saving people that don't
have any ability to come and give Him something. He's saving
people that, that nothing in their hands they're bringing.
They just come like they are. The good news is the religious
world don't have it. The religious world has never
really heard it. But once a man hears this good
news that God sent his son and that that son of his died on
the cross and that through Jesus we have everlasting life, then
we cannot ever hear ever again any bad news. Somebody said,
I heard this, I heard that, I heard something else. But really compared
with that good news, there isn't any bad news. What can you hear
that's bad if you ever heard the good news? Somebody said,
I'm suffering and I'm going to die right away. Well, you're
going to die. There ain't no way to get out of this world
except dying. There's no way out of this thing. Scripture
says there's no furlough from this war. You don't get out of
here Except dying and we're all gonna die one way or the other
somewhere another in God's appointed time the instrument death already
appointed by God God knows how we're gonna leave this world
But listen to me listen to me now You may say well, I've heard
I've heard some terrible things. Well, you might have but have
you heard the good news? I Have you heard that? If you
have, now that'll just mellow you, and that'll help you, and
that'll kind of soften all this other stuff you hear all of your
life. You know, it's wonderful to be able to know that when
you're leaving this world, you're going to heaven. You're gonna
go to heaven. You're gonna go be with the Lord.
You're gonna leave this world, and you know, we've just seen
it time after time, time after time, carried the people out,
put them in a grave, put them in a grave, throw the dirt in
on top of them, put them in a grave, never see them again, don't know
anything about them, never, never, it's all over, it's all over,
it's all over. It's not all over. No, no. No, it's not all over.
No, no. We're gonna go off yonder to
be with the Lord for all eternity, to be with Him. You see, and
that's, we lose sight of that because we're so short-sighted.
Because we're looking from the standpoint of the flesh, aren't
we? and we need to look at it from the Lord's standpoint, but
it's a message of good news. Now, if you have a man come to
your door, if you have a preacher get up in front of you, and he
starts off, oh, I'm preaching the gospel today. Now listen
to me, if you'll just get busy and do the best you can, Brother
Conrad, if you'll just get busy and do the best you can, sister,
then God's gonna have respect to that, and you'll be saved
in the end. You tell that fellow, hey, I
haven't no time for that. I got no time for that. That's
not the gospel of the glory of God. The gospel of the glory
of God is that the message is for bad men that can't get up
and take a step. An old Catholic used to tell
about this priest that cut his head off and he got up and he
walked 3,000 miles after they cut his head off. And old Spurgeon
heard that. He said, I wouldn't have a bit
of trouble believing that at all. If you just tell me how
he took the first step. How he took that first step.
And that's the truth, my friend. The gospel is for men and women,
boys and girls who cannot take the first step toward God. And that's the message. and whenever
a man tells you the message of the gospel of the glory of God
he'll tell you that God's got to come to you and he's got to
come to your heart and he's got to do the first work and all
the work from there all the way to the last step over into glory
it's all of grace and God's got to do it that's what you'll hear
that's the gospel of the glory of God alright now The third
thing is that this gospel is power divine in the heart of
the sinner. Now what that means is that this
gospel fixes a man or a woman or boy or girl to where that they have the right mind and
the right opinion about God and they want him to have his glory.
They're changed in their heart and they know what they were
by nature. They know how lost they were,
how undone they were. They knew that they couldn't
save themselves. They knew they didn't have the
ability to do that. So God saves them, and you know what they
do? They get saved, and then what they want to do, they feel
this way in their hearts, they just want to step aside and let
God get the glory. They just want to step away,
get out of the way, just get out of the way, and let God have
the glory. They feel it inside. They feel
it in their soul. The Lord must be glorified. I
wouldn't rob Him of a nickel of His glory. He saved me. He come to me. I was dead. I
was dead in sin. I never breathed the breath of
spiritual life in all of my life. And He came to me. And He breathed
life into me. And I lived. Give him the glory,
I'll give him the glory. I will not stand idly by while
somebody is robbing him of his glory. It's changed me. And I'll
glorify the living God. Told you a few minutes ago that
a man who is lost, that his body is nothing but a casket for his
dead soul. And that's exactly what I felt
when I was lost. My soul lost. Undone and only
God entered by his intervention changed my situation Only God
by his intervention now, there's a verse in Jude two verses verse
24 and verse 25 and I'd like to read them quickly and We're
done Verse 24 and 25. Now unto him that is able to
keep you from falling, present you faultless before the presence
of his glory with a seeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior
be glory and majesty, dominion, and power both now and ever. Amen. To the only wise God who
has a way, who can figure a way, to take people like we've described
and to make us faultless before the presence of his glory to
the only wise God. To the only wise God. To the only God who sent Christ
that he might be just and justifier. To the only wise God who could
give up his son to die. to pay the debt to the law of
God which I owe. It's awful hard to give up your
children. Awful hard to give up. I've never really give up
any of my children. I've had to part with them for
a while. But Jesus Christ, God's Son, God gave Him up. The Bible says He was delivered
up for us. He gave Him up to the only wise
God. To the only wise God who is able
to put everybody in His Son Christ who He intends to save. The only
wise God. You say, well, I don't know how
everybody's going to get in Christ. Well, they're going to get in.
They're going to get in. We're dealing with what? The only wise
God. That's who we're dealing with.
Okay, and then what does it say in that last verse there? To
the only wise God our Savior be glory. Be glory. Glory do
His name, majesty, dominion, and power both now and ever. Amen? Amen. Both now and ever. Well, I just feel in sync with
this truth of the glory of God. I just feel like that. that this
is great, rejoices my soul. Now, I gotta tell you this, the
way that I came upon this and decided to preach this today, oh, two, three weeks ago, I got
a call from a dear brother out in the West Virginia, Brother
Scott Richardson. And he had heard me make a feeble
attempt years ago someplace, maybe in West Virginia, somewhere
else, to preach on the subject of the glory of God. So he calls
me up on the phone and he said, John, he said, do you still have
the notes of that sermon you preached? And I said, well, I
don't know whether I do or whether I don't. I just simply don't
know. It's been a long time. And so The other day, somehow
or other, I felt pressed to the Lord to go up into the attic
in the garage and there was an old suitcase that was full of
notes. Sermons I preached way back,
years ago. Fact is, the notes are in there
for the first sermon I ever preached in a church. Forty-some years ago. It's getting
hard to read them now. They're just real, just almost
gone. There was those notes, that Sermon
on the Glory of God. And they were, you know, I didn't
used to make very good notes at all. I didn't work on it very
much. I just didn't. Because I used to commit a whole
lot more to memory than what I do now. I just don't have the
ability anymore to do that. But anyway, I found those notes. And so Scott called me again
on Saturday morning. And I said, Scott, I found those
notes. Get them in the mail to me. get them in the mail to me.
So I redone them and so I'm gonna ship these off to him tomorrow.
And old Scott can, I mean he can preach. He can preach these
things. He can preach these notes. I mean he'll be able to. Of course
he'll dress them up and doctor them up. But he can preach them.
A lot better than I can. But anyway that's how I came
on this. That's what it's about. That's
the way the Lord leads. And we're grateful. We're grateful
to God. Let's pray. Father, in the name
of our Savior, the Lord Jesus, who did it all for us, we commit
this service, we commit this word. There's some here who understands
maybe a little of this. There's others here who understands
a whole lot of it. And Lord, for these that are attending,
sitting, listening, listening, listening, May the Holy Spirit
open their hearts, and I pray they'll be saved. I pray that
they'll be brought out of their night, Egyptian night, brought
into that glorious relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Be
born of the Spirit. Know Christ. Father, make thyself
known. Thank you for what revelation
you've given. Thank you, Lord, that we're able to tell these
things back to you this morning. I just know heaven is joyous
and that God's been glorified and we praise your name. In the
name of Jesus, Amen.