Good morning, everyone. I truly
do miss everybody and certainly hope we will soon be able to
meet once again in person. I'm thankful that we have the
opportunity to have this live streaming, but it's a whole lot
better to be together. This morning, I would like to
ask everyone to especially remember the Clark family. This past week,
Jessica Clark was diagnosed with colon cancer, and she will be
continuing with more testing this coming week so they can
establish a plan for a treatment. So while our hearts are heavy
for this family, we will pray that the Lord will be pleased
to heal her and restore her to health. And we know that the
Lord will use this for her good, the family's good, and his glory,
and I can't help but thinking of what Donnie Bell once said
to me when he came to see me when I was in the hospital. He
said, Lord must love you a lot to put you through this. And
I'm thinking the same thing with regard to Jessica. Also, our
dear friend Don Fortner's in the hospital. He was put in a
couple of days ago, and he's been such a friend to this congregation.
So everybody remember these dear people in prayer. Now before
I read the passage of scripture, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Lord, we come into your presence
in the high and holy name of thy blessed son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Lord, we love his name. We love
who he is. We love his salvation. We love
all of his glorious attributes. And we pray that we might be
enabled by your grace to sit at his feet and hear his word
and worship him. Lord, what we're asking is above
the strength and energy of this flesh. We pray that you would
do this for us for Christ's sake. We ask that we might be forgiven
of all of our sins and cleansed in our son. Lord, we pray for
the Clark family. We pray for Jessica. We pray
that your healing hand would be upon her according to your
will. We pray that you'd give the doctors wisdom. We love her and we know she's
in your hand. We pray for brother Don. We ask that you would be
with him and help that church family according to your will. Lord, we pray for our world at
this time. We pray for your will to be done
with regard to this virus that you sent. We know that you're
in control of all things, and you're too wise to err, too kind
to be cruel. And we pray that this might be
used to cause men and women to call upon the name of thy son.
We pray for your gospel wherever it's preached, that you'd honor
it and glorify yourself. accept our thanksgiving, we're
truly thankful for thy son. In Christ's name we pray, amen. I'm going to be reading from
Acts chapter 12, beginning in verse 21. I've entitled this message, He
Gave Not God the Glory. Acts chapter 12 beginning in
verse 21. And upon a set day, Herod arrayed
in royal apparel, sat upon his throne and made an oration unto
them. And the people gave a shout saying,
it is the voice of a God and not of a man. And immediately
the angel of the Lord smoked him because he gave not God the
glory. And he was eaten of worms and gave up the ghost. Now when it says he was in royal
apparel, this apparel he was wearing is actually described
by Josephus, the Jewish historian. He talks about this event and
Herod's death. That doesn't add anything to
the scripture. The scripture doesn't need extra
biblical literature, I realize that, but this is written of
by Josephus. He said he was wearing some kind
of suit of silver that when the sun shined on it, it It glistened
so much. And that's the royal apparel
he's speaking of. And look what the people did
as he made this oration unto them. The people gave a shout
saying, it's the voice of a God and not a man. And immediately
he goes from this height of praise. This is the voice of a God and
not a man. and all of a sudden he's smitten
of God and he becomes a meal for worms. Maybe tapeworms, I've
read what I could about it, but he was smitten of God and worms
immediately destroyed him from the inside out. Now why this
ignomious death? At the beginning of this chapter,
we read in verse 1, now about that time, Herod the king stretched
forth his hands to vex certain of the church. Now there are
three Herods mentioned in the New Testament and they were all
related. This Herod is the grandson of
that Herod who was over Judea during the birth of the Lord
Jesus Christ and he's the one who ordered the death. of all
the children under two years of age. He is the nephew of that
Herod who was with Pontius Pilate during the death of our Lord
Jesus Christ and consented unto his death. And he's the same
one who had John the Baptist beheaded. But this Herod is sometime
after them. And the scripture says he vexed
certain of the church. He killed James, the brother
of John with the sword. He had him beheaded. And he saw
that this pleased the people. This tells us what kind of man
he was. And because he saw it pleased
the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. Then were
the days of unleavened bread, the Passover. And when he had
apprehended him, he put him in prison and delivered him to four
quaternions of soldiers to keep him, intending after Easter to
bring him forth. He wanted to put Peter to death
and we considered a couple of weeks ago Peter's miraculous
deliverance and how that's a picture of how God saves sinners. Now,
we read beginning in verse 19 of chapter 12, and when Herod
had sought for him, this is after Peter had escaped. When Herod
had sought for him and found him not, he examined the keepers
and commanded that they should be put to death. And he went
down from Judea to Caesarea and their abode. He couldn't understand
how Peter had escaped. We know how he escaped. The angel
of the Lord delivered him. But Herod didn't know that, so
he had the keepers, I guess all 16 of them, put to death because
of the escape of Herod. And then we read in verse 20
of Acts chapter 12, and Herod was highly displeased with them
of Tyre and Sidon. But they came with one accord
to him, and having made Blastus the king's chamberlain, their
friend desired peace, because their country was nourished by
the king's country." Now here we have politics as usual. Herod
was angry with them, so they sought to get in good with one
of his friends, Blastus, and they thought if we can get in
with one of his friends, maybe he'll represent us and we won't
have Herod mad at us anymore, because they were afraid of what
Herod could do for them. And evidently it worked, verse
21, and upon a set day Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat
upon his throne and made an oration to them. He made this big speech.
And the people gave a shout, saying, it's the voice of a god
and not of a man. I don't believe for a second
these people believe this. But they were using flattery.
They knew that this flattery would work with Herod, and evidently
it did. And immediately, because Herod
didn't say, I'm no God, there's only one true and living God,
immediately the angel of the Lord smote him because he gave
not God the glory. And he was eaten of worms and
gave up the ghost. He died. Now, the irony here
is inescapable. He goes in his own eyes as being
the voice of a God. He listened to what these people
said about him, and he didn't deny it. And he ends up immediately
being a meal for worms. Instead of being a, quote, God,
he becomes a meal for worms. What was his crime? He gave not
God the glory. He was a glory thief. He gave not God the glory. That's what I've entitled this
message. He gave not God the glory. Now, I love it when Stephen
begins that message in Acts chapter 7, a message that would end up
costing him his life. He would be stoned after the
preaching of this message. He begins with these words, the
God of glory. The God of glory. Now I feel an acute sense of my own ignorance
and shallowness and sinfulness in trying to deal with such a
glorious subject, the glory of God. I think I understand what
David meant when he said, such knowledge is too wonderful for
me. It's high. I cannot attain to it. The glory of God. Glory is essential to the being
of God. It's not essential to me or you,
but it is essential to His being, He is the God of glory. Now somebody says, try to define
to me the glory of God. I believe in many respects it's
not definable, but I know this, the best definition of the glory
of God is Jesus Christ. He is the glory of God. Hebrews 1.3 says, he is the brightness
of God's glory and the express image of his person who upholds
all things by the word of his power. Jesus Christ is the glory
of God. I read somewhere where someone
said his glory is the sparkling of his deity. I don't even know
what that means, but it sounds good. I've already said the closest
we can come to defining the glory of God is by speaking of the
name of the person of Jesus Christ. God's glory is the infinite beauty
of his manifold perfections and attributes which are revealed
in his character, in the person of his son. Now when we speak
of his glory, his glory and his holiness cannot be separated. What is his holiness? Here's
my favorite definition, his otherness. separateness. There's nothing to which he can
be compared. His holiness is the adjective
of all of his attributes. His sovereignty is a holy sovereignty. His love is a holy love. His justice is a holy justice. His power is a holy power. His wisdom is a holy wisdom. His independence is a holy independence. There's nothing with which he
can be compared. His otherness, his holiness,
and his holiness is always wedded to his glory. Do you remember
when Isaiah heard the seraphims around his throne crying, holy,
holy, holy, the whole earth is full of his glory. Holy, holy, holy, the whole earth
is filled with his glory. In Leviticus chapter 10, we read
Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his
censer and put fire therein, and offered incense thereon,
and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded
them not." Now, that means fire that did not come from the altar
of sacrifice, some other fire that God never gave them commandment
to offer. They thought, well, any old fire
will do. And there went out fire from
the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord. Then
Moses said unto Aaron, This is that that the Lord spake, saying,
I will be sanctified. I will be regarded as holy in
them that come nigh to me and before all the people, and I
will be glorified. I will be regarded as holy, and
I will be glorified and we read that Aaron held his peace. He didn't object to what God
did. Moses justified God in all he
did when they came into God's presence without fire from the
altar. That means they were bypassing
Christ. They were trying to come into God's presence on their
own with something they provided. And God killed them immediately
because they failed to regard him as holy and they failed to
regard His glory. Now, the glory of God is a meaningless
concept to us unless we have true, genuine, God-given faith. The Lord said to Martha, if you
believe, you'd see the glory of God. There is no seeing of
His glory without First, believing. If you'd believe, you'd see the
glory of God. Now let me try to make these
statements with regard to God's glory. God's glory is what is
most important to him. It is his reason for doing all
that he does. I love it when the Disciples
look at that blind man that was born blind and they said, Lord,
who did sin this man or his parents that he's born blind? Lord said,
neither. It's not saying he didn't sin
or his parents didn't sin. They did, but that's not why
he was born blind. Here's the reason why he was
born blind. And here's the reason for everything
else for the glory of God, that the glory of God might be manifest. That's why. He was born blind. Now any less motive for God is
beneath the dignity and the excellency of his person. He does all things
for his glory. He said in Isaiah chapter 42
verse 8, my glory, I will not share with another, nor my praise
to graven images. Why did God create the universe? For His glory. Why does God sovereignly control
every event? For His glory. Why does God save men? For His
glory. If you read in Ephesians chapter
1 work of all three persons in the Trinity, the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit. In Ephesians 1, chapter 1, verses
3 through 14, it said of each person of the Trinity in his
role in salvation, he did it for his glory, to the praise
of his glory, to the praise of the glory of his grace. Revelations 4.11 says, thou art
worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power. Now Jesus Christ is the glory
of God. I just love the way that sounds.
I don't know what else to say. Jesus Christ himself is the glory
of God. He's called the brightness of
God's glory. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4,
6, for God, who commanded the light to shine out of the darkness,
has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. John said, we
beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth. The word was made flesh and oh
how the glory of God made itself known in him. Now his glory is
such that sin is defined as all have sinned and come short of
the glory of God. Now think of that. that is short of the glory of
God, that comes short of the glory of God is how sin is defined. Heaven itself is described by
our Lord like this. Father, I will that they whom
you have given me be with me where I am that they may behold
my glory. Would heaven be to you to behold
his glory? It is to all his people in his
temple doth everyone speak of his glory. I love to think of
his birth, what the angel said at the time of his birth, glory
to God in the highest and on earth, peace, good will toward
men. Now, Herod failed to give God
the glory. How do we give God the glory? It's a good question, isn't it?
I want to know. How do we give God glory? Well, I know this first of all.
We do not give God glory in the sense that what we give Him adds
to what He already has or what He already is. He's infinitely
glorious in Himself. What we do when we give God glory,
we acknowledge His glory. We don't add to His glory. we
acknowledge his glory. And if we do not give him all
the glory, in reality, we give him no glory at all. Now let me repeat that. If we
do not give him all the glory, in reality, we give him no glory
at all. Now in your salvation, If you're
saved, he gets all the glory. Amen? If you're a believer, you're
in complete agreement with that, and you're very sensitive about
that. In your salvation, you know beyond
the shadow of a doubt, in every aspect of your salvation, you
know that he gets all the glory. David said, give him the glory
due his name. Why is Christ the lamb slain
from the foundation of the world? Because that's a declaration
of the glory of God. The lamb slain, the cross, even
before time began, is the full revelation of the glory of God. The gospel is called the gospel
of the glory of the blessed God. Now, let me ask you a few questions.
Who gets the glory in your election? If you're a believer, you know
you're a believer because he chose you, not because you chose
him. Scripture is so clear on that.
But let me ask you, who gets the glory in your election? Did
God elect you because he foresaw how good you'd be or how you'd
accept him or how you could help advance his kingdom? Why, no.
saved you and chose you in the Lord Jesus Christ for the glory
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It wasn't in response to anything
that you do. It's response to his own glory.
What about your redemption? Did you help him out? Did you aid in any of this thing
of the putting away of sin when your sin was put away? Did God
put your sin away because He saw about what you would do?
No. He redeemed you for His glory. And He gets all the glory in
your redemption. He by Himself purged our sins. You didn't have anything to contribute
in that. He didn't do this because He
foresaw you would do anything. He did it for the glory of His
Son. What glory Jesus Christ achieves
to Himself in redeeming someone as sinful and weak as mere you. He gets all the glory. What about
your justification? Did you have any help? Did you help any in your justification?
No, the scripture says in Romans 8, verse 33, who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifieth. Justification
wasn't offered to you up for your acceptance or rejection.
God justified you by what his son did in your place. He's the
one who made a way for God to be just and justify the ungodly. This is his work alone and he
gets all the glory. What about your regeneration? What about your new birth? Did
you contribute anything in this? Oh, no. I love what John said,
as many as received him to them and gave you the power to become
the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, which
were born. not of blood, not of the will
of the flesh, not of the will of man, but of God. What about your preservation,
the fact that you've continued to believe since God gave you
life? Can you give yourself any of the credit for that? Is it
because of the strength and power of your life or is it because
of your putting down the flesh and what you've been able to
do to preserve yourself. No, no, no. The scripture says
we're kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. He gets all the glory in your
preservation. You can't say I preserve because
of anything I've done. You know, it kills me the way,
one of the things that I've heard this quite a bit recently and
something that I despise from my heart when people talk about
living a victorious life and not living defeated Christian
life, you're living a victorious life, and that takes all the
emphasis off his glory and off Christ. And it puts it on, well,
I'm doing this to live a victorious life. Listen, the victorious
life is being more than a conqueror through him that loved us. This
is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who
is he that is born of God? He that believeth that Jesus
Christ is the Son of God. That's the victory that overcomes
the world. So when we're talking about the life of the believer,
oh, he gets all the glory in our preservation. When we die
and we're raised from the dead, who gets the glory in our resurrection? Did we help any in that? No,
he did it all and he gets all the glory. On Judgment Day, oh,
I love to think about this. On Judgment Day, when I'm presented
before God, holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight,
When I stand before God without sin perfectly accepted, who gets
the glory? Jesus Christ the Lord. All things
are for the glory of God. That's why David said, not unto
us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name, give glory for
thy mercy and for thy truth's sake, It is positively monstrous
to try to rob him of his glory. I love what Paul said in 1 Corinthians
4, verse 7. He says to every believer, who
maketh thee to differ from another? I'll tell you who makes me to
differ from another. Excuse me. God does. He's the one who makes every
believer to differ from another. What do you have that you didn't
receive? Now, when Paul made that statement, he was thinking
about what the Lord said in Exodus 11, verse 7, but against any
of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue against
man or beast that you may know how that the Lord doth put a
difference between the Egyptians and Israel. Now, let me give
you I hope this will be helpful when we're talking about his
glory. We glorify him in worshiping him for who he is. We glorify him by worshiping
him for who he is as he is revealed in this book. Now, in Romans
chapter one, Paul says, for the invisible things of him, from
the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood
by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead,
so that they are without excuse, because that when they knew God,
they were confronted with who he is, look what it says, they
glorified him not as God. Neither were thankful but became
vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and changed
the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to
corruptible man. They humanized God. They made
him like we are. Instead of worshiping God for
who he is, They tried to bring him down to our level. They changed
him into an image made like the corruptible man and to birds
and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Now there's no worshiping
God except as I worship him for who he is as he's revealed in
his word. Now you worship him when you
love him just as he is revealed in his word and you wouldn't
change him if it was in your power to do so. We glorify him
by worshiping him for who he is, and listen to this, we glorify
him by faith. Listen to this scripture. Romans
chapter four verse 21 says, regarding Abraham, he staggered not at
the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving
glory to God. Being fully persuaded that what
he had promised He was able also to perform. You know how you
glorify God? By believing that He is able
through His Son to save you completely without any help or contribution
from you. When you rely on His Son only
as everything in your salvation, you know what you do? You glorify
God. You bring glory to God. The reason
faith is extolled by the Lord and things like thy faith to
save thee is because faith is what gives God all the glory. It gives Christ all the glory. You rely on him only as all that's
needed to make you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight. You know, I couldn't help but
think of those 10 lepers the Lord had healed. Only one returned
to give God glory. I want to be that one, don't
you? I want to return to give Him glory. Now, you can't really
think of the glory of God without thinking about this passage of
scripture. In Exodus chapter 33, verse 18, Moses says, I beseech
thee, show me thy glory. Now he had seen the ten plagues.
He'd seen the parting of the Red Sea. He'd seen manna come
down from heaven. He'd seen water come from the
smitten rock. The Lord gave the law through
him. He saw the finger of God writing
on the tablets of stone And he was given the law, the holy law
of God, and yet he says, I've not seen your glory yet. I beseech
thee, show me thy glory. Now that's the highest request
that a man can make. He doesn't say, make me healthy,
make me wealthy, make me wise, bless me. He says, show me your
glory. And look at the way the Lord
answers. Verse 19, and he said, this is God speaking, in answer
to Moses' request. And he said, I'll make all my
goodness pass before thee. Now his goodness is his capacity
to say Somebody as evil as the children of Israel after their
unbelief and their murmuring and making a golden calf in spite
of all the Lord had done for them and his capacity to save
somebody like me or you. Why is that? Because he's good. Oh, the goodness of God. Everything
with regard to him is good. The Lord is good. I'll make all
my goodness pass before thee. And I'll proclaim the name of
the Lord before thee. Now, his name is his attributes. It's a declaration of how he
is just and will by no means clear the guilty, and yet how
he'll be merciful and gracious and pardon iniquity of sin. It's
all done through the gospel of Christ. And then he says, I will
be gracious to whom I will be gracious. God's
glory is His grace. I'll be gracious to whom I will
be gracious, and I'll show mercy to whom I will show mercy. Notice
it's His sovereign grace. It's His sovereign mercy. You know, I heard a man say that
preaching election is not essential to preaching the gospel. My first thought is who in the
world are you to stand in judgment over God's words and declare
which part is essential and which part is not? Are you able to
do something like that? And election is not essential
when the glory of God is not essential because God said, I'll
be gracious to whom I will be gracious and I'll show mercy
on whom I will show mercy. And then he said in verse 20,
And he said, thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man
see me and live. And the Lord said, behold, there's
a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock, and it shall
come to pass while my glory passeth by. I'm going to answer your
request that I'll put thee in the cliff of the rock as Christ
Jesus the Lord, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass
by. And I'll take away mine hand and I should see my back parts,
his works, what he's done. But my face shall not be seen. Now, his glory. What did Herod fail to do? He failed to give him the glory. And what happened to him as a
result? He was eaten of Now my question for me and my question
for you is do we give him the glory? Do we acknowledge that
he is as he describes himself in his word and we love him as
he's revealed in his word? and we acknowledge that in our
salvation. Tonight I'll be speaking on the
shield of faith out of Ephesians chapter 6.