see his Glory! 

This morning I want to begin a new series of messages.  For the next several weeks we are going to study the nature and character of God.  Each message will focus in on His attributes, by that I mean those things that set God apart as being God.

For instance:

·        God is glorious.

·        eternal,

·        all-powerful,

·        unchanging,

·        all-knowing,

·        everywhere present at all times,

·        just,

·        holy,

·        good and much much more. 

These characteristics are again known as the attributes of God. They are characteristics which are unique to Him. 

 Jeremiah 9:23-24 notes, “This is what the LORD says: ‘Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me....’”

As children we are told not to brag on ourselves.  Nevertheless the Bible gives us permission to boast in the fact that we know this great God and that we have some understanding of who and what He is. All other boasting is empty.

Wisdom, strength and riches are temporal at best. They can go no farther than the grave. The knowledge of God, on the other hand, transcends the grave. It reaches all the way into heaven and into eternity!

 The first attribute that I want to talk about is the glory of God

God’s glory is one of the major themes throughout Scripture. In fact, the word glory can be found some 371 times in the King James Version of the Bible. The glory of the Lord was something that stood out in Bible times. It was seen, heard, felt and experienced.  When it departed, the people knew it.

 There are numerous definitions of glory floating around. Let me share a couple of them with you: 

1.                  Someone has noted that God’s “glory” is how we describe the sum total of all that God is. Rather than saying, God is grace, beauty, truth, goodness, mercy, justice, knowledge, power, wisdom, authority and everything else that He is, we instead say, God’s glory. It is again the sum total of all that he is as revealed to humanity.

2.                  Another definition, and the one I use most often, is God's glory is God’s excellence on display.

·        Each of us understand that we don’t make the sun light; it is light. 

·        We don’t make night dark, it is dark.

·        We don’t make water wet; it is wet.

·        We don’t make God glorious, He is glorious. His glory is a part of who and what He is. 

 In contrast, man’s glory is granted to him. If you take a king and take off all his robes, rings, crowns and give him nothing but rags to wear and then leave him on the streets for a few weeks, he will look pretty much like any other street person that is out there. In fact, it might be difficult to distinguish him from a common beggar. Why?  Because the king’s glory is not inbred or inborn. The only glory a king has is the glory that is granted unto him. It comes with the office, the crown, the ring, and the throne. The glory that is God’s, on the other hand, is a part of His person. You can’t de-glory God because glory is His nature. It can’t be added too; it can’t be taken away. It is a very real part of His eternal and perfect being.

 In 1715, Louis XIV of France died. Louis, who called himself “the Great,” was the monarch who made the infamous statement, “I am the State!” His court was the most magnificent in Europe, and his funeral was spectacular. His body lay in a golden coffin. To dramatize the deceased king’s greatness, orders had been given that the cathedral should be very dimly lighted, with only one special candle set above his coffin. Thousands waited in hushed silence. Then Bishop Massilon began to speak. Slowly reaching down, he snuffed out the candle, saying, “Only God is great!”

 The word glory comes from the Greek word “DOXA” from which we get our word doxology.  Do you remember the Doxology?  If so, please sing it with me:

“Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; 

Praise Him, all creatures here below;

Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

What were we just doing?  We were praising our God.  At the same time, we were declaring His glory; we were proclaiming the grand worth of His person.  We were, again, giving glory to God.

  David wrote in Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” (The word translated “proclaim” here also means to announce, to declare, or to report.) In other words, the heavens above as well as the earth beneath all act as a town crier, crying out the news that our God is an awesome God; a glorious God. The heavens and the skies are in truth a doxology.

 And yet, as great as God’s creation is, creation is not God. In Romans 1 we find the Apostle Paul scolding a group of people who were all caught up in the things which God had made. In fact, they began worshipping the creation rather than the Creator.

 Can I say something without you thinking that I am bragging?  I just want to tell you that I make a pretty good paper airplane. (Hold plane up.) Look at this. Aren’t you impressed?  Watch it fly. (Throw the plane out toward the congregation.) 

 Wouldn’t it be crazy if you started going nuts over my paper airplane while ignoring or denying me -- the one who made the thing? My airplane simply points back to me and says that one greater than the creation made the thing in the first place. So it is that God’s creation proclaims or declares that the glory of the creator is greater yet than the glory of the things which He created.

 In failing to see His glory and giving the glory back to Him, the people in Romans 1 sinned! They also proved themselves to be fools in the eyes of Almighty God!

 I would like for you to try something for me, OK? Sometime when you are totally alone, go outside and look at the sunrise, sunset, or even the night sky, and look out and up at the vast expanse that surrounds you. What you will see is His workmanship.  No, not on some limited canvas that will yellow and crack with the passing of time. Rather He has stretched out His work from horizon to horizon, from age to age. Look at it. Consider it. As you quietly appreciate all of this:

·        Consider God. 

·        His power, 

·        His Word, 

·        His love,

·        His great creative genius,

·        Yes, see His glory – See His excellence on display! 

 Isaiah 6:3 records a vision that the prophet Isaiah had when he was able to see into the courts of heaven. As he looked he saw angels “calling to one another: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.’” What is full of His glory? THE WHOLE EARTH! EVERYWHERE THE ANGELS LOOKED, THEY SAW HIS GLORY!

 Wouldn’t it be something if we trained ourselves to be as glory-conscious as were the angels? That as we looked here, there, up, down, in and out, everywhere – we could and would see His glory?

·        What would it do to our faith?

·        Our disposition?

·        Our prayer life?

·        Our overall walk with God? 

 The song  “Holy, Holy, Holy” contains these lines:

Holy, Holy, Holy.  Lord God Almighty! 

All Thy works shall praise Thy name in earth, and sky, and sea; 

Holy, Holy, Holy!  Merciful and Mighty!

God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!” 

In Psalm 63:2 we read, “I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.” Now, did David actually see God in the sanctuary? No. What did he see then?  He saw a revelation of God’s presence:

·        His holiness,

·        His majesty,

·        His mighty acts,

·        and His power. 

·        Yes, he saw God’s glory. 

HAVING LOOKED AT WHAT THE GLORY IS AND MEANS, LET US NOW LOOK AT two SPECIFIC INSTANCES OF god’s GLORY AS FOUND IN the life of Moses.

Please turn with me to Exodus 3.  At this point in time, Moses was 80 years old. He was on the back side of the desert working as a shepherd. There in the barrenness of that place, verse 2 records, “The angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush.” This is the first instance found in Scripture where we find God coming to dwell in something howbeit even temporarily, here on earth.

What did He chose to dwell in? 

·        A great temple?  No.

·        A king’s palace?  Again, no.

·        A nobleman’s home?  For the third time, NO!

God chose a bush. A common desert bush. Moses probably had walked past that bush many times a day. Nonetheless, God made that bush His dwelling place; His tabernacle. 

God has long majored in dwelling in plain and simple places.  Look at the record!

·        He dwelt in the wilderness for forty years with the Children of Israel. He lived in a tabernacle covered in badger skins then.

·        He came to be born in a lowly manger when He took on the form of human flesh as the child Jesus.

·        He yet dwells in the plain and simple today.  He lives in you and in me.  So why would we marvel that He would inhabit a desert bush?

 The Scripture continues: “Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, ‘I will go over and see this strange sight-why the bush does not burn up.’”

Up to this point Moses is merely curious as to why the bush is not consumed by the flames. He thinks that this matter is somewhat strange. He is not looking, though, for God to be in the fire.

I can imagine the old fellow just saying to himself, “Hmmm, that bush is on fire but it is not being burned up.  How odd.”  He then might have passed the occurrence off as being due to his having been in the desert too long.  Maybe the sun was getting a little much for him.

 Verse 4 then continues, “When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, 'Moses! Moses!' And Moses said, ‘Here I am.’”  Moses may well have been giving some serious consideration now to whether or not the fruit juice that he had had for breakfast had aged more than he had earlier thought.

 Do not come any closer,’ God said. ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.’” Please remember, up to this point Moses still didn’t know the source of the voice. He no doubt was thinking that he WAS going nuts.

 It was then that the Lord finally introduced Himself. “Then He said, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.’ At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.” As with David in the sanctuary, did Moses actually see God?  No. No man can look on the face of God and live. What Moses saw was a revelation of God’s glory. The bush was transformed into a temple; a holy habitation for the Most High. It became a means whereby God could reveal something of Himself to a shepherd man on the back side of nowhere!

 Notice now what the Lord revealed about Himself to Moses from out of the burning bush

1.  The first thing God disclosed was His great holiness. 

“Moses! Moses!’ God said. ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.’”

Only moments before that place was no different than any other part of the desert.

·        Why was it now holy?

·        Why did Moses have to take off his shoes?

·        What made that parcel of burnt sand any more special than any other place out there that day?

 The answer is simple. GOD WAS THERE. He had taken possession of that part of the wilderness and had made it His temporary home. God is a holy God, and the place of His dwelling is holy.   

 2.  The second thing we find out about God here is that He is a God who remembers and keeps His promises.

More than 400 years before this, the Lord had promised Abraham that He would give the land of Canaan to his descendants.  Verse 17 therefore declares, “And I have promised to bring you up out of your misery in Egypt into the land of the Canaanites... a land flowing with milk and honey.”

 The Hebrews were wondering if perchance the Lord had forgotten His covenant with Abraham. This, though, was their answer. After 400 years God still remembered and was setting the stage for their deliverance.

·        The Lord is faithful to his promises,

·        faithful to His Word, and

·        faithful to His people.

 3.  The Lord then revealed something else about Himself.  He told Moses His name. 

Notice with me Exodus 3:13-15, “Moses said to God, ‘Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’  ‘Then what shall I tell them?’ God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.  This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.’  God also said to Moses, ‘Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers-the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob-has sent me to you.’ This is my name for ever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.’”

 This name, I AM WHO I AM,  means:

·        “I am the self-existent one” or, 

·        “I am the eternal one” or, 

·        “I am the one who has no beginning and no end.”

 Then too, the word “am” is always in the present tense. God is an eternal “am” or “is”. 

·        Adam lived some 4,000 years before Christ and yet God was there.

·        The great flood of Noah’s day was approximately 2,400 years before Christ, and yet again we find God.

·        Moses lived some 1,400 years BC and as we have just seen, God was alive then too.

·        King David lived around 1,000 years BC and yet again he knew and loved the Lord.

 From back then to today there never has been a time when the “I Am” became the “I Was.”  His very name is a statement that “He is and will ever continue to be.”

 What was Moses’ response to all of this?  Again he “hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.” The shepherds of that day wore very loose fitting robes out in the fields.  It is thought that he might have pulled that robe up over his head to hide his face. Why?  Because he was afraid due to the fact that he had been a witness to the holiness, the promises, the name, in short the expressed Glory--the displayed excellence--of God Almighty!   

 MOVING ON FROM THIS EXPERIENCE, LET US NOW LOOK BRIEFLY AT WHAT HAPPENED ON MOUNT SINAI

Moses received the Ten Commandments there, right?  Right.  However, that is not all.  The Lord again revealed His glory to Moses. 

 This too is an amazing account.  Let’s begin by looking at Exodus 34:5-6. “Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. And God passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, ‘The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness....’”

On this occasion Moses was with the Lord for 40 days and 40 nights. The Lord again revealed certain things about Himself including another name. The name that the Lord revealed here was His great covenant name, Yahweh. Since the Jews refused to say Yahweh, the word “Lord” was used in it’s place.

 He then established a covenant with Moses and again gave to him the Ten Commandments.

 Look with me now at verse 29 please, “When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the LORD.”

The same thing happened to Moses that had happened to the burning bush.  The bush was transformed by the presence of God--now Moses was likewise transformed by the same presence. This is the first time in Scripture that God changes a man into a picture of His glory. HE HAD REVEALED HIMSELF TO MAN BUT HAD NOT REVEALED HIMSELF THROUGH MAN.

 Now Moses became to the children of Israel what the burning bush had been to him: the channel through which God revealed Himself. 

 Verse 30, “When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant, and they were afraid to come near him.” Notice now verses 33-35, “When Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face. But whenever he entered the LORD's presence to speak with Him, he removed the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, they saw that his face was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with the LORD.”

 Why did Moses continue to wear the veil? 

The book of Exodus does not give us the answer. To find out the why, one must go over to the writings of Paul in 2 Corinthians 3:13.  Notice, “We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away.”

 The answer is, the radiance on Moses’ face was diminishing day by day. Moses was not the final revelation of the glory of God. He was only a temporary vehicle that the Lord used through which to reveal Himself--just as the burning bush had earlier been such a temporary vehicle. The veil helped keep Israel from realizing that the glory on Moses was a fading glory. It wasn’t the true glory, but rather a reflection of that glory! Moses wasn’t the light, rather he was simply a vessel that the light chose to shine through.

 Leaving moses, let’s now look at us

In 2 Corinthians 3:18 the Apostle Paul notes, “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory….”

Wouldn’t it be something if each one of us were to have such an experience with God that we would glow everywhere we would go?

·        I can hear it now, there would be a move to rename the church, “The First Church of the Radiate Faces.”

·        Time magazine would do a feature story on us and 60 Minutes would have a film crew here in short order!

·        Ladies, I seriously doubt that you would have to wear make-up again. 

Think about it.  Sound appealing? 

 However, the truth of the matter is we do reflect His glory – His ever-increasing glory! We do have radiant faces! That is what the apostle is saying here. God is still in the glory business. His people take on a certain glory--which comes from Jesus Christ--as they draw near to Him.   

Believe me, you can oftentimes tell when someone is truly saved just by looking at them. They seem to have a glow about themselves. Do you know what I’m talking about?  Can you think of any particular instances? To be honest, I think that I could pick a number of you out in a crowd as being Christians--even if I didn’t know you. You just have that “radiantly” saved look!

 It used to be fairly common to hear someone tell a new convert to relish their new joy while it lasted, for the blessing, the thrill, that goes with being a new Christian eventually diminishes. After a person has been saved for a while, the joy fades.

 Such teaching is in error. Instead of the glory dying off, it is to grow and grow in the life of the believer. If it is diminishing then something is wrong, according to Scripture!

·        The glory that the Holy Spirit gives to those who are in Christ today exceeds both in quality and longevity that which Moses experienced.

·        Instead of our glory fading with the passage of time, instead of having to wear a veil to hide the fact that the glory is fading away, as it did with Moses, we “with unveiled faces all reflect the LORD's glory... with ever-increasing glory...”

 The Life Application Bible notes in it’s commentary: “Becoming Christ-like is a progressive experience. The more closely we relate to Him, the more we will be like Him.” The Apostle Paul, in fact, tells us to “maintain the spiritual glow!” 

God’s purpose from the Garden of Eden on has been to dwell in fellowship with man and to have sweet communion with him. 

·        He  wants us to know His nature. 

·        He wants us to know His names. 

·        He wants us to be channels through which He can reveal yet Himself in a world full of darkness. 

 Several years ago, Marilyn and I went back to her hometown, Bedford, Indiana, to participate in her high school class reunion.  It was remarkable how everyone there had aged except for my wife.   

During the course of the two days, one particular lady stood out from the rest of the crowd. Her name was Becky Wax. Marilyn remembered her well. In fact, Marilyn remembered witnessing to Becky while they were in school together, but Becky was not at all interested in the Gospel. After graduation, one could say that Becky went wild. She got into drugs and alcohol. She also became promiscuous.  In short, her life was a literal mess.

 However, the Becky that we saw at the class reunion was not at all the same person that I just described. She had become a new creature in Christ Jesus and it showed! I truly believe that everyone there knew it too! She had a joy about herself that just radiated. She was talking to everyone who would listen about her Lord and His great salvation.

 Becky was a burning bush that day. Although she was on fire for Jesus, she was not consumed.

She was also a Moses who had been with God. But the glory was not fading, rather it was an ever increasing GLORY!

In short, God was revealing Himself to any and all that day through that lovely lady!  He was showing each one there that:

·        He is a gracious God who saves any and all who will come to Him. 

·        He is merciful and mighty.

·        He is a God of great joy.

 Yes, He wants to reveal Himself though each and everyone of us. He wants the world to see the glory of God.