Keep sharing good news without ads.
Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/bruce-rodgers/glory-of-god-part-3-holiness/
Psalm 139, and yesterday we started speaking a little bit about the glory of God, and I was speaking about some of what I call the essential glories, not that there are some that are essential and some non-essential, but essential in the sense of what relates to the nature or essence of God as deity.
And I also want to get into what I would call the moral glories of God this evening as well, and hopefully we'll be able to spend some time on that. Now, Psalm 139, we'll just read a few of these verses because we find some of what I already touched on yesterday and then what we're going to look at tonight in the passage.
Verse 1, O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting and my up-rising. Thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.
For there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain unto it.
Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about me, and so on. Now, I'm not going to make too many comments on this passage, but in the first few verses, the emphasis is upon God knowing everything.
And we were looking at this a little bit yesterday from Isaiah chapter 40, of his omniscience. The one who knows all things. And today, what's happening in our realm is that information is exploding. We can't keep up to the accumulation of information.
If you've been out of school for two years, you're already 50 behind. Apparently, the total amount of knowledge known to mankind is now doubling in less than two years. That's how fast it is exploding.
The amount of information. It's at the point where even researchers can't keep up with the amount of material that is being produced in various places in the earth. And it's almost easier to go ahead and do the research yourself than to try to even locate what's already been done.
So we're at this point where we're drowning in information, and yet we're starving for knowledge. We don't know how to put it together. We don't know how to make sense of it, and to know how to live. People seem to have less knowledge as to how to live today, than they did before all the information poured over us.
Now, we're an information overload, as the expression is. But from Isaiah chapter 40, and I would love to go back to it, but I'm going to try to avoid spending too much time in review. We learned in that chapter that no one has ever taught God anything.
No one has ever made him understand. Maybe 98%, maybe 99 of what we know, we have learned from somebody else. But God has this unique glory, that he understands and possesses complete knowledge about everything, everything that exists, because he brought it forth.
And to imagine that he has that capability of designing, creating, when there is absolutely nothing beforehand. Nothing to copy from, nothing to get an idea from. He is the wonderful architect, engineer, designer.
And so this passage, Psalm 139, is a recognition that God understands me totally. And he's interested enough in me to search and know about me. And so that's what we have in the first few verses. But I want to look from verse 7 down to another aspect, and that is what we call his omnipresence.
Now, omnipresence just means that he is everywhere. Omni, all or everything, presence. His presence is in all places. He is the creator. He is greater than the creation. He is beyond the creation. And there is no part of the universe where God's presence doesn't fill.
What does that mean? Well, that means you cannot run from God. It means that you cannot escape from his presence. Now, if you love God, and you want to follow him, that's a tremendous comfort, to know that God is here.
It is a wonderful comfort in every crisis, in every trial that we could ever experience. God is here, in all his wisdom, in all his power, in all his understanding, and he is there for me. God is for us.
It's a wonderful reality. But you know, if we would like to sin, this is a tremendous challenge. God is here. Every sin that we commit, we commit in the sight of the eternal God. So it's a comfort for every trial.
It's a challenge to every sin. And the Lord says that those who sin, and that includes all of us many times, in the measure that we are sinning, we are despising him. We are taking him lightly in all his glory and his greatness.
Now, there's one other aspect of his essential glory that I want to touch on before we get into the moral glories. It's found in 1 Timothy 1 and verse 17. And this is what we refer to as his sovereignty.
It says in 1 Timothy 1 and verse 17, Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. Now this is another one of those doxologies, as I referred to yesterday.
A portion that is a worship, an acknowledgment of the greatness of God. So this expression that we look at here, the King eternal, unto the King eternal, an eternal King. Now do you know any other King that's eternal?
There have been some powerful monarchs that have left their imprint upon the earth, but they're gone. Their authority is nullified, but there is one King that is eternal. And his reign, his authority, his majesty is undiminishing, unfading.
And if he is omnipresent, and if he is omnipotent, there is no escaping from the sovereignty of God. He reigns, he rules, and he does it with absolute authority and right. Now the teaching of his sovereignty has become one of the most debated aspects of his glory.
And I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it again, but I do want to say that there has been a lot of confusion. And some who seek to uphold the wonder of the glory of God, and uphold the reality of the sovereignty of God, the fact that he rules, that he is sovereign, he is the eternal King, they come from that truth to a deduction.
And the deduction is that everything that happens must be his sovereign will. And I have read books that have debated this issue, and after reading the books, I have felt myself like a withered up spoon or something.
It's soul-withering, soul-destroying. You see, the problem with that kind of thinking is, is assuming that nothing can happen that God doesn't decide must happen. But that isn't what the Bible tells us.
The Bible tells us that there has been a rebellion against the sovereign. That the world is under judgment because of this rebellion. And that there is someone who is a rival to God who has attempted to raise the whole creation in rebellion against God.
And that there are many things that are done that are not according to his will. So what's the answer then to the dilemma, is God sovereign or isn't he? Well, yes, he is sovereign. But I would like to express it this way, that he has the right and the authority to command all of his creation.
But he has permitted rebellion against his authority, against his right of sovereignty, temporarily, in order that he might manifest the beauties of his moral glories. Which we want to look at next. There is a day coming when God is going to crush every rebellion.
Do not imagine that there is going to be any realm in God's creation where people are going to still do whatever they feel like. There is a day coming when all evil will be halted and every knee will bow and acknowledge his sovereignty, his supremacy.
That day is coming. Why hasn't it come yet? Because he is long suffering, not willing that any should perish. And so the truth of the sovereignty of God is a very important truth. But if we can just keep in mind that he has not surrendered his sovereignty, but he has subjected his sovereignty to his nature of love and goodness, that it might be more manifested.
And I want to then look at some of the passages, and I'm just going to refer to a lot of them because there are so many of them, looking at his moral glories. Let's look in Romans chapter 2 for a verse.
Now, I have divided these up in categories, maybe a little bit arbitrarily, just to be able to convey them in a sort of a classification. Moral glory in the sense of what pertains to his character. Romans chapter 2, verse 2 says, but we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things.
Now, it also says in verse 5, after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against a day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. So the first thing I want to emphasize is his righteousness.
God is just. He is always just. He is always righteous. And it might be very surprising, but when we learn in the book of Romans, as we've gone through the book of Romans, salvation is first of all an issue of righteousness.
You see, God must act righteously or he won't do it. Salvation is made available to humanity. It is made available righteously. He will not compromise his righteousness, his justice, in order to show compassion or kindness.
This is one of the great dilemmas in the whole judicial system. Judges wrestle with the issue, do I execute justice or do I show mercy? We have a very hard time knowing the balances. But with God, he doesn't just balance one off against the other.
He manifests each in perfection. So he is just. He is a righteous God. And Isaiah chapter 45 makes this great declaration, a just God and a savior. So he will not compromise his justice. And so the very first implication of that, as we have in Romans chapter 2, is this, is that God will judge sin.
God will judge all iniquity. He will execute judgment upon evil, upon transgression. He is the supreme judge and nothing will ever pass his throne into eternity undealt with. We must be absolutely sure of this.
No sin, no injustice, no evil will ever be permitted to bypass his throne into his eternal kingdom, his eternal realm. So that is something that every one of us must reckon with. There is another verse that says that justice is the habitation of his throne.
His throne is established in perfect, complete righteousness. Now, a little further down in the chapter, here it also says in verse 11, there is no respect of persons with God. That means there is no partiality.
There is no favoritism with God. He judges righteously. In all cases. So his justice, his fairness, his honesty, his impartiality are vital parts, aspects of his personal character. Now, where does that leave us?
Well, that would leave us doomed with the destiny of meeting God, if that is all that we could say about God's personal character. But the next thing that I want to emphasize is his goodness in the sense of his love and his kindness, his compassion, his mercy, his grace.
These are all very important Bible terms. Let's look at Ephesians chapter 1. And here we learn that there are people who were once under this wrath of God, who now are praising. And here's what it says in verse 6.
Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 6. To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has made us accepted in the beloved, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace.
And of course there's so many other verses that we could be reading. We could spend the rest of the night reading about his great love. That he so loved the world and so on. And so this is a wonderful manifestation, a wonderful display of the beauty of our God.
That he is a God of grace, a God of mercy and compassion. And it is his delight, it is what he longs to express, is this grace. And so here we see that it's possible to escape from the logical conclusion of his justice.
That we would be under judgment for our sin forever. Now how does he accomplish this? Well he does it righteously. And the book of Romans has taken up with establishing that truth. But here the expression is that he has, in this beloved one that we have found favor and grace, is in whom we have redemption through his blood.
In other words, the divine compassion moving towards me cost him his son. That's what it cost. So it's a very costly exercise and manifestation of his goodness toward us. Now the third one that I wanted to mention is his purity.
His holiness. And included in that are words like sincerity, integrity, impeccability. These are all terms that are used to describe the reality that God is holy. He is pure. There is nothing impure or corrupt in him.
Now I don't know if you have much appreciation for that. If you have become one of his, if you have been saved, you will have an appreciation for that holiness of God. It has been something that I have progressively recognized as a Christian.
How essential this is. Holiness is what holds life together. Holiness keeps life pure, uncorrupted. And God is working towards something for eternity. You know, if God was just interested in keeping everybody happy for the moment, he wouldn't really care about holiness.
He would just say, go and have fun. Whatever is fun to you, just do it. Now that's the philosophy of our day. A total disregard for the issue of holiness, purity. But it's a tragic, false idea. Because holiness is essential to a life that endures.
A quality of life that endures. And in the beautiful Psalm 110 that speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ as the one who is going to reign forever, it speaks of him as in the beauties of holiness and having the due of youth.
And I have learned this, and I hope I am preserved by it, that there is a beauty in holiness. And it becomes more beautiful the longer we live. Whereas if you disregard holiness, your life will become anything but beautiful.
It will become increasingly morally ugly. You know, there's a lot of things, I think we know that about human life. There's a lot of things that we think are cool for a teenager, but they're positively disgusting for a grandfather.
Why do we know that instinctively? We know that is not the true direction of life. But God is absolutely pure, holy, incorruptible in his nature and being. Another thing that we need to understand about that is that that holiness is not passive.
It is a holiness that repels sin. It repels wickedness. And that is one reason why sin can never, never be tolerated in the presence of God. It never will be. And the Bible says that our God is a consuming fire.
And that consuming fire is the fire of his holiness that must consume and destroy what is evil in his eyes. And so that's a very important aspect. But you know, it really means that he's absolutely genuine, absolutely sincere in everything that he does, in everything that he commits himself to, in everything that he says.
And that leads to the next aspect of his faithfulness. And again, there are many, many scriptures which tell us about the greatness of his faithfulness. Lamentations chapter 3, in the midst of the devastating judgments that God brings upon the nation of Israel because of their wickedness.
The carrying away into captivity. Lamentations 3 and 23. Jeremiah, in his lament over the city and over the nation, he says, great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. So he is faithful, he's reliable, he's dependable.
1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 13, in the issue of temptation and sin, it says, God is faithful. He will not permit you to be tempted above what you are able, but will, with the temptation, provide a way to escape.
God is faithful. It also tells us that he is faithful to his calling. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verses 8 to 10 speaks of the reality that he has called us to the fellowship of his Son. And so he's working in our lives as Christians to fit us for companionship, fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
God is faithful. And he will fulfill what is required to fit us for companionship with his Son. So he's faithful to his promises. Faithful to his covenant. And incidentally, that's another reason why he absolutely abhors unfaithfulness.
Why does marriage matter? Why is marriage not just one alternative to any kind of living arrangement that you may choose to live in? It's because God is a God of faithfulness. And he designed marriage to express that commitment and faithfulness of two people together for life, because he's faithful.
And Malachi chapter 2 warns that if we are unfaithful to that commitment, to that relationship, he won't pay any attention to us when we cry to him. What a solemn thing to think about. That he looks at our faithfulness and it matters to him.
And so as we look at these qualities of his character, it brings out to us what kind of God, what kind of being it is that we have to do with. Now, let's go to 2 Peter chapter 3 for an interesting verse.
2 Peter chapter 3. Now this is in reference to the coming of the Lord Jesus. A coming that's going to involve judgment for the world. The setting right of everything. But it says in verse 8, after talking about those who scoff and mock and say, well, where is this promise of his coming?
Verse 8 says, But beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack or slow concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering to us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
But then the next verse says, But the day of the Lord will come, and that will be a day of wrath and judgment. So what is this revealing? His patience. His longsuffering. His forbearance. God has been patient.
He's been patient with me. You see, if God were to deal with us quickly, hastily, in wrath, in judgment, when we were disobedient, when we despised him or ignored him, where would we be today? And this has multiplied over the world.
And people do question, and they say, well, why doesn't God judge? If there's a God, how can he allow things to go on as they are? That is a challenge to understand. We get upset when we see injustice, when we see wickedness.
And our minds cry out for justice, for judgment. But as he says, one day is with the Lord like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. His way of measuring is not bound by time as ours is.
But what is it that makes the delay? It's because he is compassionate. And in that compassion, he is longsuffering, putting up with what he hates. And this gets back to what I mentioned earlier about his sovereignty.
Yes, he will bring judgment upon evil. But he is withholding that expression of judgment. Why? Because he is looking for a way to show mercy. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
And it has impressed me quite a bit to think of the eternal deity, eternal omnipotence, waiting patiently for a human being to repent. That's our God. So these qualities that I have referred to, that I call his moral glories, this is what fills out and completes the glory of God.
So that as we think of God and the display of his excellence, of his beauty, we can appreciate him. We can honor him more than just simply the reality that he is the eternal God and that he is omnipotent and that he ought to be feared and obeyed because of that glory.
But we can approach him as the compassionate God, as the one who is holy, the one who is caring, the one who is faithful, and so on. Now I want to try in the time that is left to touch on another aspect of the subject.
And that is, well, it's a little difficult because there's only 15 minutes left, as to which I should aim at first. Maybe I should look at our response to him first of all. I touched on this somewhat last night in the gospel meeting.
I was trying to cheat a little bit and get a little more in in the time that I had. Remember what I told you last night, that God has something against us? Two basic charges. The first one is that we have not glorified him.
When they knew God, Romans chapter 1 says, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God. I would suggest that that relates especially to the essential glories of his deity, of his eternal power, as the passage tells us.
And the God who is the eternal sovereign was disregarded and turned away from. But then in Romans chapter 3, we also learn that we're a dishonor to him. We are a disgrace to him. And this really brings out the two aspects of what it means to glorify God.
Now, there are many verses that I could read with you that emphasize that our primary obligation or responsibility before God is that we would glorify him. Now, what does it mean to glorify him? Well, we can glorify him in the first aspect is our response to him.
As we learn about his wisdom, as we learn about his eternal deity, his power, his omnipresence, what does that lead us to do? Well, if it leads us to reverence him, to worship him, that is a proper response to him.
Now, let me give you a few verses. One is in Psalm 50, verse 23, and it says, Whoso offers praise glorifies me. Whoso offers praise glorifies me. So it is suited, it is appropriate for us to offer praise because he is the only one that is truly praiseworthy.
Now, let's read a couple of other verses. And unfortunately, this is said to Christians. In 1 Corinthians chapter 4, there are things that Christians shouldn't have to be told. And yet when you come into the epistle to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians, over and over again, Paul says, don't you know?
Don't you know? Know you not? He's really bringing up things that they should have instinctively understood as having come into contact with God and his salvation. So here is one of the things that was wrong in Corinth.
Among the many things that were wrong, they were puffed up. They were glorying in something of themselves. And so he says in 1 Corinthians chapter 4, he says in verse 6,. And these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes, that you might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another.
For who maketh thee to differ from another? And what hast thou that thou did not receive? Now, if thou did receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou had not received it? Now, what is he getting at here?
Well, it would help if you had read the first four chapters and you would know the context. But instead of being caught up with the Lord, instead of being absorbed with God and his greatness, they were all caught up with themselves and with one another.
And that's easy to do, isn't it? It's easy to lose sight of God and to become taken up with one another or with ourselves. But here's what he says. He says, Now, who makes you to differ, to be different?
Now, we wouldn't have said it that way, would we? We would have said, Well, what makes you different? You know, what distinguishes you from another person? And you might be able to rhyme off a few different character traits or abilities that, you know, if you've ever had to do a resume for a job application, you have to try to look on the bright side of a lot of things.
And present yourself in the best possible light. You have to sell yourself. That's what you're supposed to try to do. That's not the question here. The question is, who made you different? Who makes you unique?
And that links us back, not just to our differences, our uniqueness, but to the one who created us and designed us and intended us to be different. And so he says then, What do you have that you didn't receive?
Well, what do you have that you didn't receive? Well, you know, there's a tremendous difference in what people do with what they've been given. Some people do really well, do marvelously, develop very well.
And others let what they have been given fade away to be almost nothing. That's not God's fault. That's what we have done with what he has given us. He has given each one of us a set of circumstances in which we were born, the families we grew up in.
We all have a unique set of life circumstances that have had an effect upon us. Each of us has his or her own set of opportunities and abilities and so on. Because God has a purpose that we can be made use of to glorify him in some way.
So he says, Now, what do you have that you didn't receive? And if you did receive it, why do you glory as if you hadn't received it? See, the problem is this, and I mentioned this very briefly last night, pride distorts reality.
By taking something that God has blessed me with and makes it a reason for me to feel superior to someone else. If God has gifted me in some way, and he has gifted every one of us in many ways, it is not for my glory.
It is not for my exaltation. It is that something of God might be reflected and be a blessing to other people. And you see, we have to recognize that we are what we are as a stewardship from God. We're not here just to kill time.
We're not here just to survive, nor just to have fun. We are here to represent God. So there is what God is in himself that we must react to. We must respond to him. Either worship, service, obedience.
That is one primary way of glorifying him. But the secondary aspect that I'm drawing attention to now is this. This goes right back to creation. Genesis chapter 1, the thought of being created in the image and likeness of God.
God will never deal with you as just one of the animals. If you were to believe the evolutionists, we just happen to be, I don't even know if we should say, one of the smartest of the animals. We do strange things with the intelligence God has given us.
But we're not just one of the animals. We have been placed in administration over the creation that God has made in order that we might represent the invisible God to the creation. So all of that is of God.
The fact that he has wisdom, that he has knowledge, that he has understanding, that he has power. All of those things in some measure are conferred upon us. And then all of the moral glories of God, of a sense of justice, of a recognition of a difference between right and wrong, of good and bad.
That's built into us. We cannot escape from that. The ability to love and to care. Those are all abilities that are granted to us as a stewardship, as a responsibility, and through which we will glorify God.
God is invisible, but we are his visible representatives in the earth. That's what it means to be created in the image and in the likeness of God. Now there's a verse in 1 Corinthians chapter 11. And you know there's so many truths in the Bible that are connected together by these threads of truth.
And this in 1 Corinthians 11 relates to what we call headship. And there's a lot of people that come into assembly gatherings and they wonder what do all those women have something on their head for? And why don't the men have something on their head?
Like what difference does it make? Well it is this principle, this truth, that the man directly, as created by God, Adam, was given headship over. He was put in authority over the creation. And it tells us in 1 Corinthians 11 that he ought not to cover his head in the presence of God because he is the image and the glory of God.
So the man carries this double responsibility as part of humanity. The man carries this primarily of being the visible representation of the authority of God. And we can't escape from that responsibility.
And that's why our failure to rule ourselves is a double failure. We are given that responsibility. And now there are many other verses that we could link together but this is the stewardship given to us from the eternal God and by which we honor him.
By worshiping him for what he is in himself but then by properly living out that same kind of life and character that is found in him. Those are the two fundamental ways in which we were intended to glorify God.
What has happened? Oh we failed. We have failed our stewardship. We have fallen and we ourselves have needed to be rescued. So I'm going to leave until tomorrow night what I was hoping to try to get into tonight but it's too important just to cram into the last few minutes.
And that is how the Lord Jesus is the image and glory of God and how he has glorified God on the earth. Let's close in prayer. Shall we pray? Our gracious God and our Father, we thank you that while thou art so awesome, so great and we would feel so insignificant and yet thou hast made us to be the visible expression of thy glory.
And we thank thee for everything that there is in humanity that does reflect the beauty that is of God. We thank thee for every person who shows kindness, who shows sympathy and who seeks to understand the need of those around.
Who has a desire to care for people and who willingly sacrifices time and energy in order to help others. And we thank thee for every person who restrains the evil within their own heart and judges it and seeks to live righteously and seeks to honor promises and seeks to be faithful to commitments.
Our Father, we know that there are many things that are beautiful about many people. But we have been made conscious of the fact that we all have sinned before thee and we cannot erase that sin and its effect upon our own hearts.
But we bless thee for the Redeemer who has come from thy presence, who not only in himself has perfectly honored thee and perfectly represented thee, but he has himself become our Savior. And so we bow to thee and thank thee that thou art now known as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And so we bless thee, we thank thee for the glimpses that we have been looking at this evening. Some of it is so familiar to us that we have forgotten how beautiful it is. But we pray that thou would refresh our minds and make our hearts alive again to the wonder of thy grace.
We thank thee for salvation and look to thee to bless thy word tonight in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.