Soli Deo Gloria (Part 1)

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ. Based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

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Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour ,� so that the truth of the

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Gospel would remain with you. In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

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King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, ministry.

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My name is Mike Abendroth, and we are here on another show for NoCo, live, real -time,

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September 23rd.

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It�s a Saturday, and we are in the studio, we the Royal We, talking about the solas again.

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I have been preaching through the solas at Bethlehem Bible Church, bbcchurch .org,

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2b2c, and you can get the sermon series there if you like, but I�ve been talking about it in a

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NoCo radio -style format lately on these shows.

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I think the old -school NoCo was whatever we talked about, kind of each show is different, and if I talked about a particular subject on Wednesday and had part two, it would be the following week, and that might still be the case eventually, but I am not that many shows ahead.

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In other words, I sometimes have 20 shows already recorded, and they just drop as time goes on.

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I�m about a week ahead of time, so that�s all I�ve got for you. I will be in New Zealand the end of October 2017 for a solas conference, and that�s why some of these things

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I�m rehashing in my mind and preaching here, and then I�ll preach in a different style down there.

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Down there it�s the Gospel of John, seeing the five solas in the Gospel of John, and that�s that.

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Israel 2018, the last two weeks of February are essentially the last ten days, and we are going to be going with Omaha Bible Church.

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Last time we both flew into Newark, I know, I know. Then Tel Avivan together, and that is that.

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What else are we doing here that we can invite you to? Oh, there�s a couple other speaking engagements next year, but that�s later, and we will announce those then.

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At NoCoRadio is the Twitter feed, there�s a Facebook, and you can also go to iTunes, and however you want to promote it.

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You know, I never thought about it before, but if you want to go to iTunes and give a review, then the monetary stream increases.

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That�s not really the case. I could talk to you today about Covenant Seminary�s invitation to some

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Catholics to talk, I could talk about that. I could talk about Christianity Today�s article with Kosti Hinn.

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I could talk to you today about a paper that I found that I wrote in 1991, �How

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Can God Be Sovereign and Man Still Responsible for Evangelizing ?� I could talk to you about preaching,

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I�ve been talking about preaching a lot lately to some students, or I could talk to you about local church, but I want to talk to you today about Sola Deo, Soli Deo Gloria.

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The five Solas is what I wanted to say, and I did not. You can always write us, info at nocompromiseradio .com.

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Heliocentrism or geocentrism, remember that when you were studying in school?

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Heliocentric or geocentric? Now if you just break down those words, it�s pretty easy to figure out that heliocentrism, when it comes to astronomical models, is that the earth and the planets revolve around the helio, the sun, the sun is the center of the solar system.

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Others would believe geocentrism, geo, that the world, earth is the center of the solar system, and that we�ve got the debates between heliocentric and geocentric.

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Earth revolving around the sun, that was talked about back in the third century

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B .C. by Aristarchus of Samos, but it really didn�t take shape, it didn�t get its fleshing out until about the 16th century.

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You have, as we would say if we were from Nebraska, Copernicus, Nicolaus Copernicus, and he was an astronomer, not an astrologist.

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He was a Roman Catholic, not a Protestant. He was a math whiz, and he begins to think about heliocentrism.

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Then Kepler, he takes it to the next step and elaborates on it, and then you�ve got

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Galileo who gets the telescope, Galileo Galilei, and he�s got the telescope and starts observing some of these very things.

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And you�ve got the question, heliocentric, does the universe revolve around the sun? Just our solar system, but what about having our solar system revolve around the earth?

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Both systems knew that the center of the universe was not the sun nor the earth.

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And here�s my intro. I can tell it�s really bumpy. I�m not using this one.

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Ouch. You are the practice. I�m committed that the number one area of ministry in my life is the local church, and NoCo gets the leftovers.

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So, sue me. Left to myself,

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I am mycocentric, self -ocentric. Everything not just in the solar system, but in the universe revolves around me.

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That unholy trinity, as one person called it, me, myself, and I. To our shame, to my shame, to your shame, it�s our default.

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It�s so easy. I don�t think I�ll use this from the pulpit, but I wrote, it�s easy like Sunday morning.

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If you grew up in the 70s, then you�ll get it. Our demographic is still 50 and older.

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I wonder why. How do we get those millennials to listen to No Compromise Radio? There are a few rogue listeners at the

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Master�s University and the Master�s Seminary, and maybe Wien College, but that�s about all we got.

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When you think about biblical truths, theocentric is what we�re after, not anthropocentric.

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The revolution, the spiritual version of the Copernican revolution must be that everything revolves around God and his glory, soli deo gloria, to God alone be the glory.

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We say that, and we think that�s very famous composer, ends every composition writing those three letters, to God alone be the glory, whether you eat or you drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God, 1

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Corinthians 10 .31. Those words are easy to fall off our lips, out of our mouths, but it�s so weird.

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When you think about worship, giving praise to God, he is worth our adoration and reverence and awe and respect and fear.

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And what do we do when it comes to worship? Worship soli deo gloria should be revolving around God and his glory, and yet we make our worship services on Sunday so often, don�t we?

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We make them revolving around us. Instead of worship is for the audience, it should be by the audience.

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It should be for God, by a congregation.

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Even with the word audience and stage, we betray our thinking of soli deo gloria.

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You get theater seating, you get programs, you have a stage, and you entertain the congregation.

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To use Spurgeon�s terms, you entertain the goats instead of feeding the sheep of God.

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Well, I think the service should go this way. This is what I want. And you call a local church and ask them about worship, and does it suit you?

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It�s crazy. We say soli deo gloria, but we�re betraying that in our worship and lots of other areas.

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We have been given prescriptions on worship so that we don�t drift off into Aaron�s son�s philosophy,

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Nadab and Abihu. How did that work out? Well, it didn�t work out very well. God must be the center of the universe when it comes to our thinking.

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He�s the hub. Everything revolves around him, and if you want heliocentric revolving around the sun, it better be the

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S -O -N, because anything less is

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S -I -N, sin. Now when you think of sola, it means alone, and just the way the

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Latin is with soli deo gloria, it�s just set up properly with grammar, but to God alone be the glory.

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These five solas were never penned by the reformers.

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We have seen these develop out of the Reformation, and they were present in the

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Reformation, but they weren�t articulated as five solas until the 20th century.

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What was back there in the Reformation very clearly was sola gratia, grace alone, sola fide, by faith alone, and by Christ alone, solo

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Christo or solus Christus, through Christ alone. Melanchthon said in 1554, sola gratia, and then

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I�m going to not read the rest of the Latin, only by grace do we justify and only by faith are we justified.

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Those are the three, sola gratia, which is grace over merit, sola fide, it�s faith over works, and then of course it was through Christ, but it�s really, you would see it fleshed out as scripture over tradition.

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So we have the foundation, sola scriptura, the pillar, sola fide, grace alone, which is sola gratia, and then

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Christ alone, solo Christo, and then the umbrella is soli deo gloria.

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Some call this the glue that holds the other five solas in place. I think it�s more like an umbrella, overarching principle, every one of the other solas is leading to this, and because of the other solas, this is true, but it�s also called the center that draws the other solas into a grand unified whole, okay, not bad.

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It�s called the motto that subsumes all others, okay, and it�s also, this one might be the best, the logical implication of the other four points.

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Soli deo gloria. Salvation is all of God accomplished through only

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Jesus Christ, and since He�s the one that has done it all, He should get the glory, the praise, the honor, and the worship.

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Salvation belongs to the Lord. If it�s only the Bible, sola scriptura, it�s the only source of authority, in that book, in this book, the

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Bible, God preserves it, God has kept it over the centuries, and it is far superior to any traditions or magisterium because it is pure and clean.

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When you think of Jesus, how He accomplishes salvation, here is the eternal

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Son, the eternal second person of the Trinity, and He cloaks Himself in humanity, it�s called the incarnation, so He can be not only our representative but substitute, and He does what the

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Father sends Him to do, and He accomplishes salvation, redemption is accomplished.

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Therefore if He�s the only one that can do that, then He, Jesus, should receive all the glory,

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He alone, solus Christus. When it comes to grace, how do you stand before God?

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Well, it�s because of His love and His mercy and His grace, and He graciously gives us

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Christ�s righteousness by imputation, and Jesus takes our sin and bears them on His body or in His body on the tree by imputation, and it is by grace alone.

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And then we say, �To God be the glory.� And it is received by no other instrument than faith, faith alone.

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Not faith plus anything else, not faith plus evangelical obedience, not faith plus anything except, as some call it, the empty hand of faith.

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It is a non -meritorious reception. And since we didn�t come up with our own faith, even faith is a gift to God alone.

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Be the glory. Salvation is all of God, therefore, since it�s exclusively of God and accomplished by God, then

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He gets not just 50 % of the praise, not just 99 % of the praise, not just 99 .99

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% of the glory due His name, but all of it. He doesn�t share His glory.

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You don�t divide up His glory. Now, of course, Rome, Roman Catholics, they are going to say, of course, �To

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God alone, be the glory.� But deep down, you are going to see cracks in that saying and that slogan, and you will see supplements and augmentations and additions to the very things, and that�s why they would not subscribe to the five solas.

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They might subscribe to the last sola, soli deo gloria, but by their doctrine, they would deny it.

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No pope gets glory, no saint gets glory, no canonized person gets glory, only

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God. To God alone, be the glory. And what happened in the Reformation that was a practical outflow or overflow of this idea was that everything was sacred in life.

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That is to say, you didn�t have a secular job and a sacred time on Sundays.

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You could have a sacred time when you went to work. There was no secular, sacred bifurcation.

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All of life is under the lordship of Jesus, therefore it can be sanctified as you give glory to God, whether you eat or drink or work or anything else you do.

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God is sovereign over everything, and you can live to His glory. Now, the priority is with God and not with man.

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God does not exist because of man, but man because of God. This is what is written at the entrance of the temple of Reformed theology,

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Gerhardus Vos. Everything starts with God and His glory. Now, here on No Compromise Radio, you have probably heard us talk about glory before, and there are two categories of God�s glory.

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So we�ll just take a break here for a second as you take a deep pause when we�re thinking about the five solas of the

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Reformation. If you�d like to order Evangelical White Lies, you can through Amazon.

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If you�d like to order Sexual Fidelity or things that go bump in the church, and you want to order 10 copies or more, we can offer you quite a good deal on those, around 50 % off type of thing.

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And so if you�d like to order those, and if you want to order 100 or more, we can even help you out more in that regard.

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Sexual Fidelity, that�s a shorter book, and then Things That Go Bump in the

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Church. So both of those, translation, there�s stacks of them here, there are boxes and boxes.

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But we will help you. I think both of those books can help. Things That Go Bump in the Church would be good for a class, new member�s class or new believer�s class, and Sexual Fidelity I think really could help anyone when they�re thinking about this topic of sexual fidelity.

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I don�t know why I put a black cover on there, but that�s what it is. There are other covers, but we�re just sticking with basic black.

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God�s Glory. There are two categories of God�s Glory. Number one, Intrinsic Glory.

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Number two, Extrinsic Glory. Intrinsic Glory basically states that God, by His essence, by His nature, ontologically,

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He is glorious. That is Intrinsic Glory. He is full of glory.

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He is glory, the Lord of glory. Then there�s Extrinsic Glory. We normally talk about this one the most.

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Giving God glory. To God be the glory. Great things He has done. That�s Extrinsic Glory.

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Recognizing God�s Intrinsic Glory. Recognizing that God is glorious for who

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He is, is the Extrinsic Glory of God. We say nothing about adding glory when it comes to Extrinsic Glory because He is intrinsically glorious.

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He, when it comes to Intrinsic Glory by His nature, you can think of concepts of splendor and brilliance.

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Some think all of God�s attributes are tied together with this Intrinsic Glory of God.

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Mueller said God�s Glory is to be understood essentially as one of the divine attributes but moreover as an attribute that eminently reflects and reveals perfections of all

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His attributes. God is so glorious,

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He is called God of Glory. He is called King of Glory in Scripture. Glorious Father.

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He is to be exalted because of His glory and He has beauty and renown, some scholars would say.

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Steve Lawson said, �Intrinsic Glory, which is the sum total of the greatness of His divine being.

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It is all that God is, the whole of all of His attributes. He is all glorious.�

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Now the concepts for glory, Intrinsic Glory found in the Bible, number one, the Old Testament, kavod.

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It means glory. It means heavy. You had so much money, if you were rich, that was heavy.

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You would weigh it and it would be heavy and then it lent itself to that person has a lot of weight because he has clout.

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He has influence on other people and God has weight, our glory. Even in the 60s when it comes to Haight -Ashbury in the early 70s, heavy man, that�s heavy.

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It was a heavy thought. It was 10 years ago when we would throw around the term gravitas.

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There was a gravity to someone�s name. That is Intrinsic Glory. That�s the

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Old Testament word kavod and this is essential to the

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Godhead. Could God be God without being glorious? It is essential part of His being and it is infinite.

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I like what Thomas Watson says, �God will give temporal blessings to His children, such as wisdom, riches, honor.

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He will give them spiritual blessings. He will give them grace. He will give them His love. He will give them heaven, but His essential glory

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He will not give to another. To God alone be the glory.�

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You have to beware when you�re thinking of this concept soli deo gloria.

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If you reduce it down and distill it down in the centrifuge of thought to moral responses only, �Whatever

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I do, I�ve got to give glory to God ,� then it turns back to us again.

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Isn�t it quite a concept that we can talk about the glory of God and then it�s what we have to do?

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If you�d like, you could probably think of categories that might help you. Law gospel.

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You don�t want to turn the gospel that God is glorious into �Give

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God glory.� They�re not the same. When you think, �Whatever

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I eat or drink, whatever, do all to God�s glory ,� that is true. You should do that. But first consider, as you want to give

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God glory, the ramifications of the glory of God and God�s nature and how

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God�s glory is talking about Himself and Himself alone. Then as you notice it, as you reflect upon it, then you say, �Wow,

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He is excellent. I should esteem Him. What is the chief end of man? Man�s chief end is to glorify

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God and to enjoy Him forever.� That is true. So we move from the intrinsic to the extrinsic, but I submit to you that most of the time when you talk of �Sole

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Deo Gloria ,� we are talking about the passages that are certainly in the

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Bible but are �Give unto the Lord the glory due His name.� Glorify God in your body and in your spirit, 1

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Chronicles 16 and then 1 Corinthians 6. Those are true.

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But remember, God is by nature glorious, and when you do glorify Him, you don�t add anything to His character. You don�t make

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Him more glorious. You don�t make Him more wonderful. God already is majestic.

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When you ascribe to Him glory and strength and honor due His name, you are recognizing that in fact

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He is intrinsically glorious, �Sole Deo Gloria ,� and you�ve got in the

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Old Testament this idea of the Shekinah glory, don�t you? Yes, you do.

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The Shekinah glory of God, this great, brilliant, holy glory, and next time we�re going to look to the

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New Testament where it says in a fascinating display of glory, �The

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Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only

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Son who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.� And when you see the greatness of God, the glory of God, and then you see this little baby, how do these go together?

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So that�ll be next time on No Compromise Radio. How�s that for a teaser? Info at NoCompromiseRadio .com.

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Over the time, if you�d like to go to the website and use those resources there, the guys have done a great job.

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The search engines are great. You can pull up whatever you want. We�ve got seventeen, eighteen hundred shows, something like that.

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Probably eighty percent of them are original, some are reruns, but we�ll talk to you very soon. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org

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or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.