The Attributes Of God - 'B' for beautiful

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All right, tonight, back in our Attribute Series, Attribute A was all -knowing, and now B, beautiful.
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How many people have ever heard a sermon that God is beautiful, the beauty of God? Not many.
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One did. Lewis, tell me about that message. I mean, not the whole thing, but succinctly and concisely, just in general.
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Here's the thing. This morning I saw Lewis, and Dave Jeffries is on vacation, and I'm in here doing discipleship from 8 .30
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to 10 with several of the men. They're doing a great job, by the way. And so I said to Lewis, are you doing Sunday school?
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He said, no. And he said, well, maybe. I think Pradeep is, and I knew Pradeep wasn't, because Pradeep is next week. And so Lewis did happen to say this morning,
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I do have notes in my Bible, and if I have to teach Sunday school, I'm ready. So I'm glad for that.
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So all that to say, sorry for asking you a question and then talking. I'll pause.
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Well, the thing about it tonight, as I've studied it, there aren't a whole lot of passages or books written about the beauty of God.
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It's not something you can say, well, there are 900 books on the beauty of God. I'll pick the best three. There are no books on the beauty of God.
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If you look at A .W. Pink's Attributes of God book, you won't find beauty. If you go to Tozer's book,
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The Knowledge of the Holy, you won't find beauty. If you go to MacArthur's book on the Attributes of God, you won't find beauty.
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And the list goes on and on and on. Not many people talk about the beauty of God. And frankly,
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I probably wouldn't be talking about the beauty of God, but I need to be, and that's the best one. The beauty of God.
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Plus, I thought it would be refreshing, again, for me to see, and then you, the congregation, to see something wonderful about God.
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The beauty in God. That God is beautiful, and because of God and His beauty, there is beauty in the world.
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Rare topic, but very, very important. Now, let me ask you a definition of beautiful or beauty.
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Anyone give me a definition of what does beautiful mean? What does beauty mean? How would you describe it? Okay, pleasing to look at.
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Excellent. Yes, Scott?
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My wife. My wife? Well, somebody learned something from the
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Danny Akin conference. Good. Good.
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Anyone else? It's kind of a difficult concept. I looked up the English dictionary, the
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American Heritage Dictionary of the English language, fourth edition, 2000. Having qualities that delight the senses.
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Having qualities that delight the senses. Now, you can see how that applies to God in a very direct way.
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I also thought it would be good if we would ask ourselves the question, what are some of the synonyms of beauty as we try to figure out what beauty is and then talk about beauty in the scripture?
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What are some synonyms, some names that are the same for beauty that you might think about?
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Lovely. Good. You just say them out loud. Fair. Good.
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Pretty. Okay. Good. Attractive. Yes. Anyone else?
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Yes. Gorgeous. Good. Do you think your mom's gorgeous?
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I won't put you on the spot. All right. I came up with quite a few as I was researching.
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Attractive. Lovely. Splendorous. Magnificent. Aesthetic. For those of you on the other side of the ocean.
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Bonny. Comely. Exquisite. Fair. Glorious.
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Good -looking. Gorgeous. Graceful. Handsome. Picturesque.
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Pleasant. Pleasing. Pretty. Here's one I have a hard time to pronounce.
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I'll just spell it and then try to pronounce it. P -U -L -C -H -R -I -T -U -D -I -N -O -U -S.
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That's what I said. Ravishing. Resplendent. Sightly.
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Splendid. Splendiferous. That's a neat one. Stunning. Well -favored.
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And one that's not used very often in our idea, but it's found all over in the
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Bible, and that is the word glory. Many times glory is referred to the beauty of God, not just the bright, shining radiance of God.
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Why don't you turn your Bibles to Isaiah, and I just want to give you a little preview so you'll see that the word beautiful is used of God.
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And we're going to look at just three passages. There are many in Isaiah, but let's just look at quickly three of them
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I'm trying to establish that the Bible talks about God as beautiful. If I were to ask you the antonyms of beautiful, they would be unattractive, ugly, distasteful, and repulsive.
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And we know God is everything but that. There is an appeal to God. And as you look up Isaiah chapter 4, 28 and 33, just a quick preview, a sampling, if you will, that the
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Bible speaks about God and His beauty. Isaiah chapter 4, verse 2,
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In that day the branch of the Lord will be, what? Beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth will be the pride and the adornment of the survivors of Israel.
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Not getting into the meaning of the text, but just to show in that day the branch of the Lord will be beautiful.
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Isaiah chapter 28, please, verse 5. As we look to the subject of the beauty of God, and then we'll be more specific in our verses,
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Isaiah 28, 5, In that day the Lord of hosts will become a beautiful crown and a glorious diadem to the remnant of His people.
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His people, the remnant of the people, will see God beautifully. And then
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Isaiah 33, 17, again, just a cursory sampling of some of the words found in Isaiah for the word beauty,
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Isaiah 33, 17, Your eyes will see the King in His beauty.
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They will behold a far distant land. Probably the best definition I found comes from an interesting source, a man who excels when it comes to the resurrection, excels when it comes to the inerrancy of the
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Bible, but maybe isn't so great when it comes to the doctrine of salvation, but he here has a wonderful background when he talks about the beauty of God, and I give him kudos because not many others do.
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And Norm Geisler in the Systematic Theology describes beauty this way, I'll say it two times for emphasis.
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Beauty is the essential attribute or goodness that produces in the beholder a sense of overwhelming pleasure and delight.
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The essential attribute of goodness that produces in the beholder a sense of overwhelming pleasure and delight.
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When you see God in His beauty, you have a sense of pleasure, and you're delighted with what you see.
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And isn't that what happens when you study the attributes of God? When you study Christ Jesus, when you read the
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Gospels, and you see Him with eyes of faith, and you say, that is pleasing to me, that is delightful to me.
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And by the way, we can notice that. We were playing with the dog a lot today, and there's just some things about our dog that almost are human -like, but I know that she is just a brute beast.
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She takes on kind of anthropomorphic ways, and the way she looks, and the way she does things, and the way she tries to pout and run, but I just know she is a dog,
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D -O -G, dog. Dogs can't recognize beauty. Al Mohler said there is something intrinsic to humanity that is drawn to beauty.
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There is something of an aesthetic desire in us. Even infants are attracted to certain objects, and even faces because of the complexity, and color, and light.
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Those elements which aesthetic theorists have considered the very substance of beauty, form, and attractiveness.
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Moreover, this desire for and recognition of beauty is something unique to human beings.
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Dogs do not contemplate a sunset. Animals do not ponder the beauty of a landscape.
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It is true that heavens are declaring the glory of God, but most of the creatures on the planet are oblivious to this fact.
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They neither make, nor observe, nor appreciate art. They stage no dramas, write no music, and paint no portraits.
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The desire for art is something unique, and nearly universal among human beings."
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Isn't that true? God is beautiful. He has made us in His likeness and image, and we appreciate beauty.
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And we see Him as the ultimate beauty, the infinite beauty. Now, there's all kinds of words in the
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Bible used for beauty, and I won't go through all of those, but I think it is best to say to yourself, as we are defining beauty today, that beauty is that which perceives, that is what gives pleasure or delight.
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And I'm going to give you seven examples, if I have enough time tonight, seven examples of God's beauty that should give you overwhelming pleasure and delight, that you would find beautiful in God.
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Seven examples of God's beauty, either directly or indirectly, that would give you pleasure and delight.
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After all, Petrarch was wrong. He said, Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.
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There are seven things that I have found that give me a delight in God, a pleasure of God.
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Now, before I give you my seven, can you think of any, either that are from the Bible or from just your own mind, something about God's beauty that you take delight in, that you feel pleasure from when you think of God?
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His creation? Okay, good. That's one of my seven. Yes? His throne?
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Good. That should have been one of my seven, but I only have seven ideal and perfect numbers from the pulpit.
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That's it. I'm just kidding. But the Bible does speak of His throne being beautiful, and we'll talk about sovereignty in a little bit.
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Yes? Okay, I'm going to put
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His salvation is beautiful. The way He has devised salvation, very good. Yes?
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His Word is beautiful. It gives us delight. We're going to do that tonight. So far, congregation, four for four.
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There are three others and maybe more. His Son is beautiful, certainly His Son. Yes, that's good.
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I think I'm going to just put that under salvation, but that's good. His love?
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Who said that? Good job, Peter. And good job when I said, who said that kind of meanly?
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You still said me. I'm glad for that. Good. Somebody came up to me after the service today, and I thought, who knows what kind of comments
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I'll get after this morning's sermon. I'm just glad my associate pastor is a policeman. But I just thought, all right.
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So a lady came up to me, and I thought she might be a lady who might not like what
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I have said in the past because I just know for many reasons.
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So she came up to me today, and I just thought, I'm just going to get it. And it looked like she had a bone to pick with me, and this was the bone.
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She said, I can't believe that you only said to pick five people to pray for because I have a lot more than five people that I know who need to get saved from the wrath of God in hell.
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I was very, very happy when I got that message. All right.
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Anything else that strikes you as beautiful? Beauty of sanctification? I don't have that, but that would have been an excellent one.
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How God shows His beauty as He sanctifies us, and then we reflect that beauty becoming more like Christ.
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Yes, very good. The beauty of heaven? Good. That's one of the ones that we'll look at tonight.
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The beatific vision when we see God face -to -face.
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That's going to be one of them. That's going to be the best. Yes, young man. The beauty of His glory? Is that what you said?
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You sure you said that? All right. Well, you picked two hymns tonight, so the beauty of His glory. That's good. His glory would be beautiful, and sometimes, actually, we hear the word glory symbolizes beauty.
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So that would be true, but I don't have that tonight. So let me give you my seven. You picked almost all of them and had a few extra good ones.
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Seven examples of God's beauty, either directly or indirectly, that should make you respond with pleasure and delight.
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Number one, God's holiness should provide overwhelming pleasure and delight in you.
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God's holiness, in other words, is beautiful. Let's turn to 1 and 2 Chronicles, chapter 20, please.
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There are many verses. It's not necessarily an exposition. I'm going to have to do it a little more topically tonight, but God's holiness is beautiful.
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For those of you that know Steve Camp's songs, you would remember that song about the beauty of His holiness, and certainly this is one of the passages where we see saints are attracted to the holiness of God.
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On the flip side, unbelievers may cringe that God's holiness makes them so alien, so other, so unapproachable, yet for Christians, I find it interesting, and for here, believers in the
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Old Testament, that there's something in God's holiness that attracts people to that, that finds beauty in it, and here, in 2
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Chronicles, chapter 20, verse 21, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the
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Lord and to praise Him for the beauty, or splendor, some translations say, of His holiness.
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True holiness, you would agree with me, is beautiful to behold. On the flip side, isn't hypocritical, lie -speaking, and self -righteousness ugly and repugnant?
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Psalm 29, too. Ascribe to the Lord the beauty due His name. Worship the Lord in the beauty of His what?
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Holiness. Same thing. Psalm 96, 9. Ascribe to the
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Lord the glory due His name. Bring an offering and come before Him. Worship the Lord in the beauty of His holiness.
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As the unbeliever cringes, and rightfully so, before the holiness of God, there's something in us that sees the holiness of God in Isaiah 6, and as we watch
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Isaiah fall on his face and say he has no integrity, we still are drawn to that beauty of His holiness.
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One man said, there are few things uglier than self -righteousness, but true holiness is beautiful to behold.
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That should be easy to understand. We seldom considered soiled things to be beautiful. A beauty contest winner is never in a soiled wrinkled dress.
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When grease monkeys climb out of the pits under cars or coal miners emerge from the mines, nobody raves about their beauty.
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Beauty is usually associated with what is clean and pure, not with what is dirty and defiled.
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A babbling brook loses some of its beauty when we learn that its water is polluted. A beautiful woman loses some of her attractiveness when we learn of her immoral involvements.
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But the perfect purity of our holy God is beautiful. That is why in Psalm 27 .4,
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David longs to see the beauty of God even more. And that is why someone said, who said
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Jesus was beautiful? That is why we find Jesus to be beautiful, because is there a spot in Him?
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Is there a blemish in Him? Does He have any sin? Of course not. Let's turn to 1 Peter 1 .19.
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The perfectly pure one is beautiful. 1 Peter 1.
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When I think of Jesus, I think of the Holy One. And we find beauty in that. God has just wired us that way.
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1 Peter 1 .19. While unbelievers see no beauty in Him, Isaiah 53, they have no desire for Him, Isaiah 53, we find
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Him attractive. We find beauty in Christ Jesus, the perfectly holy one, the one in whom there is light and no darkness.
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1 Peter 1 .19. You know the passage well. It talks about how we were redeemed. And here we have with precious blood as of lamb, unblemished and spotless, certainly not dirty, certainly not blemished, certainly not full of spot and besmirched with filth, but unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.
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We find perfectly pure and holy things beautiful.
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You say, well, so how should we act? Here's how
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Jonathan Edwards described and defined beauty. First I read it and I thought,
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I don't get it. He was thinking about the beauty of God and how it should lead to holy living.
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And when we see the holiness of God and all the beauty of His holiness, it should make us want to be holy too.
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And there should be a joining together of those ideas. And Edwards called it this, sweet mutual consents.
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And basically he said this, beauty is found when something most closely imitates its maker.
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Here's what one man said, the thing is what God declared that it must be.
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In other words, beauty is achieved when one thing created most closely and most perfectly glorifies its creator.
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And that would give you the sweet mutual consent. It's neat to think about. If you think
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God is beautiful in His holiness, it should make you strive to be holy. Well, number two, we have many to go.
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The first thing that should provide overwhelming pleasure is God's holiness. Number two,
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God's temple. God's temple should provide for you overwhelming pleasure and delight.
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Maybe for the Old Testament saint, but we can talk about that as well. How many chapters in the book of Exodus? For many people, there are 20.
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Because you have Exodus, oh Moses, we understand that, and what's going on there early in Exodus.
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And then all of a sudden you have 19 where there's thunder and lightning coming out of Mount Sinai.
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And then 20, we're given what? Israel's given the Ten Commandments. But what happens after that?
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Some of the greatest verses in all the Bible about the beauty of God found in Exodus chapter 28.
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Let's turn there. Psalm 96 says His sanctuary is beautiful.
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There's glory there. There's a finery there. There's rank and renown there.
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And if God has that for His temple, so too must the priests be beautiful as they minister to Him.
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Exodus chapter 28, about the beauty of God's people. If you're going to be in the house of God, it ties in with the holiness one, there are beautiful garments.
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And I find this very fascinating. One of my favorite things in all my study of the Bible is when I find some verses that before I just run over really quickly some kind of genealogy and I want to just be done with it to get to the good stuff.
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And then I realize there's something wonderful in the genealogy and then I get to own those verses forever. Let me have you own
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Exodus 28 for the rest of your life. What do you mean, pastor?
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Verse 20, chapter 28, verse 1. Then bring near to yourself
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Aaron, your brother and his sons with him, from among the sons of Israel to minister as priests to me. Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, Eleazar, Ithmear, Aaron's sons.
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Then verse 2 is killer. And you shall make holy garments for Aaron, your brother, for glory and for beauty.
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If you're going to minister to the beauty of my holiness in here in the tabernacle close to where my physical manifestation on earth is most brightly and most manifestly seen, then you're going to have the people dress properly and they're going to dress for glory and they're going to dress for beauty.
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I love that. Matter of fact, it goes further, verse 3, and you shall speak to all the skillful persons whom
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I have endowed with the spirit of wisdom, almost like spiritual gifts in the Old Testament, that they make
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Aaron's garments to consecrate him and that he may minister as a priest to me. God giving power supernaturally to certain people to make beautiful things that nobody else could make unless God had them do it.
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We want them to be beautiful. If you're going to stand and represent me and you're going to come to the temple, then you better have beautiful things on.
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Now, just to give you a little teaser, what color is a pomegranate? Anybody? What color is a pomegranate?
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Red. Matter of fact, you could do a great study of a pomegranate sometime and just go down to, well, since we're talking about grocery stores this morning,
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Shaw's or Hannaford's or Price Chopper or wherever you want to go. Go get yourself a pomegranate and then just do a quick concordance study in your
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Bible and teach your kids about pomegranates. Well, to show you that God has an eye towards beauty, look at Exodus chapter 28, verse 33.
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He likes different colored pomegranates than you'll find down at Shaw's. And you shall make on its hem pomegranates of blue and purple and scarlet material all around its hem, bells of gold between them all around.
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Those high priests should just have beauty, everything about them should be beautiful. And matter of fact, it's not just going to be just red pomegranates.
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We're going to have blue, beautiful pomegranates. I find that fascinating.
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Now, I don't have time to read through all of Exodus 28, but there are seven beautiful garments that He wants
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His priests to wear. And if you start down in verse 6 of Exodus 28, there's the ephod.
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It's basically a sleeveless jacket. It's like a vest. And you could just go through there quickly and see how beautiful these are.
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Verse 6, it's made of gold and blue and purple and scarlet material and fine twisted linen, the work of a skillful workman.
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You could see in verse 8, there's gold and blue and purple and scarlet.
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There it is again. Verse 9, onyx stones, engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel.
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Verse 13, you shall make a filigree settings of gold, interwoven settings of gold, chains of pure gold.
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Verse 14, make it beautiful. Verse 15 through 29 is the breastplate of judgment.
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Matter of fact, that needs to look pretty too. You can see in verse 15. I guess God likes these colors and He finds them beautiful.
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Blue and purple and scarlet material. There it is again. Next time you ask me my favorite color, it's going to be blue.
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Verse 17, ruby, topaz, emerald, turquoise, sapphire, diamonds, all kinds of things.
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And the list goes on and on. If you go down to verse 30, the third part of their gear or their outfit or their livery is found in verse 30, the urim and the thumen.
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God bless you. And you shall put the breastplate of the judgment in the urim and the thumen, and they shall be over Aaron's heart when he goes in before the
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Lord. And Aaron shall carry the judgment of the sons of Israel over the heart before his Lord continually.
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Literally, the lights and the perfection are the urim and the thumen. And you say, what was that? It's kind of a way that God helped them to make decisions in a way that we don't make decisions today.
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Who knows what happened? Josephus said the stones on the breastplate became illuminated and they kind of glow.
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Some said it was like dice or something. Who knows what it was, but they were used in determining God's will, and it needed to be beautiful.
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That's my point. The robe of the ephod, it's just not schlock. It's just not bottom of the barrel stuff.
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What do you wear? What do you wear when you go see a king? Well, it better be the best stuff. What do you wear if you represent the king?
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If the king is beautiful, you should be beautiful as well. The miter, verse 36, that should be beautiful.
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Matter of fact, it says in verse 36, the engravings of the seal, holy to the
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Lord. Fasten it with a blue cord, verse 7, and the list goes on and on, verse 37
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I mean. The inner garments for modesty, those things don't have to be quite as beautiful because they're undergarments, but the garments for Aaron's sons, verses 40 and following, there it is again, and we'll wrap up this whole
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Exodus trip with verse 40. And for Aaron's sons, you shall make tunics.
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You shall make also sashes for them, and you shall make caps for them, for glory and for what?
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For beauty. That is just wonderful. Well, God's holiness is beautiful.
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God's temple is beautiful. Thirdly, something that should provide overwhelming pleasure and delight in your life is
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God's word. God's word is beautiful. Let's turn to Psalm 119. Do you want to know the beauty of God?
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We'll get to the glory. We'll get to salvation. But we need to know that the word of God is beautiful.
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And I can't believe I can just have all of God's word just in my hand.
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This weekend I'm going to go, next weekend I'm going to go to Omaha and preach on 2 Peter 1, verses 16 -21.
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And basically, one of the key differences between paganism and Christianity is paganism says the truth is inside of you, and Christianity says the truth isn't inside of you because your heart is wicked, so God must reveal and disclose
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His mind to us. God's word is beautiful.
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And you'll see the word delight here. Can you see the refrain? Look at Psalm 119, and I'll just read the verses.
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As you see this working its way through, Psalm 119, ask yourself as I read these, is this the way you see
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God's word? Does it show in your life? Psalm 119, 16. I will delight myself in your statutes.
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I will not forget your word. Verse 24. Your testimonies also are my ball and chain.
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Wait a second. Your testimonies are also my delight and my counselors. Verse 47.
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And by the way, before I read this, when I am in kind of a funk and I say to myself, I'm reading the Bible because I have to,
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I'm reading the Bible because I just know it's good for me, I'm reading the Bible because I've got to preach on Sunday and it's usually good to read the
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Bible before you preach. I don't know if you ever felt that way. I say to myself, remedy.
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Read Psalm 119 and ask God to have me think the same way
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David or some people think Daniel who wrote this Psalm. I want to feel the same things that they did.
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I want to think the same things that they did. This is the Psalm I go to, to energize my attitude towards the scriptures.
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Psalm 119, 47. And I will delight myself in your commandments, which I find so burdensome.
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He doesn't say that. Which I love. The beauty of God seen in the scriptures.
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I love verse 70. Psalm 119, verse 70.
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Just the language that David employs. Their heart is as fat as grease, but I delight in you.
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Verse 77. Let your tender mercies come to me that I may live, for your law is my delight.
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Your instruction. He's not just talking about the first five books of the Bible, he's just talking about your word. Divine instruction is my delight.
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Verse 92. Unless your law had been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.
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Verse 170. Wait a second. 174. Are there 174 verses? I long for your salvation,
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O Lord, and your law is my delight. And I don't think Paul the
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Apostle ever forgot this Psalm, Psalm 119, so much so, let me read you this and you tell me where it comes from in a
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Pauline epistle. For I delight in the law of God. Romans chapter 7, verse 22.
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If you turn with me to Psalm chapter 1, since we can find the beauty of God in his word and we can delight in that,
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I want to encourage you to do that all the more. Psalm chapter 1, verse 2 talks also about delighting in the law of God.
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Seeing the beauty of God found in his scriptures. Psalm chapter 1, verse 2.
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But his delight is in the law of the Lord. Contrasting what was going on in verse 1 about these other people.
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And in his law, he meditates day and night. He says to himself, the direction from God, the instruction from God, that's what
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I want to think about all the time. As one man said, it is no irksome restriction of his liberty, but the object of his love and constant study, the word of God.
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He says, I just delight in that. I find my pleasure, I find my happiness. I want to know you more and more and become more acquainted with your ways.
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I feel great favor towards this, as the theological word book of the Old Testament translates it.
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The same word delight is used of Shechem, who had delight in Dinah. The same word is used in King Ahasuerus in his beauty contest.
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That they did not come back to him after the first viewing unless he had delight in them.
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The desire in the heart of a man for the word of God, finding it precious.
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And therefore, he meditates on that day and night. Well, we need to keep moving on.
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God's holiness should be seen as beautiful. God's temple, God's word, and now
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God's creation. God's creation is beautiful. I think we would all agree with that, that God's creation is beautiful.
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God saw all that he made and it was what? Very good. Genesis chapter 1 verse 31.
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God is beautiful, therefore his creation reflects his beauty. Beauty comes from God.
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And even after the fall, we see beauty. The fall colors, Niagara Falls, we still see the beauty of God.
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Vincent van Gogh said, he was a theologian if you didn't know that, a Dutch theologian. You're either a good theologian or a bad theologian, but you're a theologian.
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And here, Vincent van Gogh said, if you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.
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But it's just not beauty in beauty, it's beauty from God. Let's talk about Psalm 139 for a minute.
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Let's just flip there quickly. Verse 14, please. I believe that creation speaks of God's beauty, and part of creation would be the human body.
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As we were talking about the capillaries that go around the artery in a young boy, so too we think about how he has made our own bodies.
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And I have to tell you that evolution's attack against the moral fabric of our society is for a reason.
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If God is not a creator, he's therefore not a judge, and who needs to give accountability to him?
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When my last two children were born, both Maddy and Gracie, when they came out of the womb and they were given to me,
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I just looked with a big Cheshire cat grin of only a proud father could have, and I just said to everyone, ain't evolution grand?
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And then the doctor just applied the anesthesiologist's mask to me and just said, son, you need to lay down. No, they just looked at me like I'm some freak.
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Isaac Newton said, in the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence.
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Psalm 139 talks about this. Verse 14, and David, even with non -scientific words, extols the beauty of God in creating humans.
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I will give thanks to thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
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Wonderful are thy works. It gives this reader beauty, this writer beauty, and my soul knows it very well.
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It's like David can't stop going on with verse 12, 13, but at 14, he needs to say, it's a 20 -second time out, and I'm going to speak well of God, and he burst into praise with delight.
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The Hebrew reads, I praise thee, for I am awesomely wonderful. He's not saying he's wonderful, but God made him in a wonderful way.
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I went to see one autopsy in my life, and I've been to plenty of operating room procedures and open -heart procedures and everything else, and I just look there and say to myself,
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I can't imagine anyone would say somehow this is just bypassing the first law of thermodynamics, the second law of thermodynamics, and then they just say, well, isn't this amazing?
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No, I want to say, God, you were amazing for making someone like that. Verse 15 says, my frame was not hidden from thee when
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I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. No artist that I know of works in complete darkness, in a dark room, but God does with intricacy, with great care.
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We get the word curious from the Latin translation of the Hebrew word skillfully.
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And I did a little research, and I found some of these great things about God's creation and how beautiful it is. Did you know that you can feel on your fingertips or face a pressure that depresses your skin 0 .00004
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inches? Is it 0 .00004? Is that an inch or is that inches?
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Inch, I think. Do you know you can see a small candle flame from 30 miles away on a clear, dark night?
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Do you know you can smell one drop of perfume diffused through a three -room apartment? Do you know you can taste 0 .04
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ounce of table salt dissolved in 530 quarts of water? Do you know you can feel the weight of a bing's...
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Dave Bing, I think he used to be a basketball player. Do you know you can feel the weight of a bee's wing falling on your cheek from less than a half an inch away?
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Do you know you can distinguish among 300 ,000 different color variations? Do you know you can gauge the direction of a sound's origin based on a 0 .00003
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second difference in its arrival from one ear to the other? And I only have one comment.
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That is delightful. That is incredible. That is wonderful.
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And Nagel, regarding God's beauty, said, You cannot put one little star in motion.
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You cannot shape one single forest leaf, nor fling a mountain up, nor sink an ocean. Presumptuous pygmy, large with unbelief, you cannot bring one dawn of regal splendor, nor bid the day to shadowy twilight fall, nor send the pale moon forth with radiance tender.
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And dare you doubt the one who has done it all? Sometimes late at night, if I need to study,
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I just go outside, and I prefer to be cold outside, and I just like to walk around, to just say, if I keep sitting there,
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I'm going to fall asleep, so I'll just walk around outside, and just look at the stars. And some days, it doesn't faze me, and I'm mad at myself on those days, because just looking up there, thinking, the glory of God, as the sky bellows forth, look at how great
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I am. It's like the little girl who was riding the train for the first time with her mother. She's looking through the window.
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She thinks it's so cool. She's going on a train ride, the wonder of wonders. Look, Mama, there's cows.
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Look, Mama, there's horses. Mama, there's houses. And the mother, who was kind of embarrassed, just turned to the person sitting by her and said, my daughter still thinks everything's wonderful.
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Here's an assignment for you, a weird one from the pulpit. Why don't you go to the zoo? Look around. Why don't you go for a walk?
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How about going to the aquarium? We had the neatest rainbow out here, what, a month ago? The double rainbow, right here at church.
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You could see both sides, and you could just see the double, and I just thought, that is the most unbelievable thing.
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And then you have people who take the rainbow for the symbol of their lifestyle and tweak it all around. Here's what real rainbow means.
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There's a bow that God has, a bow and he has arrows of judgment. And the bow is shaped like this, yes?
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And after God floods the earth, he promises he'd never flood the earth again with water. He will flood it with fire, but not water.
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And he's given a covenant sign. Matter of fact, that covenant sign you'll see in heaven one day as you read Revelation 4 and 5 about this great rainbow symbolizing the faithfulness of God.
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And so God has put his bow down. By the way, when the bow is shaped like this, where is the arrow pointing?
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It's not pointing, at least not towards us, and he's not pointing to himself. You hang the bow up, and it's not pointing down.
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Now you see there, there's the statement from God, and just blazing glory, and I just think, you are great,
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God. I had to just grab people, and we had to just quick run outside, just stand there and oogle a little bit.
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Well, time is basically over, and I'm only on number four. All right, number five.
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What do you do when you're out of time? Just keep going. I've got a piece about just continuing to go.
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God's holiness is beautiful, his temple is beautiful, his word is beautiful, his creation is beautiful. Number five,
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God's plan of salvation is beautiful. It should provide in you overwhelming pleasure and delight.
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Aristotle called beauty the gift of God, and here in the ultimate way, salvation is the gift of God.
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Jonathan Edwards wrote a lot on beauty of God, the sweetness of God. It's not just all sinners in the hands of an angry
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God. And he was reading a verse where God used it to save him.
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And let's look at that verse. Does anybody know the verse? And the context is Edwards seeing the beauty of God.
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Let's go to 1 Timothy 1. 1 Timothy 1, as Edwards later in life described his conversion, he was talking about he was saved when
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God gave a breakthrough of his beauty and revealed that to him through Scripture.
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He could see God finally as beautiful as he ought to be seen. And here was the spark right here, this verse.
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1 Timothy 1, verse 17. Now, to the king eternal, immortal, invisible, the only
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God be glory, excuse me, honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. And Edwards said this, quote,
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As I read the words that came into my soul as it were being diffused through it, a sense of glory of the divine being, a new sense quite different from anything
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I had ever experienced. And I prayed in a manner quite different from what I used to, with a new sort of affection.
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Edwards said in his heart he had, quote, an inward sweet taste about the truths of Christ.
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He said, quote, He relished the glorious majesty and the grace of God. He realized that God showed him for the first time how beautiful he really was, how the
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Savior was so beautiful. And then he could sense that like he could never sense it before.
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Matter of fact, later Edwards wrote about the freedom of the will. And he would say this, just a side note to kind of get you to study this a little bit.
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Edwards said basically that the will is free when it chooses what is most beautiful.
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And so you say, well, people have free will and they're running around today, you're unbelieving friends. If they really had free will, there would be no impediment against choosing what is the most beautiful Christ exalted.
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Their will has been enslaved. Their will has been bound. Their will is tainted by sin.
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Slaves to Satan. Slaves to sin. Slaves to the world. But when
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God saves you, you freely acknowledge the beauty of Christ, just like Edwards.
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And Edwards called this beauty many things. He called it God's beauty, God's holiness, God's lovableness.
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And when you see the transcendent loveliness of Christ, Edwards would say, you think to yourself he is worthy to be followed.
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Well, two more. Let's see if I can just do it. The sovereignty of God should give you overwhelming pleasure and delight.
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His holiness, his temple, his word, his creation, the plan of salvation, which we can say much more about, and the sovereignty of God.
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True or false? God sovereignly had his son to be rejected to save us, and you should think that is marvelous.
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It should be marvelous in your eyes. True. Let's go to Mark chapter 12.
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We are getting closer to finishing. I think we're going to just have to just zoom through this very quickly.
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As you know, Mark chapter 12, found in the Go Gospel, there's a parable about a vineyard representing
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Israel, and there's a wall built all around it, and there's a vat that's dug, and God has specially taken care of this vineyard that all the
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Jews would know all about. They would know about the vineyard in Isaiah chapter 5, and the people's lack of fruitfulness.
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And here now, Jesus is going to apply this to the leaders of the Jews. And in verse 2 of Mark chapter 12, harvest time,
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I want you to look at these words, congregation. He sent, see how many times you can find it. At harvest time, he sent a slave to the vine growers in order to receive some of the produce of the vineyard from the vine growers.
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It's a parable, but it's almost approaching an allegory in the sense that there's lots of easy -to -see representations, and so we know the one sending the slave is the father in order to receive some of the produce of the vineyard from the vine growers.
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And they took him, they beat him, they sent him away empty -handed. Bring this message back to the owner, was the scoop.
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And again, there it is again, congregation, verse 4, he sent them another slave, and they wounded him in the head and treated him shamefully.
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Verse 5, and he sent another, and that one they killed, and so with many others, beating some and killing others.
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Elijah driven in the wilderness, Isaiah, according to tradition, sawn in two, Zechariah stoned to death,
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John the Baptist beheaded, Amos, Micah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Joel, Habakkuk, all, according to legend, killed.
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God, time and again, sends the prophets, they kill him. Verse 6, he had one more to what?
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Send a beloved son. He sent them last of all, sent him last of all to them, saying, they'll respect my son.
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Last resort, last card to play, as it were. But those vine growers said to one another, this is the heir, come let us kill him and the inheritance will be ours.
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They took him, they killed him, they threw him out of the vineyard. What will the owner of the vineyard do?
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He will come and destroy the vine growers and will give the vineyard to others. Then, amazingly, tying this into the beauty of God, have you not even read the scripture, he says?
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He stabs their consciences. The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.
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Then verse 11, should rock your world. This was the, who was the one who kept sending him?
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It was the father. This was the Lord's doing and how should we perceive that? Fascinatingly, it is marvelous in our eyes.
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That is amazing to me. That is absolutely amazing where it should be marvelous in our eyes.
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It came from the Lord, verse 11, it was God's ordained plan. The foolishness of God is wiser than men.
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Lenski said, where is the human father who had sent his son as God actually sent his? But this is the very point of the parable.
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God's love and patience exceeded absolutely everything that men have ever heard of here on earth.
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If God's love and patience exceeds all bounds, so does all this guilt. And then it says in verse 11, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
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Precious, the preciousness of this idea of salvation. The sovereignty of God and all that.
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Here is what Luther said, he echoes my sentiments. If I were God and the world had treated me as it had treated him,
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I would kick the wretched thing to pieces. It is marvelous in our eyes, the sovereignty of God and salvation.
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And then lastly, number seven, the beatific vision should provide you beauty, delight, and pleasure.
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This is maybe the most beautiful, I've saved the best for last, but we're fairly out of time. Socrates called beauty a short -lived tyranny.
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In heaven, when you see God face to face, it won't be short -lived and it won't be full of tyranny.
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The beatific vision of God, you see in a glass darkly now, but in heaven you will see what?
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Face to face. I'm just going to read something to you and then I think we'll have to close here.
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As we shall see him as he is in 1 John 3, 2. From a sermon called
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The Beatific Vision, delivered on June 20, 1856. It is one of the most natural desires in all the world, that when we hear of a great and good man, we should wish to see his person.
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When we hear of any wondrous deed of daring, we will crowd our windows to see the warrior ride through the streets.
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This feeling becomes doubly powerful when we have any connection with the man. When we feel not only that he's good to us, not only that he is benevolent, but that he has been a benefactor to us as individuals.
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And then the man says of Jesus, when you see him in heaven, Ah, one short glimpse, one transitory vision of his glory, one brief glance at his marred but now exalted and beaming countenance, would repay a world of trouble.
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Job said, I know my Redeemer liveth, and though worms devour this body, yet in my flesh shall
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I see God. Consider first of all that when we see him, based in his incarnation, we will not see him that way, but exalted in his glory.
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We are not to see the infant of a span long. We are not to admire the youthful boy. We are not to address the incipient man.
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We are not to pity the man wiping the hot sweat from his burning brow. We are not to behold him shivering in the midnight air.
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We are not to behold him subject to pains and weaknesses, sorrows and infirmities like ours. We are not to see the eye wearied by sleep.
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We are not to behold hands tired in labor. We are not to behold feet bleeding with arduous journeys too long for their strengths.
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We are not to see him with the soul distressed. Oh, the sight is better still.
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We are to see him exalted. We shall see the head, but not within a thorny crown. The head that once was crowned with thorns is now crowned with glory.
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We shall see him exalted. No longer Christ, the man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, but Christ, the man
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God, radiant with splendor, effulgent with light, clothed with rainbows, girded with clouds, wrapped in lightnings, crowned with stars, the sun beneath his feet.
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Oh, glorious vision. How can we guess what he is? What words can tell us?
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How can we speak thereof? We shall see him as he is. We shall not see him mocked by Pharisees, tempted by Sadducees, laughed by at the
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Herodians. We shall not behold him with a finger of scorn pointed at him. We shall see him not as a wine -bibber and a drunken man.
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We shall see him as not the insulted, molested, despised Jesus, but we shall see him as he is.
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We shall see him beloved, not abhorred, not despised and rejected, but worshipped, honored, crowned, exalted, served by flaming spirits, and worshipped by cherubim and seraphim.
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We shall see him as he is. And that is why Fanny Crosby said, if you could give me eyesight,
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I never want to see, because the first person I want to see with my eyes is the beatific vision of Christ Jesus.
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Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. The most beautiful thing that you've ever seen in life is going to, actually by comparison to seeing
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Christ face to face, the most beautiful thing will seem ugly and repulsive when you see
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Jesus. The joy of heaven will be the vision of God. A.
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God is all -knowing. B. God is beautiful, and everything he does is beautiful. Let's go ahead and pray.
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Father, we exalt your name today as beautiful, and we would know that you would make everything beautiful in your time, and we look forward to the day where there's no more pain, no more sorrow, and we get to see
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Jesus Christ face to face. And how we can go before the King?
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It is only because of Christ Jesus that we can actually approach the King. We can approach the
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Glorious One only on the merits of another. And Father, for some reason, if there might be one here tonight who doesn't know you,
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I would pray that you would show, like you did to Jonathan Edwards, a glimpse of how beautiful you are, and they would respond with a holy life.
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In Jesus' name, amen. All right, shall we sing one last song?
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Is there a song about beauty? 88, Fairest Lord Jesus. Let's just stand there and sing, and then we'll be dismissed.