THE GLORY OF GOD:
I came across this humourous story on the internet recently: Little Johnny had been misbehaving and was sent to his room. He emerged a couple minutes later and informed his mother that he had thought things over and had even said a little prayer. The mother was very happy and said, “If you asked God to help you not misbehave, He will help you.” To which Johnny replied, “Oh, I didn’t ask Him for help with that, I asked Him to help you put up with me.”
You have to be careful what you pray for, because God answers prayer! What are you praying for? Are you praying for the right thing? In this message we are going to take a look at a prayer from the Bible that a great man of God prayed one day, one of the best prayers we can pray.
First, here is a great prayer that another man of God prayed. It was during a wilderness time, a season in his life where things were dark and he felt far away from God. Can you relate to that? Maybe you’re in a place in your life where God seems distant. This was David’s heart cry: “O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land Where there is no water. So I have looked for You in the sanctuary, To see Your power and Your glory.” (Ps. 63:1-2).
There was a day wnen the people of God would go to church, not just to sing songs about God or to hear stories about what God did in the past, but they came to church to meet with God. To see His power and His glory. David said, “I want to see You!” Don’t be content to just sing the songs or hear the stories. Let your heart cry be that of King David that says, “I want to know Him more deeply and intimately, I want to encounter Him.” If God ever performed supernatural, miraculous things in the past, and demonstrated His power and glory for someone else in history, he can do it for us today. Don’t be content to play church and be religious and go through the motions. If the God who the Bible describes as being alive, who moves, and speaks, and acts on behalf of those who fear Him, then let’s get to know Him in a real way, where we hear His voice, and see Him do great and glorious things!
You might say, “Well, I’ve never seen God do great and mighty things.” I wonder if that isn’t because we haven’t seen the great and mighty God? The god that we know, the ‘god’ that we’ve been sold in North America is a small and pathetic god, a puny little cheap imitation of the real God of the Bible who is a consuming fire. The God who is great and terrible and shakes the nations. He’s not just a little ‘Pocket Jesus.’ In the church today, we have a ‘Pocket Jesus.’ He’s our little ‘Pocket Jesus’ that we take with us wherever we go because He makes us feel good. Whenever we get into trouble, we pull out our ‘Pocket Jesus.’ We say, “Oh, help me ‘Pocket Jesus.’ I’m having a really bad day today.” We think that’s good because we’ve got our ‘Pocket Jesus.’ How many of us do that in our relationship with God, where He’s just something we keep tucked away inside somewhere until we need Him?
But what about the God who created us for His glory? The God who has a plan and a purpose for our lives. We need to enlarge our vision of who God is. We need to, as one great missionary put it, Expect great things from God, and attempt great things for God!
I want to talk to you about the glory of God, and share with you the prayer of a great man of God named Moses. Moses was a great Deliverer who led the children of God out of slavery in Egypt. He led them through the Red Sea, and experienced many signs and wonders. He brought God’s people to Mount Sinai, a mount that was consumed with fire, smoke, thunder and lightning – the very manifest presence of the glory of God! The people were afraid at this sight. In the midst of his many and powerful encounters with God, Moses prayed a profound yet simple prayer, “Please, show me Your glory.” Let this be our prayer!
But some of you might say: What is the Glory? The Old Testament Hebrew word for glory is kabod – weightiness (He’s a God of strength and substance); glory, honour, splendour, power, authority, magnificence, fame, dignity, riches, excellency. He’s a great and a powerful God. God is not some cosmic vending machine in Heaven, some great genie in the lamp that we rub, and out he comes to grant us our every wish. The Bible says that God sits in Heaven and does whatever He wants – He’s the God! We need to have a holy respect and awe for this God.
“18 And Moses said, "Please, show me Your glory." 19 Then He said, "I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." 20 But He said, "You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live." 21 And the Lord said, "Here is a place by Me, and you shall stand on the rock. 22 So it shall be, while My glory passes by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and will cover you with My hand while I pass by. 23 Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen… 5 Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. 6 And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, 7 keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty…" 8 So Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped.” (Ex. 33:18-23; 34:5-8)
If you want to do a productive study in the Bible, do a study on the names of God. The more we learn about His names, the more we will learn about His nature. We must begin to seek to see the greatness of God! “Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power and the glory, the victory and the majesty; for all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours: Yours in the kingdom, O Lord, and You are exalted as head over all.” (1 Chronicles 29:11).
(Continued in Part Two)
