This morning, I want to speak to you
about the effects of seeing the glory of
God.
The effects of seeing the glory of God.
Let's pray.
Lord Jesus, you're teaching us something about your
glory.
And Lord, it's life-changing when we see
it.
I pray you make it so simple today
that nobody in this building, even if they've
walked in here for the first time, will
have any mistake in their mind about what
the glory of God is and how to
see it and how to appropriate it in
their lives.
Lord, I pray that you take the words
of my mouth today and make them life
and health and strength that would transform us.
Lord, you said the vision of your glory
is that secret of bringing strength and inheritance
to the children of God.
And I pray, Lord, that you speak into
our lives now.
Lord, I want this message to bring hope
to this congregation, to all who hear it.
Lord, sanctify me, hide me behind the cross,
and let my words be your words, I
pray, because I believe you gave me this
message.
I speak your mind as an oracle of
God.
In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
Now, about five weeks ago, I spoke on
the glory of God.
And many of you were not here, and
we have a lot of visitors, so I'll
recapitulate for just a few moments before I
go into the heart of my message.
I want you to know it's possible, listen
closely, it's possible for every true believer to
understand what the glory of God is.
And the glory of God is given to
those who seek it with all of their
heart.
You can pray the prayer of Moses, Lord,
show me your glory.
And when he does, he's going to show
you the same thing he showed Moses, because
there is only one glory, and God defined
it himself.
So when you pray, Lord, show me your
glory, show me who you are, is what
that prayer is.
God sent Moses out to deliver the children
of Israel without a full revelation of who
he was.
He just said, go, and say, I am
sent you.
But there was no explanation or definition of
who I am was.
And that's why Moses had this knowing, this
hunger, this thirst to know who the great
I am is, and what his character, what
his nature was.
The glory of God is not, was not,
and is not some physical manifestation of any
kind.
It's not some ecstatic feeling that comes upon
people.
It's not some kind of supernatural aura.
It's not a bursting forth of some emotional,
physical thing.
The glory of God is a revelation of
the nature and attributes of God himself.
It's a revelation of his nature, as defined
by God himself.
In other words, when you get a revelation
of the glory of God, it is God
speaking to you, telling you how he wants
to be known, how he wants you to
think about him, how he wants you to
see him.
Not as some preacher would define him, but
as God himself defying who he was.
In fact, God answered the prayer of Moses.
He took him up to a cleft of
a rock.
He hid him in a cleft of a
rock, put his hand over his eyes until
he passed, so that he'd take his hand
off only toward the backsides.
But there was no thunder, there was no
lightning, there was no emotional thing.
There was no casting him to the ground.
There was no shaking of this man.
It was simply a revelation that the Bible
said God caused his goodness to pass before
him, and then he proclaimed his glory to
Moses.
And here is the explanation, here is God's
definition of what he is, of who he
is.
The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious,
long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, keeping
mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and
sins.
Now, here's my message.
What is the purpose, what was the purpose
of God showing his glory to Moses?
Certainly not to give him some ecstatic moment.
Certainly not to just be able to tell
his children and grandchildren, I had a glorious
grand day one day when God took me
to the mountain, and hid me in a
cliff to the rock, and I saw something
indescribable.
That's not it.
God never reveals anything of his goodness, his
grace, his power, his mercy without a purpose.
There's a purpose in this revelation.
The purpose of this revelation to Moses, the
purpose of God revealing his glory to us
in this day and age, is that that
glory might change us into his very image,
so that the glory he defined of himself
to us, we may define to the world.
We may be an expression of Christ, who
is now the fullness of God.
He is the goodness and the grace and
the mercy of God.
Jesus Christ, full of grace and mercy, the
Bible says.
He is the express image of who God
is.
He came down to express that.
It's an amazing thing that God did.
He so wanted us to know his nature.
He allowed a time and a place in
history that man could even touch and feel
it.
That's what John wrote.
He said, the word of God, we saw
and we touched him.
We were able to touch the glory of
God.
Jesus Christ, who came into flesh to be
a full revelation to us of the mercy,
the grace, the goodness and the readiness of
God to forgive.
God wrapped that all up in Jesus and
sent him as a man and said, Now,
here's my glory.
Jesus Christ is the manifest glory of God.
That's not difficult, is it?
It shouldn't be complicated for us to understand.
But we all with open face, beholding as
in a glass or a mirror, the glory
of the Lord.
We are changed into the same image from
glory to glory, even as by the Spirit
of God.
Now, simply put, that means once you get
this revelation of the glory of God, of
his love, how loving he is, of his
graciousness, his tenderness, his long-suffering, his readiness
to forgive, and his forgiving multitudes.
Once you get that and once you appropriate
that, the Bible says that will change you
moment by moment as the Holy Ghost reveals
you the fullness of that truth.
As you go into the Bible and little
by little you see it on every page
of the book.
You begin to see it.
You take it.
You claim it.
The Bible says it will change you little
by little.
You will become like the glory.
The glory.
I'm going to show you that the glory
of God is not out in the cosmos,
but it is in you, in Jesus Christ.
We'll get to that in just a moment.
Now, Paul explained it even stronger.
He said that the God of our Lord
Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, he said,
I want you to know me in my
glory, may give unto you the spirit of
wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him.
God said, I want you to understand him.
Moses understood it.
I want you to understand it.
I want to open your eyes by my
spirit.
And I want you to see who I
am to you.
I'm not just a God of wrath and
judgment.
You've got to know my nature.
There is wrath in me.
There is anger in me.
But my nature is love.
God is love.
That's what he is.
Wrath and anger is what he does.
This is what I am, he said.
The eyes of your understanding being enlightened that
you may know what is the hope of
his calling and what the riches of the
glory is of his inheritance.
In other words, how this rich glory is
going to be a part of you and
in you.
And what is the exceeding greatness of his
power to us who believe that you being
rooted and grounded in this love.
He said, I want this revelation to be
so real to you.
I want you to see it.
Because that's how you're going to become rooted
and grounded in love.
You may be able to comprehend with all
saints what is the breadth and the length
and the depth and the height and to
know the love of Christ which passes knowledge
that you might be filled with all the
fullness of God.
The fullness of God is his glory.
That you might be filled with this revelation
and being filled with the revelation it is
the power that changes you.
Now, when God shows us that Jesus Christ
is his full expression of who he is.
In other words, Jesus came as the glory
of God loving, merciful, kind, tenderhearted, gracious, long
-suffering, even to the sinner, the rankest sinner
on earth God loves and is merciful.
And he said, once you get that vision
it will root you, it will ground you,
it will fill you with the vision of
Christ and you, as you keep looking at
the word and seeing it and studying it
and claiming it and appropriating it in your
life you're going to be changed, changed, changed.
Keep changing from glory to glory.
It means from revelation to revelation to revelation
of this one truth.
The Bible said we're changed from glory to
glory.
That means you're affected by this vision.
The first and foremost effect of the revelation
of the glory of God that is in
Christ Jesus that it changes your relationship with
the Lord.
It changes your relationship with the Lord.
Now, immediately after Moses gets this revelation of
the love of God, the mercy and the
grace and the long-suffering, he is so
overwhelmed by it he quickly finds a place
to fall in his face and the Bible
says Moses made haste.
He had just seen this revelation of the
great love of God.
How long-suffering, how patient God is with
His children, with stiff-necked people, with idolaters
and with those who have grieved Him and
how merciful and gracious.
And he's so overwhelmed by this vision of
the glory of God he finds a lonely
place.
The Bible said Moses made haste, bowed his
head to the earth and worshipped.
Now, folks, this is the first mention in
the Bible of Moses worshipping.
Church, you will find prior to this revelation
of the goodness of God, you'll find this
man praying many times.
He talked face-to-face with God.
You'll find him pleading with God for the
people, interceding and weeping.
You see him singing God's praises at the
victory site of the Red Sea after God
had destroyed Pharaoh and his army.
You hear him crying to the Lord at
the bitter waters of Merah when there was
no water and the people were murmuring, complaining
and he cried out to the Lord.
He cried out to the Lord at Rephidim
when they were ready to stone him.
And you find this man taking, he goes
outside the camp and he prays, he seeks
God, but folks, you can be one who
prays constantly, you can be one who intercedes
for your family, for nations and for churches,
you can be one who cries out to
God for the needs of yourself and your
family, your friends, and still not be a
worshipper.
And still not be a worshipper.
Moses knew how to pray.
He knew how to intercede.
He had intimacy with God.
But he, for the first time, worships.
It's the first time you hear it said,
Moses worshipped.
Now I'm telling you that there are many
people who pray diligently who have never learned
to worship.
Now folks, I'm not going to add to
all the confusion about what worship is.
So many books on techniques of worship.
I have to tell you honestly, I don't
believe there's a technique of worship.
That is contrary to everything in the Scripture
as far as I'm concerned.
You can't learn worship.
Worship is a spontaneous outbreak, a spontaneous outbursting
of a revelation of who God is, of
His mercy and His grace, His love to
you, how you should have been cast aside,
how you should have been destroyed long ago,
how you should have had the wrath of
God for all your failures, our failures and
our faults, and then suddenly God comes to
you with a revelation, I still love you.
This man now has hope even though he'd
interceded for the children of Israel when God
wanted to destroy them for idolatry.
You know, when you look at that story,
here's God saying, Moses, let me alone.
They build a golden calf, they worship around
it, now let me destroy them.
Moses is pleading, no God, don't do that.
That makes Moses sound more compassionate than God.
But that's not what it was all about.
God had no intention of destroying these people.
This is a mercy test for this man.
How are you going to represent me to
the people?
God, all along, because God had some promises
ready, already in His mind.
He said, I'm going to do great things
such as have never been done for Israel,
and my presence is going to go with
you.
That was His heart all along.
But you see, even though Moses had pleaded
with him, he went down from the mountain
and he killed 3,000 of them, the
ringleaders, in anger, the Bible says.
And he broke the tablets.
And even though he pleaded with him, I
know that after that, he thought to himself,
Oh my God, my Lord, how am I
going to lead these people?
They are stiff-necked.
They're stubborn.
And he knew that they had hidden in
their tents, the idols, those little golden mice
they brought, and the two most lurid gods
they brought out of Egypt and still hidden
in their tents.
Amos said so later.
They're all through the wilderness.
They had them hidden in their tents.
He knew that.
And he thanked himself, Oh God, what day,
what hour, what time are you going to
get fed up and lose your patience with
these people?
They're so stiff-necked.
They're so hard.
They're so rebellious.
Lord, I don't know how I'm going to
lead them.
At any time this could break out and
Lord, you might have to destroy them.
But now, here comes this revelation.
I am merciful.
I'm long-suffering.
And now Moses is saying, Oh God, they're
stubborn.
They're rebellious.
We're stiff-necked people.
And you said that you have mercy and
forgiveness for thousands.
We're those thousands.
We need that mercy.
And while he's still worshiping, he's claiming it.
I appropriate the glory.
I appropriate it right now.
Now folks, that is an integral part of
worship.
Now we may have our ideas how we
please God with worship, but did you ever
think that God has his own ideas as
to how he's being worshiped?
And as the way I see it interpreted
in the Scripture here, God knows he's being
wholly, truly worshipped when you and I lay
claim to his glory.
When we, in our difficulty, we, in our
guilt, and in our condemnation, we simply turn
to him with all of our hearts and
we say, God, you have told me that
you have mercy and longsuffering.
I need longsuffering.
I need it now.
I claim it.
And God is worshipped when he sees his
people laying hold of those rights that he
has given to them by his own words.
It's not somebody going on and on and
on in prayer saying, Oh Lord, I love
you, I love you, I love you.
Just words.
God's saying, No, wait a minute.
I love you.
You're going to worship me.
You're going to lay hold of my love.
How many see that?
That means it could be one of the
greatest worship services of all if we just
come into his presence and fall before him
and just glorify him for his love and
just soak it in and say, Embrace me,
Lord.
I need it.
I need a hug.
You ought to get up every morning and
say, Lord, I need a hug.
Go before God.
Before you go to bed, Lord, I need
a hug.
I'm hurting.
The Holy Ghost is right there to show
you the arms of Jesus to embrace you.
Hallelujah.
You know, that's the spring of my worship.
That's the spring out of which my worship
goes to him.
Father, I know you're holy.
I know you're just.
I know you don't weaken sin, but I've
seen your glory.
You're not out to destroy me.
You're not condemning me in my struggles.
You've showed me how loving and long-suffering
you are to me.
I deserve rejection.
I should have been cast aside.
I've failed you so often, but you revealed
to me that your mercy, grace, and tender
heart, and I claimed that I need it.
Like when a young man prayed, God, I
guess I'm your bad boy.
You're going to have to help me.
Have you ever felt like God's bad boy
or God's bad girl?
Now, if you know God revealed in Christ
as a merciful Lord, you can say with
Jeremiah, and I want to give you a
scripture, folks, that at a time, even while
I was pastor of this church, became a
life-strengthening word to me.
In fact, one day, God had to give
me this word.
Many of you that are sitting here don't
know the battle I went through three or
four years ago.
There were all kinds of accusations and slander
and all kinds of things, so much so
that I would sit in my apartment and
weep and say, Honey, I just can't go
to church.
And there were some that had risen up
in telling awful lies, and I would meet
young people backstage, say, Are you a phony
like they say you are?
And I'd say, What?
And I would go home and say, Honey,
I just don't understand this.
I've given my heart.
And I got to the place where even
a pastor was visiting.
He said, Brother Dave, I've heard about some
of the suffering going through.
He said, Is it God or the devil
after you?
And it offended me.
God or the devil?
But it planted a seed in my heart,
and I went home and said, Lord, if
I'm under discipline, show me why.
If you're correcting me, show me what it
is.
And there was about a month that I
could hardly come into this church.
I would sit in my study, and my
wife would have to pick me up.
And I'd get halfway to church, and I'd
say, Honey, I can't do it.
I can't go on.
I can't face another young person or another
person asking me if I'm a phony.
And so it got to a place where
I was so grieved that I came upon
this scripture.
Because I said, Oh God, if I hear
another rebuking word, I'll be reduced to nothing.
It will reduce me to nothing.
Have you ever been to that place where
you've gone through it, and then you pick
up the word?
I would used to go into word during
that time, and then I shouldn't have been
so much in Jeremiah, I guess, and Ezekiel,
but, you know, blind shepherds and the wrath
of God and everything else.
And I said, Oh Lord, what's going on?
And then one day the Holy Spirit literally
spoke a quiet word into my heart to
turn to Jeremiah 10, 24, and this is
what I read.
Oh Lord, correct me, but in a just
way, and not in your anger, lest I
be reduced to nothing.
God said, Listen, David, if you're going to
discipline one of your children or grandchildren, are
you going to go out and find the
most vicious criminal on the street and give
him the belt and say, Go spank my
child?
No, no, no.
God said, If I correct you, it's because
I love you.
He said, That's not what this is all
about.
Just stand still now and see the glory
of God.
Folks, God's Spirit came upon me.
Many in this congregation didn't know the battle
that I'd gone through.
Pastor Carter, God sent him to stand with
me through that time like a giant.
And God undertook with this Scripture, Oh Lord,
correct me, but in a just way, not
in your anger, lest you bring me to
nothing, lest I be reduced to nothing.
And folks, there comes a time where you
come to the house of God and you're
so down and you say, If I hear
one more word from anybody putting me down,
I'll be reduced to nothing.
And God knows that.
That's why he brings an encouraging word.
That's why he brings the message of his
glory to your heart.
Hallelujah.
Now, with Moses, the revelation changed him in
another way also.
The second effect of seeing the glory of
God is a change in countenance.
The Scripture says, And the children of Israel
saw the face of Moses, and the skin
of Moses' face shone.
Now, a person's countenance is the outward expression
of something accomplished in the heart.
Now, listen to me closely, please.
Moses had already been on a mountain another
time for 40 days and 40 nights and
he came down and his face didn't shine.
In fact, he came down and dealt with
this idolatry of the golden calf.
There was no evidence of his face shining.
You see, you can be in the glory,
but it doesn't shine until the glory is
in you.
He had been in the glory of God,
but the glory had not come in.
And this comes to what Paul says, It
pleased God to reveal his Son in me
that I may preach Christ.
Not to me, but in me.
God revealed it in me, the Scripture says.
Paul means, I have more than a doctrine
someone taught me about Jesus.
I have more than a head knowledge of
Jesus Christ.
I have a revelation of who this man
is that I serve.
I know his nature.
I know who my Christ is.
And he abides in me.
That's what I preach.
And that revelation becomes the source of my
life, so that the very life that I
live is the life of Christ.
I live on his love, his glory, his
mercy, his long-suffering.
I live on it.
It's changed me.
It's my life.
It's what I live.
It's what I preach.
It's what gives me meaning in my life.
This revelation of Jesus Christ and his nature,
the express image of God, the fullness of
God that is in Jesus Christ.
Hallelujah.
You know, it's not enough to go about
saying, I gave my heart to Jesus.
Jesus lives in my heart.
That's fine, but you know who he is.
It's just a cliche if you don't.
It's just a meaningless word unless you can
say, Well, I know who Jesus is.
God is love, he's mercy, he's grace, he's
long-suffering, and he has a readiness to
forgive.
And one day he invested in his own
son all that he is, his own nature,
his own character, and he sent him to
this world in the form of a man,
and Jesus came to this earth to let
all mankind know that he loved them.
For God so loved the world that he
gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth
in him shall not perish but have everlasting
life.
Sinner, I'm telling you right now, I've said
this all my ministry, God's not mad at
you.
I don't care what you've done.
I don't care where you are.
I don't care if your back's slidding right
now.
God's not out to get you.
He's not out to bring you down.
He sees your struggle, he sees your cry,
and he's only a breath cry away.
He's only a heart cry away from you
right now.
He stands by the door knocking, seeking entrance
right now into your heart.
God is not mad at you.
If you'll understand that today, you'll begin to
see that you can have the glory of
God when you invite Jesus Christ into your
heart.
You bring into your very being.
He abides, he lives here as the fullness
of God.
He lives in you so that you don't
have to go for your grace and mercy
out somewhere.
The Lord said the word is nigh you
even in your mouth.
You don't have to wake him from the
dead.
You don't have to scream at him.
I've been in churches where everybody's screaming at
God, trying to get his attention.
Oh, I love loud praises to the Lord.
He said, let everything I breath praise the
Lord.
He said, make a loud noise unto the
Lord, the Bible says.
Loudness doesn't bother me, but screaming at God
to get his attention does bother me, because
that's unbelief.
He is nigh us.
The revelation of God's character, listen to me
closely, this whole thing can be abused.
The Bible makes it very clear.
In fact, Jude speaks of those who would
turn the grace or the love of God
into lasciviousness or as an excuse to sin.
They sin that grace may abound.
In other words, if God's mercy, and he
loves to give his mercy, if God loves
to express himself through forgiveness, then I'm going
to give him plenty of opportunity.
I'm going to sin and let him just
keep loving me and let the grace flow.
And what a testimony to the world.
I am an object.
All of this love that I am bringing
down from heaven, I'm going to sin that
grace may just flow and people can see
I'll be an example.
I'll be an example that you can sin
and God is everlasting love and as long
as you sin, his mercy is everlasting and
I'll be an example of his grace.
Paul said, no, no, no.
He said, that's not what it's all about.
That is despising the grace of God.
But those who despise the glory of God
are easily spotted.
You can see them.
In fact, Isaiah said of the Israelites who
provoke the eyes of his glory, listen, he
said, there are some that provoke the eyes
of his glory that show of their countenance
witnesses against them and they reveal their sin
to Sodom, they can't hide it.
I want to tell you something.
There are Christians, and I say this lovingly,
that hear the message of grace and they
grasp onto it.
This great love of God, oh, that's wonderful.
Now, isn't that good news?
Because I've got a problem in my life.
I'm an adult.
I'm in a situation that I just can't
let go.
I'm not convicted of it enough to let
go of it.
Oh, but it's so comforting to come to
Chimes Square Church this morning and hear about
how much I'm loved and how long-suffering
the Lord is.
So maybe next year at this time, after
the Lord's suffered with me long enough, I'll
let this go.
But I want to tell you something.
Your sin witnesses against you.
Whatever's in your heart is going to show
in your countenance.
It can't be hidden by a smile.
Now, countenance has to do with the way
you walk, your talk, your whole disposition, your
character.
Everything that you are is your countenance.
Even the rankest sinners realized who the disciples
were, that they'd been with Jesus.
How could they tell?
They didn't look like anybody else.
They'd gone around with a silly grin on
their face.
They weren't trying to cover anything.
It was so much so that the very
shadow of Peter, they just wanted to get
in the shadow of Peter because there was
something they recognized.
This man's been with Jesus.
I can tell when people have been with
Jesus.
There is a radius.
They may not even be smiling, but there's
something about them.
I'm not talking about auras.
I'm talking about a recognition in the Holy
Spirit that this person is right with God.
There's nothing hidden.
There's nothing secret.
There's an open face.
But somebody that's hiding something, somebody that will
not come to this love and say, Lord,
let Your love cleanse me.
I don't want to have to be beaten
down by the wrath of God to see
it.
Lord, I sit in Your love.
You have loved me through all this.
Now, Lord, I won't do despite Your love.
And you can tell the person that's hiding
something, even the sinner on the job can
tell, hey, something's not right with that one.
That Christian, something's not right.
Folks, I have walked into churches, large churches.
Believe me.
And I could tell the moment the pastor
walked out and sat on the stage, on
the pulpit, the Holy Spirit said, there's something
wrong here.
There's something wrong.
And as soon as he got up to
preach, I knew it because there was a
lightness.
Everyone who has hidden sin, there's a lightness.
There's not that wonderful spiritual mindedness.
You sit at the table and you can
tell the lightness.
Those who have it right with God, those
who have appropriated this glory and it's changing
their countenance.
They're changed every day.
They're becoming more and more like Jesus.
The world is becoming less and less attractive
to them.
Material things are losing their hold.
They're cleaving to the Lord.
And it changes you, brothers and sisters.
It changes you.
And oh, what a glory in a church
when the whole church is that way.
Hallelujah.
According to the Apostle Paul, Moses saw the
glory and the revelation in his heart so
filled him, it changed him.
Now, I honestly don't believe it was just
some physical emanation from his face, even though
he put a veil over it, because if
you read Hebrews, the Bible said it was
because their hearts were hardened.
They were so afraid of the righteousness that
this man had seen, the glory and the
revelation that was in his heart, and it
brought such peace.
And the rest of this man, it was
not just some bright emanation because if you
read one of the prophets also, it talks
about the horns.
Or rather, I don't know what the chapter
is.
It also talked about the horns in his
hands.
He had no physical horns.
There was a power that God had entrusted
in his hands.
This was something that had changed this man
so much.
All his people, his brother, his sister, everybody,
said this man has had some experience with
God.
He's gone beyond.
Folks, there is a place beyond the norm.
There's a place beyond where so many Christians
live.
It's a total commitment to walk with Jesus.
It's called the commitment, I give my life,
I give my all.
I'm going to seek His face till I
find Him.
Hallelujah.
Now folks, that glory abides in us now.
For God who commanded the light to shine
out of darkness has shined now into our
hearts to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face
or the person of Jesus Christ.
Did you get that?
You've read that but now God help you
understand.
For God who commanded the light to shine
out of darkness now has shined into our
hearts to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face,
that means the person, in the person of
Jesus Christ.
That when you receive Jesus Christ, you receive
into your life the very glory of Almighty
God.
All of His character, His personality that is
in Christ Jesus.
Jesus didn't come and leave His glory somewhere
else.
He brought His glory with Him.
And I'll tell you what, that glory in
you teaches you how.
Listen very clearly to the Scripture.
For the grace of God that bringeth salvation
has appeared to all men.
Now that grace of God is nothing more
than Jesus Christ.
He is the grace of God.
He is the love of God.
And He abides in the heart.
Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts
we should live soberly, righteously and godly in
this present world.
How do you learn to walk holy?
How do you learn to be sanctified?
Through the glory that abides in us.
He said, if you will allow me, through
my spirit I will teach you.
Teach you sanctification, glory.
We'll open up righteousness in your being.
Hallelujah.
And God is able to make all grace
abound toward you that you always having all
sufficiency in all things abound to every good
work.
I must hurry on to the final.
There are many effects but the final one
I want to discuss with you this morning.
One of the most important effects of seeing
the glory of God is a change in
our relationship to others.
A change.
Once you get this revelation of a loving
God who is the love of God in
Christ Jesus, once you get that, you cannot
continue in old ways of treating other people.
You can't do it.
You've got to have a change, the Bible
says.
Paul warns, if God has shown you how
tender and kind and loving He is, especially
to you, you'd better show it to others.
In fact, if you do not show the
love of God that He has shown you
to others, you misrepresent Him.
Now listen to what the Scripture says, Let
all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor
and evil speaking be put away from you
with all malice.
Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving.
Now this sounds like the nature of God,
doesn't it?
It sounds like the glory.
Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving
one another, even as God for Christ's sake
has forgiven you.
He said, you saw the glory, you know
what I am now.
You must express who I am to others.
Now God dealt very severely with Moses.
Even though he had this revelation, he at
one time misrepresented that glory before the people.
This is the second time he goes to
a rock, and in anger he smites that
rock as if to say, You stiff-necked
bunch of rebels.
And God doesn't take kindly.
That's one thing God's patience will not endure.
That once he shows you who he is,
his glorious kindness, and you've had it expressed
to you, and you've lived the joy of
it, and you turn right around, and you
become that man who was forgiven a great
debt because his master had love and compassion
and tenderness to him.
That's our Christ.
And you turn right around to a brother
or sister, and you hold bitterness, you hold
a grudge, you will not forgive, you will
not be kind-hearted to that person.
God said, You misrepresent who I am.
You've been given a touch of the glory,
you've seen it, you've touched my glory, and
now you've misrepresented who I am to the
world.
And folks, that's why you remember the time
some of you were here when God smoked
me right on this pulpit because I'd preached
a rather hard message, and I was laid
out, and God made it clear that we
are not to condemn the righteous or to
offer comfort to the wicked in their sins.
We're not to encourage people in their sins,
but we're not to rebuke the righteous.
Now, I've had somebody come to me and
say, Well, brother, didn't Paul say rebuke and
reprove?
But read the next verse, With all longsuffering,
with God's glory, with grace.
He said, With all authority, in grace.
Read it.
Reprove, rebuke, with all authority, and in longsuffering.
But once you have had that longsuffering offered
to you, and you will not show that
tenderness and mercy to others.
Now, this kept him out of the promised
land.
The most meek, godly man, One of the
most meekest, godliest men in the Old Testament
is kept out of the fullness.
He's not allowed to go into the promised
land because he misrepresented the glory that had
been revealed to him on that mount.
Now, listen to me, folks.
I know God dealt with me over the
years, and I have to be very careful
because I have a tendency, my nature is
to hammer.
God has to deal with me this all
the time.
But if you will not forgive, if you
keep holding your grudge, you'll never come into
his fullness, and you're going to be left
in the wilderness.
There's going to be trouble in your family.
Nothing's going to go right.
You're going to wonder, Why don't things come
in order in my family?
It's because there's a root of bitterness in
you.
There's something or someone you're not forgiving, and
you're misrepresenting who Christ is.
If you're on the job, and you have
a grudge against somebody, you don't talk to
somebody.
Somebody you don't even talk to.
You're misrepresenting Christ, who he is.
And that's one thing God said, I'll not
have patience with.
I am loving, I'm kind, but I give
you this loving reproof in long-suffering.
Here it is.
Take the testimony of Moses.
You will not ever come into my fullness
if you have this.
Now, folks, he says, Be kind and tender
-hearted, and that's all wrapped up in one
word called mercy.
Now, mercy is taken from a Latin root
word, misericordia.
In fact, mercy is taken from the word
misery.
And really, what it means, to take to
heart the misery of someone else with the
intention of giving them comfort and relief.
And it's tied up in two root words,
kindness is in two root words that mean
oracle and soft touch.
It's a soft word and a soft touch
when somebody's hurting.
He said, If you want, it's not enough
for you to see who I am, and
for you to take all of this blessing
of His forgiveness and love and enjoy it,
and have you healed your own soul, then
you look at another Christian, a brother, sister,
someone in your family, others, and you see
their misery.
Misery is taken from the word, or mercy
is taken right out of that word.
It is to take to heart that hurt,
take to heart that misery, and all you
have to do, according to the Scripture, is
to be His oracle of love, to represent
to that person who Jesus really is, as
if Christ Himself were there taking on that
misery and that pain and sharing it, and
it's a soft word.
It's not going to somebody that sins sin.
I've got a word from heaven for you,
brother.
You've got sin in your life.
Well, if that's so, He knows that.
And He would say, Don't deal with me
in anger unless you reduce me to nothing.
I'm already reduced.
I'm already down.
Don't put me down anymore.
Be ye kind, tenderhearted, even as Christ has
been tenderhearted and kind to you.
Hallelujah.
Compassion is being affected and touched by the
misery of others and determining to do something
about it.
Compassion is not bleeding.
You know, all those poor, poor people that
are suffering, oh, we've got enough words of
compassion.
That's not compassion.
Compassion by definition is being affected and touched
by the misery of others and intending, determining
to do something about it.
Hallelujah.
Will you stand?
Hallelujah.
Let me ask you.
You sat through this message and some of
you heard my previous message on the glory
of God.
How many can honestly say, I understand what
the glory of God is?
Raise your hand.
I understand what it is.
I get amused at so many people.
And I told you the story of one
man who said, Boy, we had some meeting
in our church last week.
I mean, people were dancing and falling under
the Spirit and the pastor didn't even get
a chance to preach.
Boy, the glory of God came down.
Well, that's not the glory of God.
That's camp meeting, but that's not the glory
of God.
The glory of God is a revelation.
And you know what I would like to
see for this church?
That every praise that goes up, every, all
the volume of worship and praise that goes
up to the Lord comes from knowing who
God is in Christ.
It's coming from a sense of security.
It's not trying to reach Him because He's
already here.
It's not crying out, Oh God, help me.
I'm sinking in despair.
It's a cry of faith and trust in
the Lord.
Yes, Lord, I'm going through a hard time,
but I know that my heart's for You.
You're not hurting me.
You're not down on me.
You're not going to let me go.
I'm safe in You, Lord.
You're going to send the Holy Ghost and
help me through my struggles.
And you're holding on by faith and you're
trusting and you're still growing, though you're still
struggling.
You're still growing in the knowledge of who
Jesus is.
Hallelujah.
That's the worship.
Say, Lord Jesus, I claim everything You've promised
me now.
You promised that the Holy Ghost, if I
ask, will come and abide in me and
the Holy Ghost will drive out sin out
of my life.
He'll show me the exceeding sinfulness of it.
He'll cause me to hate it.
And then by His power and His way,
He will drive out the lust of my
heart, the sins of my heart.
If I just turn to Him, go after
Him with all my heart.
Hallelujah.
I tell you what, you take the first
move toward God and He'll come running at
you.
He'll fall on your neck and kiss you
and restore you.
Some of you that are hearing me right
now, you need to be restored.
You've slipped away from His love.
Honestly, some of you feel that you just
can't make it, that God's not been with
you or that you have failed Him.
I want you to step out of your
seat and I want you to come and
stand right here.
Now, those that are in the annex, you
can come.
There are stairs on the same floor that
right into the auditorium.
There are stairs.
You come down those stairs.
Usher, if you will, show the people to
come out of their seats.
You come right out of your seat.
You say, Pastor David, I'd like you to
pray for me today.
And I do want to pray for you.
I want to pray that the Lord will
anchor and root you.
Paul said, this is the truth that will
give you roots and anchor you so that
the perilous times ahead, you'll not be shaken.
You will not be shaken.
Some of you know in your heart, you're
not right with God.
You say, Brother David, I don't walk with
Jesus.
I'm not walking close to Him.
I'm not saying you're a bad person.
I'm saying that you need Him.
I don't know how you could walk without
Him.
If you need that miracle, if you need
that touch, that soft touch of Jesus, that
loving hand of Christ, over an annex, just
turn and go to the back doors and
come right down the stairs.
Come down any aisle and I'll meet you
right here.
And up in the balcony, go to the
stairs on either side and come down and
then meet me right here.
And if you're here today, standing in this
congregation, you say, Brother David, I feel so
rejected and I feel so unloved.
I have not really experienced the love of
God like you're talking about, the love of
Jesus.
I want you to get out of your
seat and come and let Him love you
today.
Let Him touch you by His Spirit wherever
you are.
We're not just trying to build up numbers
at this altar.
As we sing, I want you to get
out of your seat and come and let
Jesus finish the work that He may have
already begun in you.
He's going to do a good work in
you this morning.
Amen.
You that have come forward, look this way
and for the whole audience, to all that
are gathered here this morning, there has to
come a time in your life when if
you are told by the Holy Ghost that
Jesus unconditionally loves you, no matter what you're
going through, no matter how you are striving,
no matter what your battle is, He is
not about to give up on you.
And He wants to bring a peace and
a joy to your heart this morning that
says, by Your grace, Lord, by the revelation
of who You are and all that You
told me to believe that You are, You're
going to deliver me.
You're going to bring peace to my heart.
And God always works on the premise of
peace.
And the true evidence of faith is rest.
You'll know when you truly believe the Lord
when your heart is at rest.
When there's peace that comes, that passes all
understanding.
My goodness, folks, the most saintly person in
this building this morning, think of the most
godly person you can that's in this building.
That person or those persons need as much
grace as you do.
They have nothing to offer the Lord.
No goodness in them.
It's the same grace that He offers to
you.
It's the same love.
The same keeping power.
All He asks of you is to lay
your sins at His feet and say, Lord
Jesus, I exchange my burden for Your love.
I exchange.
I cast all my care for You.
Why did God say to cast your care?
Because He cares for you.
He said cast.
Give it all to Me.
Why?
Because I care for you.
Can you get that in your mind right
now?
Say it right now.
Jesus, I know You care for me.
You know what I'm going through.
My pain, my struggles, my sins, my lust,
everything in my life.
You've always known and You still care.
And I bring it all to You and
I cast it on You.
I give You my sins.
I repent, Lord, of everything that's unlike You
that's in my heart.
I ask You to come now.
Open my mind and my spirit to see
and understand that You are love, that You
love me.
You've been tender to me.
You're forgiving to me.
And I receive that forgiveness.
I receive that love.
And I worship You for it.
I want you to just raise your hands
and just love Jesus for loving you right
now and forgiving you.
Lord, I thank You.
This marvelous love that You have, this grace
of God that passeth all my comprehension and
understanding, I give You thanks.
Congregation everywhere, end up in the annex, lift
up your hands.
The Bible said I would men everywhere lift
holy hands.
Come on, just thank Him.
Lord, I thank You for Your love this
morning.
I thank You You're not mad at me,
God.
You are not mad at me.
God, it is not in Your heart to
be mad at Your children.
We cast all our cares, all our sins
upon You, Lord, for You are sin-bearer.
All right, now, one last thing.
Look at me, please.
God is just and He can't lie.
If Jesus paid for all our sins, God
cannot demand payment twice.
He did it once and for all.
It's settled.
You can tell the devil, you can tell
the world, you can tell your own troubled
heart, my sins have been paid for by
the blood of Jesus Christ.
They've been paid for.
And I am cool.
Hallelujah.
Don't walk out expecting to be an angel.
There will be battles, there will be struggles,
but you say, Oh God, You helped me
to hate sin.
You helped me now that I will not
frustrate.
That means nullify the grace of God.
I won't go out and try to do
it myself.
I won't make You promises.
I'm not going to go out and try
to lick anything by myself and beat it
down.
I'm going to just trust, Lord, that You're
faithful.
The love that brought me here will keep
me when I go out.
Lord, keep this body.
Keep us by Your grace and Your power
because we love You with everything in our
hearts.