The Glory of God: For This We Were Made, Part 1

Examining and you really want to know what the glory of God in terms it is what he intends your life and mine and if you don't understand his glory, you don't understand how fearfully and we are made to reflect that the essential splendor that essential splendor of God's substantive nests and guards luminosity. We need to be bright lights in a dark world any type. The Gallant on social media to recognize the pain high dock that is in all well today as Christians we have height in the bright light of the glory of God.

Welcome back to let my people think this week on the iambs found that the late Ravi Zacharias looks at how we can understand the glory of God the glory of God means in a society that is failed with darkness is Ravi with part one of this message titled the glory of God the desk he remains talking about the glory of God is very hard in the society as dark as this two days ago I was in Washington speaking for my good friend Kirk Cameron and revive us to their other fine speakers there are like Ben Carson, John Erickson, Todd and a few others, but the one sentence that really almost made it impossible for me to speak is given by a wonderful lady called Jennifer Russia. She was sitting to my right. Her husband had ushered her in, but she became blind from when she was 15 completed and she gave one line that made me nearly lose it. I couldn't imagine what it meant for her to say that she said when you wake up every day in the dark and when she said that that's all I needed to hear to understand the plight of a person who opens their eyes but only don't see anything. All they see is darkness, a grim unyielding darkness and how she lived like that just to let you know I've had a UI issues over the last couple of years with the dry eye syndrome, and so on.

And sometimes I wake up in the morning and I don't know what I'm going to have that shooting pain all day or whether you stick and if I do have access my three or four in the afternoon and that I just keep watering all the time and it's very very discomforting.

But that slight discomfort makes such a mark in your life to make you worry about just the next morning, imagine knowing that no matter how long you live in this earth are going to see darkness and nothing more. That was a moving, moving moment, but then she went on to say something like this. She said, but I console myself with the fact that this is only temporary. I'm in this world for a short journey in eternity, I will see as brightly as possible, especially in the presence of the bright, very bright and luminous son of God. This is a short journey, but in this short journey. I want to talk to you a little bit about how we put the bright light of the glory of God, for which we were made to see if you talk about the glory of God. It is not just that you're talking about something transcendent and distant and essential and defining, but an understanding that essential nature of Dr. luminosity of God and the weightlessness of God meaning is nothing hollow about God. The something substantive that's what we get from the Hebrew couple commode literally means weight and that's why CS Lewis takes off on putting in the title. The weight of glory. He takes the Hebrew word cardboard and so when the glory departed. It was a couple or what we would say in the Anglicized pronunciation Ichabod that the substance has gone from the people but that luminosity is what we often think about and that comes from the Greek dock set the brightness the brilliance and when you take a precious jewel. Oftentimes the jeweler will not just put it down on a glass pane and show it to you. He will take out a box with a black velvet background or a dark blue background and put that diamond on top of that background and then shine the light on it so the radiance coming from outside and the background that is dark from behind the luminosity in every facet of this diamond shines brilliantly and so I want to talk to a little bit about this luminosity of God. What does it mean, why does Isaiah cover his eyes.

Why does God say to Moses, you cannot see my face and still live and tell them to get behind a rock and you will see the aftereffects of my presence, which is what it literally means not so much my back but as I have bust through and have been there, you will know that I have been there. What kind of a background I'll be living in many years ago. Neil postman wrote a book in the mid-1980s, amusing ourselves to death. And in that book.

He began with this introduction what George Orwell feared with those who would ban books. What Aldous Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book because that would be no one who wanted to read one or both feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism, or both feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared that the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy 4G in the centrifugal bumble puppy as Huxley remarked in brave New World revisited the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for destruction in 1984 to said people are controlled by inflicting pain. In brave New World there controlled by inflicting pleasure.

In short, Orwell feared that what we hate would drilling us.

Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us and goes in my postman goes on to say that his book about the possibility that Huxley not Orwell was right that the pleasure syndrome would take over and create a kind of a darkness in the pursuit of exhilaration ecstasy.

We would actually become whole and trivial and empty people to the most sacred things of life, sexuality, and life itself have been trivialized and so the entertainment is a combination of killing and perversion.

That's what entertains us know the substance of the real has gone and the wholeness of the trivial has become real. That's what we are battling in our time, but that's why the younger ones are struggling even to want to live because by the time they are 12 and 13 and 14.

They have felt and tasted and seen that which was only reserved for mature years they've not tasted seen it experienced it, and they end up saying I have nothing left to look forward to. And when you have nothing left to look forward to. You want to make an exit and leave hollow existence not just the young. Some of the loneliest people I've met are those who have experienced it most, or have been able to afford it. The most is like being surrounded by all the wealth in the world and saying I'm bored the glory of God has a lot to say about this in the book of Ezekiel we have a remarkable story and I would like to just read a few verses to you. Ezekiel was a 30-year-old man in captivity. Him the glory of God.

Why it gone, because they thought Jerusalem would never be destroyed Jerusalem is that sacred city when you take even those who once lived in Jerusalem and were evicted from their you come back with them to Jerusalem and their walking down the cobblestone. It will look at you and tell you there is no expression that I can give to you that fully explains what it means for me to walk in Jerusalem again that city that was intended to be the city of peace in a place that would symbolize the eternal city that is now become a city of warfare and constant intentions to Jerusalem as God. He is now in captivity is a 30-year-old young man, God pours into him physically and emotionally what his calling was going to be like if you just read the first 10 chapters you will see exactly what that means. The physical pain, the loss of his wife. All of these tragedies that were taking place and having the dreams that they would be dragged away and taken to a place where they did not want to go but then he comes to chapter 10 that I want you to hear this. It's very important that you hear carefully what it is he saying I looked and I saw the likeness of a throne of sapphire above the expanse that was over the heads of the cherubim, the Lord said to the man clothed in linen, going among the wheels beneath the cherubim.

Fill your hands with burning coals from among the cherubim and scatter them over the city and as I watched T Winton, now the cherubim was standing on the south side of the Temple and the man Winton and the cloud filled the inner court, then the glory of the Lord rose above the cherubim and moved to the threshold of the temple, the cloud filled the temple and the court was full of the radiance of the glory of the Lord. The sound of the wings of the cherubim could be heard as far away as the out-of-court, like the voice of Almighty God. When he speaks that's the line I want you to take note of God is moving away from his people. He's departing from them almost like in the New Testament, Jesus said, you know, henceforth you shall see my face no more, until you shall learn to say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. It is amazing to me that even when despair comes, God always puts up, there to say unto he's never really abandoning his people are moving away from you. Ghost of the threshold. He pauses, he doesn't really want to leave but it betrayed him again and again and again repeatedly now over a thousand years of repeated betrayal. Isaiah talked about it. Daniel talks about it. Ezekiel talks about it. Jeremiah talks about it and now as this departure is taking place. He pauses and then he departs from the Eastern gate. And if you're into prophecy. You will see how fascinating the rest of it is, but when you move towards the end of the book in chapter 43 it says this then the man brought me to the great gate facing these. This is way they last seen them begin to depart and I saw the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east. His voice was like the roar of rushing waters and the land was radiant with his glory.

If you notice what happened there. Ezekiel 43 you go to Exodus 3 Exodus 33 similar things happen Moses in the wilderness and he sees a bush burning in the bush is not being extinguished and he walks over to us a bush in the voice of God comes from the bush to speak to him, Moses poses 33 when he says look I don't want to go. Sarah mentioned that this morning. I don't want to go without the assurance that your minima with me and I want you to show me your glory is a very audacious prayer from Moses is all right. You're going to see my glory.

Jenna going to see my face. You will see the aftereffects of my presence and God speaks to him that you come to the New Testament. You have these three disciples going right to the top of the mountain and they are not sure what they're going to see it comes immediately after Jesus says you know some of them still alive going to see the kingdom of God coming in glory. People say what are the mean of the very next verse begins by telling us that he took three of them up to the Mount of Transfiguration and ready. Tasted three of them up to the Mount of Transfiguration at Thomas & struggled with me. They will remember when we were in Israel lay the year last year year before.

I told him I wanted to see this place. I know many of you been there, but that to me was the most beautiful spot I'd ever wanted to be in Mark he was with me years ago and read go up that Mount of Transfiguration.

It's so indenting, so restful, so client and your mind begins to wonder about what had gone on their the rest of the disciples are asleep at the bottom of the mountain.

There than far in the distance. The other followers. These three boys are brought up to the front. James and when they come up to the front. The Bible says the body of Jesus began to glow with the whitest white that the human eye could see just the whitest white that the human eye could see, but the eye could not contain it. Therefore, prostrate for the fascinating thing to me is that to men for whom God was the undertaker Moses and Elijah God buried them. The deadline just as took off on Jerry Sophia got married Moses a sort of unnatural departures from this world. He brings them back onto the Mount.

I would've thought Peter and oversee the Moses will play the boat.

What a thrill to see Elijah that great profit no.

They are blinded with the transfigured body of Jesus. They were seeing the kingdom as had not been vouchsafed to any other high, we had Col. James Dutton here one year. Many of you remember he was one of the pilots for the space missions in the land the plane back safely when they return. He took pictures right from the spaceship and he was listening to one of my sermons when in space.

Who is God, so we took that CD put it in a frame along with a flag from indemnified from the United States framed it came with one other astronaut door officer presented to us and James Dutton said to me said you know out there thousands of miles away and you're looking at this tiny speck we call home. He said the grander was on explainable the increase credible vastness of the universe that we live in, and we live in this tiny little speck we call he said I was so overwhelmed that I would look out of that spaceship and see how majestic is your name or Lord's life.

The astronaut in 1968 on Christmas eve could go nowhere else except to the Scriptures and the one from the dark side of the moon and saw both rise over the horizon in that brilliant combination of blue-and-white garlanded by the glistening light of the sun against the black void of space. The only thing that came to the mind was in the beginning God only God was big enough to capture this awe-inspiring reality glory of God. And when the glory of God departed. What happened, Ichabod was writ large. Eli was an old man and unfortunately had messed up with his voice and two boys were killed in the battle and the messenger comes and says I got bad news for you.

Your two boys have been killed then this is the Ark of the covenant is been taken from our midst, which signified the presence of God and his daughter-in-law was about to give birth and his daughter-in-law set on going to call my son Ichabod is the glory of God departed Nola substance no more light normal presence. These three realities is what glory actually signifies and you hear the voice of God where he is present where the glory of God dwells. They had the voice of God's heart. That's why in Ezekiel 43, seven here. His voice was like the sound of many waters. What I want to talk to you about is often the Transfiguration experience when they go back, Peter talks about it as an apologist. He says we are not following cunningly devised fables, but we were eye witnesses to his Majesty. We are not following cunningly devised fables, but we were eyewitnesses to his Majesty as the light shining in a dark place and you would do well to pay heed to it and then he says this but now we have the word of the prophets made more certain, more dramatically certain than just the voice of God in a display of glory is the word of God that carries the narrative of what he intends for you and me. So if you really want to know what the glory of God intends. It is what he intends in your life and mine and if you don't understand is glory. You don't understand how fearfully and wonderfully. We are really me. We are made to reflect that the essentials splendor that essentials splendor of God's substantive nests and God's luminosity. We need to be bright lights in a dark world. Why does the glory depart our race through this very quickly. The glory departs number one because there was no internalization of the truth. Truth is never intended to be a mere externality.

Truth is intended to be internalized. It has to be that which comes from within you, not just that which comes from outside you that's really what happens at conversion when you hire new newborn when you and I have that new birth and the presence of God comes in lives within us. The divine imperative takes over EA may EA nay that voice that comes from within. And when that voice gets garbled. It is the word to which you go to find the clarity once again how intended us to live in this dark world today go anywhere but here to find out what God's will is of how we should live. Hence the darkness we are as confused of culture as I have ever seen 45 years of ministry. There are no answers out there. In fact there only questions of the questions of the question and when you see a person from whose eyes you see the brightness of God's presence and from whose words you hear the substantive nests of what life is all about.

You understand why knowing Christ brings that brilliant light in your eyes. We were listening to Jack and Shawna last night.

He saw something in her eyes that he never seen anywhere else. He saw that beauty so that brilliant, why in heaven's name are you looking so happy. What makes you shine like this, you know, there are two great soccer players in our time amongst many others. One is Lionel Messi from Argentina and the other is Cristiano Ronaldo from Portugal and there always at each other as to who's number one in whose number two and Rinaldo was being interviewed by the media, and he made the comment that he believed God would send them into the world so that people could learn how to play soccer and show how soccer ought to be played. So when he finished that statement. Another interview went to Lionel Messi and so what you think of Rinaldo statement that God sent them into the world in order to teach people how to play soccer, Messi said, I honestly tell you I don't member sending three have this extraordinary opinion of how great we are, and athletes. I suppose it goes with that kind of ability to be braggarts as well. Very few people brag as much as an athlete does, of course, when you can pitch a no-hitter.

You feel pretty important when you can hit a grand slam. You feel you have really made a big millions of what's to do that. But in the body begins to get frail little can throw like that no longer can hit like that and then you wonder where is the glory wherein lies the glory, the people I have seen who have that glory. Most of those who have really lived with the internal imperatives of how God wants you to live. I'll tell you the truth, and I'm not making this many a time I wish to myself I can send on. I paid my dues, 45 years millions of miles.

I can tell you what every aircraft looks like, feels like and who does the best service and who doesn't do very good service who makes the worst team I can tell you all of that is only one thing that keeps me going. That is the firm belief that more than ever. This gospel is the only shining light against the dark background, confused, and Mr. we have to empty length programmed by but if you would like to patch up the complete copy of this net states: if that 1-800-448-6766.

Be sure to ask that the title the glory of God and faith. We were made. He can also order online@ancien.lyg or in Canada at that website is all is that I am.ca that you will find numerous resources to 18 in your sets for tree including past Broca's articles in a wide selection of Becks from Robbie and other ancien speak case. It's also a great way to keep up on the schedules at the global on the IM team, upcoming events, and see the latest ministry initiative hi friends, my name is Carson right now are, and I'm excited to share about our CIM connect with you our CIM connect is the online home for the global our CIM family when new members join, they repeatedly say they are excited to meet like-minded people enjoy great conversations and grow in their faith, but as one regular member recently shared with the new member. I think you'll find connect offers you more than you could have ever asked for. For instance, RCM connect is the only way that anyone from anywhere in the world can ask nearly all of the global RZ. I am speaking team. Their hardest and most heartfelt questions about Christianity and evangelism. We have over 30 members of our team committed to answering your questions for a week at a time throughout the year and you can ask them questions from your home, at work, lying on the subway we are bringing our team to you wherever you are.

Through our CIM connect and that you know that it is completely free you given so much to our CIM over the years building this community is our gift to you signing up is easy and should take less than a minute. Go to our CIM connect.org today. Sign up and introduce yourself that RZ IM connect.org will see you soon suffering God silence the existence of truth.

Those are just a few of the topics covered RZ. I am just thinking magazine editor Danielle direct and often encouraged by letters we receive guarding just thinking you never know what one Senate in the life of an individual got a number of letters from those who are outside of Christianity that they found something just thinking and sent I want to read more. Sign up for email delivery of just thinking RZ IM.org.

Dan has the label team and speak his with offices around the wild and training men and women to defend the power and coherence of the gospel of Jesus Christ is a fundamental part of the nation of the IM a high-pitched and probably be to engage in honest conversations with faith. You have honest questions about the Christian faith.

For more information about our ministry and how you can partner with us, be sure to visit our website at web address again is on the IM.LYG lies NIM to VA that in Canada that my people think is a listener supported radio ministry and is managed by the IM line for 10