In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of preaching about God's glory rather than focusing on principles and rules. He criticizes the tendency of pastors to manipulate their congregations with moralistic teachings driven by fear. The speaker believes that only those who truly understand and appreciate the glory of God can lead others to a transformed life. He references Romans 3:23 to highlight the fact that all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory, emphasizing the need for obedience to God's word.

Well, it's a great privilege for me to be here this afternoon with you. And it is such a great privilege, such a great privilege. And everyone that is here is here by the good providence of God. We are so often we measure our successes in the things we do by people and by things. And that is the very purpose for which this conference is given, to destroy such demonic thoughts. Successes are seen in obedience to the will of God. Successes are seen in our devotion to Christ and our love for a person and our love for a person far exceeds in kingdom weight. Even our own petty obedience. We're going to learn, hopefully this weekend, that this is not just about keeping rules. This is not just about having power on our lives. This is not just about being able to go down a devotional checklist. But this is a heart. That returns love to God because it has, of course, been loved. That's the purpose of this conference. He has sent me here this week. Because I'm the best one he could send for this reason. I know what you're probably thinking. My goodness, what arrogance. Let me finish. I have walked with the Lord for 22 years. As I look in the mirror of God's word, I do not see a great deal of success on my part. I do not see a tremendous amount of growth in my life. I do not see a brilliant intellect burning like the sun, nor do I see devotion that cannot be put out. But I see in 22 years. More and more of a very, very weak man. A man who would do well to hide many of his thoughts before other men because men are not as quiet, as merciful as God. I see a man weak. A man who struggles with the rules. A man not as devoted as he ought to be. But I see and have seen in the last 22 years of my life, a God that is great, that goes beyond all my weaknesses and all my failure. My failure as a minister, my failure as a husband, my failure as a father, my failure as a friend. Most importantly, my failure as a son of God. In all that I look in my life, I see very little in which to glory. But when I look at God's work on my behalf, I see much to glory in. We are a people who, for some reason, we have not learned very much from Israel. We seem to be a people who always desires to glory in men. And we, as ministers, should be the first to cut that weed before it can grow. How many of us grew up under ministries where they might not have communicated it directly, but it was communicated to us as young men? If you can reach the spiritual level unto which I have reached, God will use you. We would look at men as younger men, and we would think, what is the key in their life? What is the secret? What is the thing they're doing I'm not doing that makes them so great? All of that is fleshly, earthly, and demonic. In this short introduction that I'm giving, I want you to understand something, something that most of you probably know better than I. There never has been, nor will there ever be, a great man of God. And if you use that terminology, I already understand that there's something terribly wrong with your theology. There has never been a great man of God, just weak, pitiful, faithless, blind men of a great and merciful God. But when we begin to address this seriously, and we begin to see our own weakness, and we begin to see His power, and His faithfulness, and His covenant keeping, then we can be somewhat usable in the kingdom, in the kingdom. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, I come before You today because I desperately need You. Lord, men have gathered here by Your good providence to hear a word, to be encouraged. And Lord, who am I? You know better than anyone, Lord, that if ability were what measured our rank, Lord, I should be seated and someone else should be standing in my place. But Father, also by Your good providence, You've placed me here. You know me. You know me, Lord. And that brings me such great joy. Would You help us again? Would You help us again? And oh Lord, if You did, I wouldn't count it down to Your faithfulness because You don't even owe it to me to help me. You've already been faithful and You'll be faithful even if You don't help me. But I ask You, Lord, to be gracious to me. To be gracious to us. Lord, that in this conference, in these few days, we might have an encounter with You. A lasting, enduring work. Lord, if our fruit is fruit that remains, then how much more would a true work of God remain in our lives? Lord, not something that blows out like a candle, but something that burns like a fire, roars like a wave, moves like gravity, Lord. Oh God, work in our lives, work in our hearts. And Lord, if it would please You to bring revival even now before a sermon was preached, then no one would have the opportunity to glory in men. Oh God, I love You, Lord. I love You so much for what You've done for me. It is true, Lord. It's not the noble that You call. It's not the rich. It's not the strong. And I thank You. For if it had been any other way, I would have no place to go. Lord, thank You. In Jesus' name, Amen. Well, let's, I'm going to commit the sin of all sins. I'm not exactly going to preach an expository message. It's going to be kind of topical, so please don't tell my preaching professor. Go to Isaiah for a moment, to Isaiah chapter 43. This message hopefully will be somewhat in way of introduction to the rest of what we will hopefully be doing this week. Chapter 43, verse 6. I will say to the north, give up. And to the south, keep not back. Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth. Even everyone that is called by my name, for I have created him for my glory. I have formed him, yea, I have made him. Bring forth the blind people that have eyes and the deaf that have ears. It's an amazing statement of the redemption of God towards His people. His mighty working on their behalf. We see in them immediately that there is nothing, nothing. There is no strength. There is no power. They cannot pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. They cannot redeem themselves. They are blind. They are deaf. They are poor. They are captive. But then mighty Yahweh stands up the corner of the earth and He says, give up. Bring my people up. I will do a work. I'll raise my right hand and swear by my own name. I will gather forth the people and I will do it. Contemporary Christianity would tell us, I would do it for them. But the Bible would tell us that God would do it for God. He would do it for God. As a matter of fact, everything God has ever done, He has done for Himself. For His own glory and for His own name. I am aware that in the last few years, Dr. Piper has been traveling around preaching and about this sort of thing. Bringing forth Jonathan Edwards and the such. But I think he would appreciate, I know he would appreciate this statement I am going to make. All this stuff about the glory of God did not begin with John Piper. And it did not begin with Jonathan Edwards. It did not even begin with Isaiah. It began where everything begins. And that is the very heart and mind and providence of God. God has always been about His glory. And called out, redeemed, Spirit-filled believers with knowledge of Scripture. Have always been aware that God has done everything God has ever done for the sake of His own name. For the love of His own person. For His own glory. And everyone who has ever been a true believer filled by the Holy Spirit has said, It is good. It is good. It is only the rebel. It is only the unconverted God-hater that has trouble with God doing everything for God. Only they have trouble with living for God other than living for themselves. Now, I want us to look at a few things here by way of introduction. First of all, in verse 7 he says, For I have created Him for my glory. I have formed Him. Yea, I have made Him. For my own glory. In so many places, especially in the book of Isaiah. In Ezekiel, also when it speaks about the returning of Israel. It's always saying this, Israel, I did not do this for you. My motivation was my own name. I did it for my own namesake. Now, let's think for a moment, first of all. Let's go through several different things. First of all, we use so many terms in scripture. And we read terms and we preach terms. But oftentimes we don't take enough time to define what those terms are. What those terms are. I'll give you an example. When I was a young man and hearing a sermon on walking in the power of the Holy Spirit. Walking with the Spirit. Walking in step with the Spirit. The man preached for an hour and a half quite eloquently. And he kept telling me that I needed to walk in step with the Spirit. But he never told me what it meant. And as a young naive Christian, I walked up to him and said, Sir, it was a wonderful message and everything. And I really want to walk in the Spirit. But what does it mean? He spent the next 20 minutes not telling me what it meant. You see, we get so mad at the postmodern world who says words no longer have meaning. But we also have to take heart to what we're saying. It's not enough just to say the glory of God. Or we must glorify God. Or do everything for the glory of God. What are we saying? Well, we should have taken a simpler theme. Because when one begins to speak about the glory of God, it's just so big that you can say so many different things. It's like holding up a diamond. You say, well, it shines on this side. Yes, but the shine on the other side is just as bright. And did you see this reflection over here? It looks completely different than the reflection on the other side. You look at the thing. A small thing. Made in the crust of the earth. You turn it to the light. But still you can't grasp all its beauty. Then what are we going to do about the glory of God? How are we going to talk about that? So whatever I talk about today will be a child speaking to children. Whatever I say today will not even begin to enter the foothills of the mountain. The word glory, as we're all familiar with, well, it means weight. It means heavy. That's what it means. Something is heavy. And we use that terminology also in English. We say, well, his argument had weight. And we say that, well, gold is a very expensive thing. The thing about it is it's heavy. When something is superficial or not that worthy, we'll say it's a light thing, a superficial matter. But when we say something has great importance, it has great weight. This is a weighty matter to speak about the glory of God. So the glory of God means the weight of God. The worth of God. And from where does that worth come? From his very person. It is almost impossible to separate the glory of God from the attributes of God. God's glory is who he is. He's not like a frail man or a flawed creature that must dress itself with so many things, adorn itself with so many jewels in order to enhance its beauty or enhance its worth. God simply is worthy because of who he is. And when we talk about God's glory, we're talking about his excellencies. When we speak about his excellencies, we're talking about the attributes of his person. Now, let me stop here for a moment. I can tell you all day long that you need to be motivated by the glory of God and that you need to do everything you do for the glory of God. And you'll say a hearty amen. Now, here's the question. But how? We all know we should do that. And we all mourn because we don't do that enough. But how do we make ourselves do that? I just don't want to talk about the glory of God this week and say we all need to do it and then leave you right where you started. I know I'm supposed to do this. The problem is how? Well, the motivation to be motivated by the glory of God is going to come from a most unlikely place in contemporary American Christendom. You're going to get the motivation to be motivated by the glory of God from theology. And no place else from theology. We live in a culture that basically says this. I don't want none of that doctrine stuff. I don't want none of that theology. I just want Jesus. Well, theology comes from two Greek words, as you know, theos and logos. Theos being God, logos being a word or discourse. So when you say I want Jesus, but I don't want any of that theology stuff, you're saying I want the benefits of the redemptive work of Christ, but I don't want a discourse about God. I want a ticket to heaven. And that's why on many church signs, that's what Jesus is called. A ticket to heaven. I love my wife. You say, boy, this man is just rambling on. No, I'm going to pull it all together in a moment. I love my wife, but I love her now more than when I first saw her. When I first saw her, she was younger. She didn't have any lines of wisdom on her face. But I love her more now. And why do I love her more now? Because I know more of her now. I have seen more of who she is, the characteristics and attributes of her life. Call forth from me a devotion and a desire and a love. And it's the same way with the Lord. You can sit there all the time, go to every kind of meeting in the world, acquire the fire and all this other stuff that people go to. And it's just like going to a football rally. You get psyched up for about two weeks and then you're just back to normal. It just doesn't work that way in the Christian life. Although God can come and does sometimes bring revival, and it's almost like He jumps us light years spiritually by the work of the Spirit in our lives, by and large, you are going to grow to live for the glory of God as you grow to understand who God is in His person and His attributes. I would suggest to you that a pastor, a man of God, a preacher, anyone, male or female, who would desire to grow in a life besought with God should not study the attributes for a few weeks, should not study the attributes for a few years, but should spend their entire life making it a common practice, almost daily if possible, to study the attributes of God and meditate upon them. Because the more you understand who God is, the more you will see His glory and the more you will be motivated to live for that glory with every breath and every beat of your heart. And so where shall it begin? With a conference? Possibly. You can be with this conference motivated, but motivated to do the right thing, to go home and do this, dedicate yourself to studying the attributes of God. Make it a life practice. Make it a life practice. Now, there is a real sense in which the glory of God refers simply to the attributes of God, His excellencies, His perfections, and something that's left out in theology too much, His beauties. Now, notice I didn't say excellency, perfection, and beauty, but I used a little Hebrew technique here. I made everything plural. When the Jew wants to say a small body of water, he says water. When he's talking about a lot of water, he says waters. And so when we speak about the attributes of God, we're talking about not His excellence, but His excellencies, His beauties, His perfections, and the only way you're going to grow is to give yourself wholly to understanding these things. What's the greatest need in the church of Jesus Christ today in America? Preaching, passionate preaching on the attributes of God so that people might see His glory. But that's hard work done with the boots on. It's much easier for a pastor or a preacher to go down to the local bookstore and find a quirky little tune of a sermon outline. It's also much easier to manipulate your people and put them into bondage and condemnation by forcing them into a moralistic lifestyle driven by fear rather than being promoted to glory by the very glory of God. Any fool can manipulate a people with rules, but only a man who knows the glory of God can lead people to the glory of God and cause their lives to be transformed by that glory. So this is hard work, gentlemen. Now, in a way again of introduction, I want to get back into this text, but there are certain things that just must be said to bring this whole thing into focus. If I were to take every sermon you've ever preached, every sermon you've ever preached to your people, and I were to begin to categorize these sermons, how many of those sermons would be filled with principles, laws, rules, things that ought to be done, ways they ought to be done, and how many of those sermons, how many, what percentage of sermons would be about God, His glory, His works, His attributes, His beauties, His perfections? Now, we live in an antinomian country. We live in a world that knows nothing about law. We live in a world, in a Christendom that thinks it knows Christ, but has no sense of His law. Don't think I'm going there. But what I am trying to tell you is, law and principles and wisdom and guidelines and studies and everything else, they are simply not enough. It must be the glory of God. Now, we'll go from here to a statement made by Martin Lloyd-Jones when asked about the glory of God. He said, the glory of God refers to the manifest excellence of God. It's not just His glory over there, but when He manifests His excellence to His people and even at times to the world itself, even to His enemies, He will manifest His excellence. And that manifest excellence of God will do more in the life of a believer than a million sermons on principles. We are to be teaching wisdom. We are to be teaching law. We are to be teaching all the precepts and commands of our Lord. But we need to realize something. Our people need to feed upon the very person of God and His glory. Their hearts need to be set afire. You know, you can follow some seminars and get all excited about the rules and the things that they give you and the ways in which you can learn to live. You can get all excited about that, but you'll only be excited about it for a while. Let me give you another illustration. Heaven, it's eternal. Now, think about that for a moment. Just think about that. What on earth are we going to be doing in heaven? Well, very little of what we do on earth we're going to be doing in heaven. But what will we be doing? You know, southern gospel music tells us about streets of gold and gates of pearls and things we're going to walk down and all the glory and a mansion on a hilltop and all this other stuff. How long will that type of glory last until we become bored and just swing on the gates of pearl? Bored out of our mind like a little boy whose father won't come home. I mean, how long can that stuff last? I mean, even an archangel, the most splendid in glory is a finite creature. So how long is that going to last? I mean, I can only look at that face so long and pretty soon I'm going to be looking at other faces. If eternity is long enough, I'm going to run out of faces. If I study every gem in that wall that they sing about, sooner or later, I'm going to run out of gems. What's going to keep me from becoming almost insanely bored in glory is that in glory there is one who is infinite. People ask me all the time, Brother Paul, when I get to heaven, will I know everything? No, you'll know a lot, but you won't know everything. Well, what do you mean? Even in glory, as a glorified creature, you will be a finite creature. Then what will I be doing in heaven? Chasing down the knowledge of God in the face of Christ. That's what you'll be doing. And you see, it comes down to this type of glory that is so great it cannot be revealed in a million life ages of the earth. Let's suppose, just for a moment now, please don't say I'm saying this because I'm not saying this even though I am. It's an illustration, okay? Let's say that there are days and nights in heaven. Let's just say that. And that they last 10,000 years each. You walk into heaven the first day and what do you see? The glory of God. You have to be supernaturally transformed, not just to make you sinless. You have to be supernaturally transformed because if you were not supernaturally strengthened, the mere beauty of a glimpse of God would kill you. And you will see the glory of God as though you have never seen it before and you will fall down in such rapture and such joy and worship. Then you go to bed. Get up the next morning and what do you see? You see an even greater measure and revelation of the glory of God that so surpasses what you saw the first day that if you were not supernaturally strengthened, it would drive you mad and you were thrown down into absolute rapture. Then you go to bed. That's eternity. And it is only God It is only God. It is not something you're doing for God. It is not a ministry for God. It is not your obedience for God. It is just God. And if you get your glory, if you get your joy, if you get your life out of any other thing than God, you're an idolater. You're an idolater. A while back, a young man wrote me, I have the gift of mercy. You're going to see how in just a moment. A young man from seminary wrote me. He said, I am so ignorant of the things of God and I am so unholy and unrighteous and I'm so miserable. Brother Paul, what do I do? I wrote him back and I said, young man, you are much more ignorant and much more unholy than you now know. Signed, Brother Paul. And he wrote me back like, Brother Paul, you've taken an axe and driven it into the heart of a dying man. I said, yes, and I hope I kill him. But he said, what are you trying to say? I said, young man, I'm trying to say this. I know you. You're probably more spiritual and more devoted than I am, but I am happier than you. And he said, why? I said, your joy comes from everything you're able to do for God. If you're able to do something for God one day, you're happy. If you have your quiet time, if you pray like you're supposed to and if you read the Word and if you witness and you don't watch too much television and you don't do this and you don't do that, you feel really happy when you go to bed. But on those days when you don't perform as you should, you are absolutely miserable. And young man, you're an idolater. He said, how can you say that? I said, because your joy is not coming from what God has done for you and the finished work of Christ. Your joy is coming from what you can do for God. And that's why I'm happier than you are. Because for the last 22 years, God has literally destroyed all my hope and self. And I am cast upon Christ and His glory. And when we speak about the glory of God and God doing everything for His own glory, people say, well, I don't think that's a proper motivation. Well, let's look at something. If God did not do, as He says here in this text, for His own glory, the things that He does, then why would He do them? Could you tell me? If God does not act for His own glory, for the sake of His own name, then where is He to get His motivation to do anything? Is He going to find it in you? Is He going to find it in the world of men? Is He going to find it in angels? For they're not even clean in themselves before Him. Where is God to find His motivation? Looking at you, the only motivation He should have is one of condemnation and destruction. The only thing a man could ever motivate God to do would be to destroy Him. So if God did not save us for His own glory, there would be no salvation because there's no other motivation. Why would God create a world so beneath Him? Do you ever think about that? He could have made something a lot prettier than this. He has. Everything God has ever done, He has done for His own glory. Now, we're getting to the focal point here of what I want to teach you as an introduction about the glory of God. When I teach on this in more liberal circles, people are offended. What do you mean? God does everything because of His love for His own name? God does everything that His excellencies might be manifested? I say, yes. They say, well, that's not right. I say, no, that's not right for you to do that. But it is right for God to do that. Isn't it amazing that man says it's not right for God to do that, but He only says it to make room for Him to be able to do that? Now, what is this thing about God doing everything to manifest His glory so that He might be worshipped? How is that fair? How is that right? Well, first of all, you need to look at something. If God did anything for any other reason other than Himself, He would be an idolater. Are we not commanded? Is it not told to us over and over, not only in the old covenant, but the new, that we're not to have anyone before God, that we're not to have anyone before Him or above Him? Then how is it that contemporary Christianity actually thinks that man should be above God, that God should do everything for man, for man's glory, for man's sake? Why should we think these things? God does everything He does for His own glory simply because He is God. And the buck really does stop there. Someone says, well, that's not very loving. How can God do everything He does for His own glory and yet proclaim that He is loving? Well, let me give you an illustration. Let's say that after this conference or this afternoon, you're all going out the door and I'm standing there in the back and when you walk out, I say, hey, brother, come here for a moment. And you walk over there. Yes, brother Paul. I go, I want to give you something. And I pull out a stick of Wrigley Spearmint gum and I give it to you. Now, what should your reaction be? Well, let's say your reaction goes something like this. Brother Paul, thank you. And you run out the doors. You go to all the other pastors. Look at this. Brother Paul, he gave me a piece of Wrigley Spearmint gum. You run to the TV channel. You begin to talk to them. You come out on the six o'clock news. You go to the newspaper. Thirty years from now, you're sitting in an easy chair with your grandchildren or your great-grandchildren around you. And there's a big picture of me behind the chair. And they say, grandpa, who is that? That's brother Paul. Why is he up there? Because one time he gave me a piece of Wrigley Spearmint gum. Absolute, it's ludicrous. It's a ridiculous response. But what if you were dying? You were dying. You had no hope. You needed a heart transplant. And I laid down my life and gave you my healthy heart. Then would that response be somewhat more appropriate? Yes. Grandpa, who's that in that picture? Child, you wouldn't even be here today. If it wasn't for that man in that picture. Now, what I'm trying to say with that is simply this. There is a real sense in which a greater degree of love is manifested with a greater worth of a gift. I give you something like a piece of Wrigley Spearmint gum. That's not manifesting great love. But I give you the greatest gift I possess, which is my own life. And in that is manifested a tremendous degree of love. So if God wants to love his creatures, not just his people, creatures, people, everything ever made. If he wants to demonstrate to them the greatest degree of love, how shall he do it? By giving them the greatest gift. And what is that gift himself? The most loving, the kindest thing that God could ever do for his creation is to push absolutely everything off of center stage and to take center stage himself and to do absolutely everything he does in order to demonstrate his wonders, his beauties, his perfections. To demonstrate himself. That is the kindest thing, the most loving thing, because it is the greatest gift. When God does everything to demonstrate how glorious he is by showing his beauty to creation, he is giving them the most splendid gift and demonstrating the greatest degree of love possible. Now, for those of us who are preachers, what does that have to do with us? My dear friend, I'd like to submit to you that one of the kindest, most loving things you could ever do to your people is to push aside from center stage so much stuff that fills the Christian life. And with your preaching, put the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, center stage. How many times do we whip our people? You ought to do this. You ought to come to church. How many times do music directors stand before people begging them to sing? Just constantly, we're constantly doing this, beating the same drum, beating the same drum. But what if we begin slowly to dedicate our lives to one thing? I want to set before my people the glories of God, because those glories understood, revealed by the power of the Holy Spirit, when a man faithfully preaches the word of God and the attributes of God, those glories of God will motivate my people. If they are His people to obedience, to obedience, to obedience. Now, I want us to look at something for a moment. In Romans chapter 3, a verse that we all memorize. It was one of the first verses probably we all ever memorized. 3.23, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Now, I was speaking with Brother Curran yesterday, and I think that one of the greatest problems we have, and I am addressing mainly men of God, preachers, pastors. I think one of the greatest problems that we have today is we have confused holiness. And you said, well, I thought we were talking about the glory of God. We are. This is a very important thing that I want to bring you to. What is holiness, my dear friend? Because I would just about wager that for the most part, many of us have confused holiness with righteousness. When you think of holiness, what do you think of? Sinlessness? Obeying the law? No darkness? No immorality, no evil? Holy. That's not the foundational meaning of the term. You're using definitions that more properly apply to righteousness. Righteousness is conformity to the law, the will of God in our actions. That's what righteousness is. What is holiness? It comes from a Hebrew word that in its most basic, basic meaning is cut. C-U-T, cut. And from there it's to cut and separate, to cut and call. And from there we get the term, the idea of separation. But now when you think of separation, for the most part, what's being communicated to most minds in the church today when they hear separation is separation from the world. God is separated. But what you need to understand more than anything else is when it's speaking about separation, when it's speaking about the holiness of God, the Bible is speaking about the uniqueness of God above everything else. The uniqueness. He is not common. He is not vulgar. There is none like Him. He is absolutely, completely, and perfectly unique. There is none like the Lord. And from this understanding of God, we get absolutely everything in the Christian life. And I think that's why we're missing so many things. Even the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom, comes from an understanding of holiness. Now, let me give an example. When Moses and God were speaking, and he said, go down to Egypt, and Moses said, well, who should I say sent me? He says, I am who I am. Now, it talks about the eternity of God, the immutability of God, for sure. But there's something here I think that we're missing. It's speaking more than anything else about the holiness of Yahweh, the holiness of God. In what way? If a Martian came down to Georgia, and I understand there's already quite a few of them here, but if a Martian came down to Georgia, and were to look at me and say, who are you? I could say, well, I am like Him. And I am who He is. And I can find nearly six billion examples on planet Earth of Paul Washer. I'm very common, very little unique about me, except for maybe my fingerprints. I can point outside of myself and say, if you want to know who I am, there. Moses said, who are you? God cannot point outside of Himself and say, I am who He is. I am like Him or like her. He says, I am who I am. I am unique. And so, well, I've said this, that when you ask God who He is, when Moses asked God, who are you? God could not point outside of Himself to another until, of course, 2,000 years ago, when someone asked God, who are you? And he pointed down to his son and said, I am like Him. Listen to Him. But the holiness of God deals with uniqueness, that He is separated from absolutely everything and everyone else. Let me give you another example. What is closer to being like God? Bacteria floating around in your toilet or an archangel standing in His presence? Which one is more like God? The bacteria floating in your toilet or an angel standing in the presence of God? Which one is more like God? If you say the angel, you're wrong. The answer is, neither one of them. That angel is no more like God than that bacteria floating around in your toilet because no one is like the Lord. He's utterly separated from all of them. He is not like us, only greater. He is totally and completely other, like the old Jewish theologian used to call Him, the other, the otherness of God. And from there, from that otherness, we begin to understand His glory and be motivated by it. And we begin to understand everything else about God. And that's why you set the glory of God before people and they are amazed and they fear. Let me give you another example. I'm a deer hunter. So let's say that I go out at four in the morning and I'm crossing a cornfield in Illinois, about the best place in the world to be a deer hunter. I'm crossing a cornfield at four in the morning. Now in my day, I've had a few fights before I was a Christian. I mean, I feel like I'd be okay in that cornfield, but every once in a while you get the willies. Well, let's say that I have to make a choice at four o'clock in the morning. Of coming in, having an encounter with a very mad man, six foot six, 275 pounds, who wants to fight me out in that cornfield. Okay, that's one choice. I can choose that. Or have an encounter with a Martian. Now Martians, as you know from television, Martians are only about three and a half feet tall. And they got little skinny legs, big flat feet, long fingers. They don't look like they could fight very much. I mean, I could probably whip 40 of these guys out in the middle of a cornfield. But if I had to make a choice between, you know, with whom am I going to have an encounter? What would bring more fear into my life? Meeting this mad man, six foot six, or this Martian? I'll go with the mad man. I would rather have to fight him. I would rather have an encounter with him. I would be less afraid of him than I would this three and a half foot tall Martian that weighs about 45 pounds. Why? That's a somewhat ridiculous illustration, but it's going to prove a great point. This man can tear my head off, but I'm not afraid of him at all. I'm afraid of this. Why? It is other. It is completely other than me. I do not know this thing. This thing is not from my world. This has nothing to do with me. I do not know it. Do not understand it. Have never seen the likes of such a thing. Why are we to fear the Lord? Because he's just bigger? Fear of the Lord comes from the fact that he is totally and completely other. No matter what you find, you take the greatest archangel in glory, and that would be the ones you see in Isaiah 6. How do I know that? Because of their proximity to the throne. They must be the greatest beings of all created beings because they are closest to the throne of God. They must be the most holy. They must be the most powerful. And yet, and yet, they find, they don't find any more courage before the throne of God than I would. Why? Because he's not like them either. He is completely other, and therefore he is to be feared. Now you say, what does this have to do with the glory of God? Absolutely everything. Today when preachers are preaching on holiness, they are removing the person of God and turning it into just obedience to rules. The Bible not only speaks about righteousness, it speaks about godliness. That is, my dear friend, you can teach your people to dot every I, cross every T, and they can still be ungodly because they're doing it for all the wrong reasons. Because they're not doing it primarily out of love, passion for God and God's glory. It's all wrong. You see, this is not just about who can keep the rules best. And that's what we're learning here when it says, in verse 23, it says, for all have sinned. Yes, that's a terrible thing. According to the Westminsters, we understand lack of conformity to the law of God. And this is not, as the Puritans would always say, this is not an inferior prince. This is not some small governor from an inferior land. This is the king of glory. We break his law. It's a terrible thing, unspeakable to break his law. But it's not just all have sinned, but all have fallen short of the glory of God. Now, in modern day interpretation, that is simply this. God had a marvelous plan for our lives and we all fell short of it. But in the context of Romans, the first three chapters, I would prefer to think that the explanation was here. What does it mean to fall short of the glory of God? Just listen as I read. Because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. Now, what is the crime of humanity? It has broken God's law. But my dear friend, if you just take it there, you will not provide for your people the brokenness necessary to walk with God and you will turn them into legalists. Because then they will all begin to think, well, all I have to do now is to get that law right and I'll do all the things that you're supposed to do. Wear the right clothing, throw your television out, homeschool, do all the things you're supposed to do and then we'll be all right with God. We'll be the people of God. Unless you go farther, that's what you're going to leave them with. And pretty soon it will turn stale in their life and in their mouths and in their stomachs and in their minds and most importantly in their hearts. But you have to go further. It is not just keeping the law of God and the travesty, the great one, is not found in just breaking the law of God, but in falling short of his glory. And that is why today people are so empty. We were created not just to obey. We were created so that every beat of our heart would be for the glory of God, every thought of our mind for the glory of God, that we would be God-besought, as the Puritans would say. That we would live for Him, that we would love Him. Love Him truly, passionately, cling to Him. That's what God desires. So, my dear friend, you can in a sense be a righteous man in that you have more conformed your life to the law of God. But let me ask you a question. Do you live for His glory? For Him, for Him, for Him? When people come in evangelism and true evangelism, and a man comes forward broken and weeping, and I ask him, Sir, what's wrong with you? Can I do for you? And he says, I'm so afraid. I don't want to go to hell. I don't want to go to hell. Would you think me wrong to tell him, Sir, that's not enough. Do you not know that flesh, flesh seeks to preserve itself? Men don't want to go to hell. No one wants to go to hell. The flesh doesn't want to go to hell. This is not necessarily this man on the point of conversion. No, here's a man afraid about going to hell. But men are afraid to be run over by trucks also. My question is, Sir, not just do you want to save yourself from hell, is your brokenness over the fact that you have offended, offended, fought against, shown no gratitude towards the loveliness and the beauty and the holiness of God. Sir, at this moment, do you want to love God with all your heart? Sir, at this moment, do you want to live for His glory? Because even vipers run when there's a fire. You say, that's hard. No, this is the very reason our evangelism is so pathetic in America. My dear friend, it's not just enough, well, I've got all my family sitting with me and all my children are like ducks in a row and everything is working out in my Christian life. That's not just it. The question is, is there a beating heart of passion? Is there a love for God? Is there a desire? I knew I wanted to marry my wife. Why? Because I just wanted to be with her. I didn't have to do anything. I could just sit there. I just wanted to be in her presence. Hey, Charo, let's go do something today. What do you want to do? I don't care. What do you want to do? I don't care. What do you want to do? Neither one of us cared what we were going to do. We just wanted to be with one another. How much of our praying about ministry is a slap in the face of God? Oh, God, use me. Why? Well, because I want to be used. Well, why? Well, because I've got this materialistic view of heaven and I don't want Jonathan Edwards and John Piper and all those other guys to be standing over there while I'm sitting in the back because I've been in the back all my life. I want to be used so I'll be important like them. People ask me all the time, what's your vision? I say, I don't have one. What's your vision? I'm so sick and tired of men's visions. It makes me just want to vomit. And I am tired of ministerial visions. People ask me, what's my vision? I say, Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected from the dead. There's so much of us that's just self-promotion. You know, I remember, I think back on college days and seminary days, you know, all of us young guys staying up all night praying, oh, God, use me, use me, use me. Why didn't we stay up all night saying, God, show me your glory, show me your glory, show me your glory. I can live without being used, but I cannot live without your glory, Lord. I'll give you an example. Any of you have a ministry bigger than Moses? Well, in a sense you do. It's just that your church isn't quite as large, probably. Your ministry is greater than Moses' ministry. But think about it. He had a rather unusual ministry. The hand of God was upon his life in a rather unusual way, we could all say. We could even say that he was, at that point in history, was the most important person in the history of redemption. He was a type of Christ. And yet, after being used of the Lord to defeat the most powerful nation on the face of the earth and bring forth the people of God, he said in his heart of hearts, this is not enough, I am empty. Lord, show me your glory. Ministry in itself is, that's exactly what it is, self. But it is to be a promotion of the glory of God, glory of God. A desire to know him, a desire to sit at his feet, a desire to observe his attributes. When was the last time, sir, you studied anything about the person and excellencies of God, just so you could revel in it? When was the last time? Think about it. Think about how hard our hearts have become. Think about it. We're so concerned about churches and evangelism and numbers and this and that and everything else. And so little concern is given to just, oh Lord, I want to know your glory. I want to know you, Martha, Martha. And our people, even our good people, even our obedient people, even our converted people, sit in the church sometimes after crossing every T and dotting every I, and they go, I'm still empty. I know I need to do this because, well, that's what I need to do. But I'm just, it's not what I thought. Why is it, other than the fact that the great, what is being called the church today is not the church. The true church is made up of just converted people show forth their conversion in fruit. But at the same time, why is it that you walk in, we're the most prosperous group of Christians on the face of the earth, more freedom than anyone else to do anything in the will of God. And why is it you walk into a Christian bookstore and more than half the books are written about how empty we are? And I'll tell you why. Even for those of you who are obedient and striving to please God, that will not fill you. Eternity has been placed in your heart. An infinite hole there is. Pascal was right, even though he's been twisted a bit in modern interpretation, he was right in this. Nothing can fill you. Take the entire universe, take all the ministries of the world, combine them in one and give them to you and you will still not be filled. Be the most important person ever used in the history of the world apart from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and you will still not be filled. That is not enough. But only the person of God, a man who some of you may know, I'm going to end here, Charles Leiter, a dear friend of mine, almost like a father to me. He was with me in Romania one time and he was preaching on the glories of Christ in heaven. And I sat there just literally my mouth hanging open, weeping, I didn't know what to do. I wanted to jump, I wanted to run around the room. I just didn't know what to do. It was so beautiful. I was just caught up in it. I was caught up in everything he was saying about the beauties of Christ that we would behold in glory. And after he was finished with the lecture, a pastor raised his hand and said, what else do we get? And I watched the face of that man, Charles Leiter, I watched his face just sink knowing that nothing of what he had said had been understood. What else do you want? What else do you want? So I have so much trouble with these, almost all these TV evangelists. Jesus is no longer enough to draw men, his glories, his beauty. We've got to balance their checkbook now and fix everything in their life and give them a Mercedes or they won't come. It is all about the glory of God, about his glory. Now, I know I've gone a little over, let me just say this just real quickly. I want to throw something out at you. And this is primarily for your people. It says, because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful. They were not concerned about the glory of God or glorifying God, but they became vain. They became empty. Now, listen to me. Jeremiah, what did he say to God's people? What fault did your fathers find in me? That they went far from me and walked after emptiness and became empty. Talking about the glory of God being our motivation. My dear friend, if any other thing takes its place, no matter how obedient, how evangelistic, how mission-minded your church is, your members will be dying inside. Oh, they might be faithful, but they will be empty. The motivation must be the glory of God. His excellencies. His excellencies, it's a twofold thing. One, I look to Him to find my motivation. And that motivation is His beauty, His glory, His power, His wisdom, His excellency. I look to that. I live in that presence. That's the way we should be as pastors and preachers and men of God. Always beholding the glories of God in the face of Christ. Looking to see more. Straining with the neck. Far away look in the eye as we sit on that hill and look a little farther and deeper, hoping to see a little more. But then, as God's greatest task is to reveal His glory to the world, our greatest thing as pastors and preachers is to be instruments of God to manifest these glories, to manifest these excellencies in our preaching so that God's sheep are not just obedient, not just faithful for the sake of being faithful, but so that God's sheep might be filled with all the fullness of God. Let's pray. Father, so much. Oh, Lord, so much. You're just so immense, Lord. Oh, Lord, we rejoice in knowing that one day with our little piece of string and our little piece of chalk, we will go out throughout all of eternity trying to mark out the boundaries of the glory of God. Thank you. In Jesus' name, Amen.