Jeremiah 13:16-17 Give glory to the LORD your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble on the dark mountains, and… There are two ways of giving glory to God. I. BY GIVING HIM BACK HIS OWN GLORY. There are three mirrors in which God's glory is seen. Now, of these mirrors, some are broken and some stained. The first mirror was stained by the sin of man — creation was stained and lost its glory and its beauty by the first stain on it. Oh! the breath of Adam's corruption comes as a thick fog on the face of the glass, and until that thick fog is removed, we shall not see God's glory in the creation. The second mirror is the Word. The Word is stained, the steam of our own corruption goes forth, our darkened understandings, our stubborn will, our adulterous affections, our perverse imaginations send forth a filthy effluvia, and the filthy effluvia gathers into a thick and impenetrable mist, and that covers the glass. Besides that, there is the darkness of hell. But when the Holy Spirit removes the cloud and enables you to look into the mirror — into the cleansed and polished mirror, — then you behold the glory of God. Again, there is a third glass, the glass of the Church. This glass is broken, the visible Church now is not presenting the glory of God; the visible Church now is as a mirror shattered into a thousand fragments, and until the Holy Ghost comes and joins together these shattered fragments of the mirror, we never shall see God in the Church. The principal glory of the Church is holiness — there is no glory like that! but there is another glory which the Church has lost — and she ought not to have lost it — she has lost it, however, through unbelief — I mean the glory of power from God. We ought to have the gifts of the Spirit among us now as well as His graces; and I do believe, when you shall be brought to pray for the same — when you shall be brought to expect the promise of the Father, the Lord will respond to your prayer, and all creation shall testify in a moment that He is a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God. 1. Now, to come more closely, we give glory to God when we see Him as He is — when we see Him as a Father — when we do not see the doctrine about Him as a Father, but see Himself as a Father. 2. We give glory to God when we behold His love in Christ, and are delighted with that love. 3. We give glory to God in a third particular, when we yield ourselves to His Spirit. II. We give glory to God WHEN WE GIVE GOD CREATED GLORY. The first thing is to catch His own glory and send it back, and the second, to give Him created glory. In giving God created glory, begin with your own heart — that is the centre nearest to you, begin with the hearts of your brethren, the heart of your wife, the heart of your child, the heart of your father, the heart of your servant, the heart of your neighbour, the heart of your landlord, the heart of your tenant, endeavour to get all their hearts given to God, as His throne and dwelling place, and then have the hearts of all you can speak an affectionate word unto, given unto God. Then go out over all creation, and endeavour to give all creation to God; endeavour to take the gold of the world, endeavour to take the fruits and the flowers of the world, and give them to God. You behold the religion of God like the famed river of Grecian song which cannot come to any land without irrigating that laud with golden sands, and you desire to send the stream of God's religion, which restrains evil and cherishes virtue, which rescues man from sin, and enstamps on him holiness, you endeavour to mend that over the length and breadth of the moral world, that it may go as a stream of richness, a stream of fertilisation, a stream of refreshing and beauty over every part of the wide world. (N. Armstrong.) Parallel Verses KJV: Give glory to the LORD your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness. |
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