Insight for Living

Bill Meyer: What does it mean that God is glorious? It's a word we sing, a word we pray, but do we really know what we're saying? Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll begins a landmark 12-message journey into the very character of God. Not a dry theological lecture, but a soul-anchoring, heart-soaring exploration of the attributes that make our God unlike any other.

This is the kind of series that will change the way you see Him and the way you see yourself. Chuck opens with The Glory of God.

Chuck Swindoll: Beginning today and for the next number of Sundays, we'll be engaged in a series on our triune God. Doctrinal subject though it is, and with our inability ever to get our arms around it, my desire will be to show you the practical side of the attributes of God. We'll choose four of them: today His glory, next Sunday His holiness.

We'll get to know God our Father better in these four Sundays, followed by an emphasis on the cross of Christ. That Christological study will give our attention to the cross, what He accomplished there and why it was necessary. And then we will conclude the series with the power of the Holy Spirit.

Turn in your Bible to a rather unknown section of Scripture, or at least unused: 2 Chronicles chapter 26. Every once in a while, the Spirit of God hovers over a life for the purpose of teaching us a lesson that ties in with truth that is timeless and transcendent. Such it was in the life of King Uzziah.

2 Chronicles 26 begins, "And all the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king in the place of his father Amaziah." Verse 3: "Uzziah was sixteen years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Jecoliah of Jerusalem. He did right in the sight of the Lord according to all that his father Amaziah had done. He continued to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding through the vision of God; and as long as he sought the Lord, God prospered him."

Verse 7: "God helped him against the Philistines, and against the Arabians who lived in Gur-baal, and the Meunites. The Ammonites also gave tribute to Uzziah, and his fame extended to the border of Egypt, for he became very strong." Verse 15: "In Jerusalem he made engines of war invented by skillful men to be on the towers and on the corners for the purpose of shooting arrows and great stones. Hence his fame spread afar, for he was marvelously helped until he was strong."

"But when he became strong, his heart was so proud that he acted corruptly, and he was unfaithful to the Lord his God, for he entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. Then Azariah the priest entered after him and with him eighty priests of the Lord, valiant men. They opposed Uzziah the king and said to him, 'It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord, but for the priests, the sons of Aaron who are consecrated to burn incense. Get out of the sanctuary, for you have been unfaithful and will have no honor from the Lord God.'"

"But Uzziah, with a censer in his hand for burning incense, was enraged. And while he was enraged with the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead before the priests in the house of the Lord, beside the altar of incense." Verse 21: "King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death; and he lived in a separate house, being a leper, for he was cut off from the house of the Lord." Verse 23: "So Uzziah slept with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in the field of the grave which belonged to the kings, for they said, 'He is a leper.'"

Bill Meyer: You're listening to Insight for Living. To dig deeper into the glory of God on your own, be sure to purchase our Searching the Scriptures Bible Study workbook for How Great Is Our God by going to insight.org/offer. Chuck titled today's message: The Glory of God.

Chuck Swindoll: I was a teenager before I asked my first serious theological question. It surprisingly had to do with the glory of God. That deserves an explanation. I was raised in a family that is musical. We loved music, we sang it, we played it all through my years at home before I got married. I remember standing around the piano singing as a family.

We had an old upright piano that sat in our living room and both my mother and my brother especially played beautiful piano. Mother sang soprano, and Lucy, my sister, sang alto, I sang tenor, and my brother Orville sang bass. My dad played the harmonica and the comb. That was his great claim to fame as a harmonica player.

Well, we sang all kinds of music. We sang patriotic songs, and of course folk songs, and love songs, and sacred songs, and all arrangements that we could find. In fact, on occasion my brother would write a piece and we would sing it. My mother noticed one autumn day in the newspaper down there in Houston that there was an audition being held at First Methodist Church downtown for the singing of the great masterwork of Handel’s Messiah. She decided we would all audition. I said no, Mother said yes, so I said yes. Being a persuasive mother that she was, she got us all down there and to my amazing surprise, all of us passed.

It was a choir of about 200 voices and it would be ultimately an orchestra of about 60 pieces and a magnificent pipe organ would be played by this woman who had played organ it seems all of her adult life. The masterwork would be conducted by Dr. Walter Jenkins, a name familiar among musicians in that era. He led, by the way, the entire Messiah without the score in front of him. He knew it all by heart.

I’ll never forget that first night of our performance. We did it four nights before Christmas. And here I was, a young 15, 16-year-old surrounded by trained voices, men in the tenor section, and the bass, and the altos, and the sopranos. Together were four famous soloists that sang the part. It all began, as you who love music remember, with the recitative sung by this lyrical tenor: ‘Comfort ye, comfort ye my people’ right out of Isaiah 40.

And then he would end with the aria: ‘Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low, the crooked places straight, and the rough places plain.’ The thing I love about Messiah is it’s all from the Scriptures. And then everyone stood up in the choir and we began the first choral piece: ‘And the glory, the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.’ Isaiah 40, verse 5.

I have to tell you that the ecstasy of all of the music brought tears to my young eyes. I couldn't continue the chorus. And to this day, on occasion, I am moved to tears with great music. It was raining that night as we were on our way home and I sat in the backseat of our old ’41 Ford alongside my sister who was about asleep and my brother looking out his window. I said to my daddy, ‘Daddy, what’s glory? What’s glory?’

I remember we also had sung from Revelation 5: ‘Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and honor and glory and majesty.’ Daddy, what’s glory? The other words I understood. And in good fatherly fashion he answered, ‘Ask your mother.’

So I asked my mother, and wise as she was, she said, ‘Check the dictionary when we get home.’ That is a great answer, parents, when you don’t know the answer. So I did. And I came across a wealth of information. Mainly synonyms. Glory is great honor and admiration, fame, renown. Glory is worshipful admiration. Hear these words. Listen carefully. Worshipful admiration, highest praise, splendor, radiant beauty, magnificence. And it included ‘circle of light.’ Intriguing, isn't it? Circle of light.

What a grand gallery of word pictures are found even in Webster's Dictionary alongside the word. How important it is that we remember that that marks our God and no other, and no other. To Him alone goes the glory. We would say today in our vernacular: all the credit, all of the attention, all of the applause. He alone deserves it all. He alone is our awesome God of glory. How lightly we toss around words that are heavy with meaning. Heavy.

You'll be interested to know, as I was, that the Hebrew word, the original word from which is translated glory, is kabod. Kabod means heavy. Heavy. Heavy in power, heavy in authority, heavy in sovereignty, heavy in position, heavy in importance, heavy in riches. He has no needs. He provides our needs. He has no struggles. He meets us in our struggles.

I find it also interesting that apart from the glory, a place of worship is an empty, hollow shell. There's nothing to it but the work of men and women’s hands as skill and labor draw themselves together and a building is built. Like the first house of worship mentioned in the Scriptures: Exodus chapter 40. When you get to the end of the chapter, you find the end of verse 33 reading: ‘Thus Moses finished the work.’

What work? The work on what was called the Tabernacle. Of much gold, of magnificent embroidery work in the veil that kept the people out of the holiest of all places on the planet. Moses finished the work, but it wasn't finished. It wasn't done.

Our workers walked away from our new sanctuary one day saying as they clapped their hands together, ‘Done.’ But it isn't done. It's an empty shell. It's a hollow place where you will only hear your echo on occasion without the glory. And in those days, the glory was manifested in a light. Remember the definition? Circle of light? Look at the next verse. ‘Then the cloud... then the cloud...’ When? After Moses finished the work.

When all the skilled labors had gone back to their tents. When all of the seamstresses had put away their thread. When all of those engravers laid aside their mallets and their chisels. When all of it was done, there was a cloud. Watch. The cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the kabod Yahweh—look at it—the kabod Yahweh, the glory of God, filled the Tabernacle. Now it’s finished.

Just as when we, the people of God reflecting His glory, fill the house of worship, then it will be completed. Then it will be finished, and the purpose of it will begin to run its course. But read on. ‘Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it and the kabod Yahweh, the heaviness, the heaviness of our great God, shone down upon it.’

We don’t read it here but you do later. We read of the Shekinah of God. It was a laser-like light that originated in the third heaven and drove its way, penetrating all its way through the atmosphere and plunging into the holiest place of all. So that it is now so holy, no one but the high priest can enter but once a year. Imagine that in the middle of the wilderness when the Tabernacle was re-erected and it was taken down and re-erected and taken down. When it was erected, that light shone on the mercy seat, the place of God's presence. And it leaves the people silent.

We even read of the cloud by day on the Tabernacle and the fire which was in it by night. All of God's making. I’ll tell you, you read sections like this, you sort of suck in your breath. When you really let it land full force, in all honesty, you’re no longer the star of the show. In all honesty, you are—and I am—the rather insignificant in the plan. It is all about our God.

Today, men and women, we walk into a space built for worship that is only space. It's lovely. We're grateful for it. It's beautiful on purpose. It's to reflect our Heavenly Father's name. But it is not a house of worship without the church. It's a building. And when we in this era, this age, when we enter that place, we bring the church with us. Isaiah writes of it in Isaiah chapter 42. So turn from there far ahead in your Bible to the ancient book of Isaiah, 42nd chapter, where we will read again of the light.

42, verse 5: ‘Thus says God the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and its offspring, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it.’ This is all what God does. This is all about who He is. And then He introduces Himself in no uncertain terms: ‘I am the Lord.’ And look closely at the verbs that follow: ‘I have called you in righteousness. I will also hold you by the hand and watch over you.’

These are words of presence and protection and closeness. ‘I will appoint you as a covenant to the people.’ Look closely: ‘as a light to the nations.’ He’s writing to Jews, read by Jews, the chosen people. You are not the single depository of the truth to be kept to yourself. You are a channel. Do not forget that. From you is to reflect the light. You see, we are like the moon, God is like the sun.

The sun emanates light. The effulgence of light floods from the sun. But we as moons simply reflect it. The moon has no light of its own, it’s all reflected light. So it is with us. By the way, as a light to the nations, let's not forget our mission. No matter our size, no matter the era, no matter our strength or struggles. Look closely: the light of the nations to do what? ‘To open blind eyes.’

Some of them belong to your neighbors. Some of them are in apartment buildings not that far from here. Some of them you've never met. Most of them you don't know. But their eyes are blind. And the light to the nations is to include bringing prisoners from the dungeon. Think of them as inhabiting prisons of darkness. Remember Wesley’s words? ‘Thine eye diffused a quickening ray. I rose’—speaking of his time in the dungeon—‘and, flooded with light, I went on my way.’ We who are filled with the grace of God have His light shining upon us, but never think that you are the star.

I’ve spoken to people—I happen to have been in the land of Turkey where I brought up the subject of Jesus and the man looked at me as if I had spoken of a ghost or an imaginary figure. He said, ‘Who? Who?’ Here is a grown man running a business who has never, for the first time in his life, heard the name Jesus. But that’s not just in Turkey. You know that.

It's the people with whom you work, those with whom you school, those who are a part of our heart and never will leave that part of our hearts because of the commission: we're to bring prisoners out of the dungeon and those who dwell in darkness from that prison. And then, as if we need to hear it again, it’s as though the Lord is saying, ‘I want to say this to you and I don’t want you to forget it: I am the Lord, that is my name.’

Look closely at what it says following, literally: ‘My glory to another I will not give.’ My light, My splendor, the credit that belongs to Me, the power that is My name, the sovereignty that represents My choices, My decisions, My directives. That’s Mine and Mine alone. Give it to no other, and do not dare attempt to take it from Me. It is glory only for Me. The Lord is my name. My glory is mine and my praise is not to go to graven images. You are the light and you reflect it.

Walter Chalmers Smith wrote of it in the last part of the 19th century: ‘Immortal, invisible, God only wise, in light inaccessible’—did you hear the word?—‘in light inaccessible hid from our eyes. Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days, Almighty, Victorious, Thy great name we praise.’ To Him belongs the glory. To Him goes all the credit. To Him we give our applause. To Him we stand in awe before Him. And Isaiah stands as a marvelous reminder that this is not to be forgotten.

Bill Meyer: God's glory is not ours to claim. It never has been. His glory—heavy, magnificent, and radiant—belongs to Him alone. What you've heard from Chuck Swindoll today will anchor your soul if you'll let it. To go deeper into this passage, Insight for Living offers several rich Bible study tools to help you do exactly that.

For instance, the Searching the Scriptures Bible Study workbook for this series is ready as well; it's called How Great Is Our God, and it contains all 12 studies from Chuck. Plus, the audio recordings of these messages are ready as well. To purchase these resources, go to insight.org/offer.

In just a moment, I'll tell you about a brand-new booklet that Chuck's written about the power of the cross. We published it just in time to coincide with this teaching series on the attributes of God. The cross not only represents our salvation through Christ, but when we focus on the cross of Jesus, it becomes our compass every single day. Chuck?

Chuck Swindoll: Bill, you might not remember the name Roy Riegels. If not, Roy was a football player and in the 1929 Rose Bowl, he picked up a fumble and took off running—fast, confident, strutting toward the goal line, absolutely certain he knew where he was going. Guess what? He was headed in the wrong direction. A 70-yard sprint headed the wrong way.

Oh man, can't you just picture it? His own teammate had to chase him down, and when that teammate finally caught up with him, Roy shouted—I love this—‘Get away from me! This is my touchdown!’ He was convinced. But Roy was dead wrong.

Well, I’ve spent a lifetime in ministry, and I can tell you that story never gets old because it never stops being true. Sincere people, well-meaning people, people who love God and work hard and mean every word of their prayers, running the wrong direction. Why? Because somewhere along the way, they lost sight of the cross.

The cross reorients everything. When it's in clear focus, you know which goal line is which. You know what matters and what doesn't. You know how to live. That's what Insight for Living is all about. Every broadcast, every resource, every message we send into the world has one purpose: to point people back to the cross. Not to me, not to this program, but to the cross.

And here's something I want you to understand. As we approach June 30, the end of our fiscal year, every gift that comes in doesn't just keep Insight for Living on the air. It sends you into the world as a minister of this message through radio, through the internet, through social media, and printed materials, reaching people on every continent. You cast that seed. We just get to watch God grow it. Please give today generously. The world needs the right direction.

Bill Meyer: Yes, the world needs the right direction. To respond to Chuck Swindoll, call us at 800-772-8888 or go to insight.org/donate. Plus, when you respond with a much-appreciated gift today, we'll say thanks by providing a brand-new booklet from Chuck. It’s called The Cross We Proclaim.

In his booklet, Chuck draws from Paul's letter to the Corinthians to show how easy it is to live with great energy but be heading in the wrong direction. Whether chasing achievement, reputation, or religious performance, the cross alone has the power to reorient your life. We'd love to send you The Cross We Proclaim.

To send a check in the mail, just address your donation to: Insight for Living, Post Office Box 5000, Frisco, Texas, 75034. You can also call us at 800-772-8888 or go online to insight.org/donate. I'm Bill Meyer, inviting you to hear Chuck Swindoll continue his message about the glory of God Thursday on Insight for Living.