Lesson 2: The Glory of the Lord

It's publicist Doug Alexander. Well, Doug that's who we're here to talk to today. Doug, it's my pleasure to have you join us today. Okay, thank you, evaluated producer of the book that I've been reading, this is sobering learning. Let's do this, Doug, and we're gonna hear all about it. I love what Doug is going to talk about story building, why we start with this story, and this story as well. Okay. So I want to start by quieting you down with the salvation part. I want to thank you for stopping right in when we started. We've walked through a time of WOODRUFFLONG, the question we need to ask, let's go back to Israel. Was Israel ready for God coming on the third day? Well, I'm gonna do a lot of reading here. I actually, I'm gonna read right out of the book. Moses has instructed the Israelites to sanctify themselves for the past two days, in preparation for the Lord to reveal himself, his glory on that mountain. The beginning of the third day comes and we read, two days stood between the people of Israel and the glory of God. And so he knew that since that day had come, that time of singing and singing of joy, were they ready? And so how he quantified how ready they were, How prepared were they? Did they take God's honor and His treasure

as seriously as possible? Did they follow what his glowing conducted on the ground? Did they follow what his glory and his treasure had been favorable to them? So why would disappearing be any different? Time would tell. Did anyone beside Moses think that possibly they had become too confident or too familiar with the Holy One of God? Two days passed. Morning was about to break forth on that third day. The atmosphere was unusually quiet. The city was almost unnerving. The people grew more and more uncertain. Creation was probably more aware of the one who was about to enter the surroundings than God's own people were. The light of dawn was breaking forth, but it wasn't to be a typical sunrise. Suddenly, a dark cloud descends out of nowhere. The sight of it alone was terrifying enough, yet preceding its appearance was a very loud sounding of a trumpet. Louder and louder it blew. What could make such an intense sound? As the cloud descended on the mountain, out of it came brilliant flashes of lightning and roars of thunder. The constant thunderings were different from anything these people had ever heard.

They were accompanied by lightning flashes so bright that the sun seemed to darken from their intensity. The children of Israel shook with fear. Moses was so frightened at the sight. Now listen, it's Moses that he said, I am terrified and trembling. Despite what is going on, Moses being a very strong leader takes this position of leadership. And Moses in verse 17, we read Exodus 19, 17, led them out from the camp to meet with God and they stood at the foot of the mountain. All of Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the Lord had descended on it in the form of fire. The smoke billowed into the sky like smoke from a brick kiln. And the whole mountain shook violently and the blasts of the ram's horn grew louder and louder. Moses spoke, now listen to this, and God thundered his reply. Well, let me tell you something, they had never experienced this in Egypt. They'd never experienced, you and I have never experienced anything like this. And for several years, I have been contemplating because of the way we have presented Jesus and not talked about his, Jesus's glory. I mean, you gotta remember, John the Apostle fell down like a dead man when he saw Jesus in his glory on the Island of Patmos.

We've almost become a little too familiar with the one we're serving. We've lost sight of how truly awesome he is. And what I wanna do in this lesson is I want to attempt to explore his greatness. God cries out through the prophet Isaiah, and he makes this statement in Isaiah 40, verses 21 through 26. This is out of the New International Version. Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy and he spreads them out like a tent to live in. And then God asks this question through Isaiah, verse 25. To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal? Says the Holy One. can't walk in a jar. This is Jesus who said, freeing God from my이에요 Poland on the tents of the desert. This is Jesus who says Jesus is like that rock and He's AKA 이것 and this rock is like your hands. He's an ingratitude to the Lord. And the rock is he cares about.

And if you ask why, Jesus says, because Herod the Son, the looks of His face, Lisa and I have four sons. They were between the ages of like eight and 16. No, no, they were a little younger. They were between the ages of six and 14. And this is back in the mid 1990s when Michael Jordan, who's probably one of the best basketball players to ever play the game. And it was when he was winning his six world championships. And my kids are athletes and all I'm hearing around the house is, Michael Jordan this, Michael Jordan that, we're in the playoffs. Michael Jordan, Michael Jordan, Michael Jordan, there's like posters of Michael Jordan and I'm like getting fed up with hearing Michael Jordan. Now, I have nothing against Michael Jordan. In fact, Michael Jordan's mother is a friend of mine, Delores, she's a beautiful woman, loves God with all of her heart. But I was fed up with hearing about Michael Jordan. So I remember we were ministering on the East Coast of the United States

and the church being on the East Coast, decided to put me up and my family because my family was traveling with me on this trip on the ocean, on a hotel right on the beach. Now, the Atlantic was really, really stirred up that day. I mean, the waves were like four or five feet high and you gotta understand, these kids are young, they're trying to body surf, the waves are slamming them into the sand, they're getting sand in their mouth, their hair, their swimsuits, and they're doing this for about two, two and a half hours until they're utterly exhausted. And we all head back to the room and I thought, now's my chance. And I said to Lisa, I said, Lisa, get all the kids to sit on the bed, I wanna have a dad talk. So all four of them are sitting on the bed, they're cuddled in their blankets. And I said, guys, and I remember while they were getting on the bed, I went over and slid open the sliding door so they could hear the pounding surf. And so I walked back and I said,

guys, I wanna ask you something. I said, hey, that's a pretty powerful ocean out there, isn't it? They go, oh yeah, dad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I said, you don't even begin to comprehend its power. Do you know if a meteor one mile wide was to land a hundred miles offshore in that ocean, it would create a tidal wave so big that it will wipe out every single city, major city, wipe it out on the East Coast of the United States. That's how powerful that ocean is. They were like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And then I said, it's a pretty big ocean, isn't it? They go, oh yeah, it's huge. And they're looking out there, watching the waves pound. And I said, you know, you can only see one mile out there. That ocean goes another 4,000 miles. And I said, there's another one on the other side called the Pacific, it's even bigger. And there's two other oceans beside that. I said, now boys, do you know that God weighed every drop of all that water in the palm of his hand? They said, wow, really?

I said, yeah. Now you're impressed with this guy named Michael Jordan who can take a basketball about this big and he can jump from the 15 foot line and put a ball through a hoop about that big. I said, that impresses you. They're like, oh my gosh, we got it, dad. We got it. Now, you know what was really cool? They still enjoyed the NBA playoffs. However, Michael wasn't this absolute amazing star anymore because what happened is I revealed to my sons in a way they could understand the glory or the greatness of God. And it dwarfed Michael in their eyes. So their whole perspective was back to normal. See Isaiah 45 verse 15, God made a statement. He said, you are a God who hides yourself. He literally has chosen to hide his glory to see what we would be enamored with. The Hollywood actors and actresses, the great athletes of our day. Yeah, they've got glory in regard to man, but nothing compared to the glory of God. You know, have you ever considered the universe? Remember I said that in the book of Isaiah, God measured the universe with the span of his hand. In other words, from his thumb to his pinky.

Have you ever really stopped and ponder the greatness or the vastness of the universe? You know, the Bible says that the sky, the heavens, declare, they preach a message of the glory of God. So let's talk about it, all right? And I'm gonna get a little geeky here. I was trained as an engineer. I was actually an amateur astronomer when I was in high school. I had my own massive telescope. I'd saved for it for years and I really enjoyed the subject. So stay with me because I'm going to make this as easy as possible. First of all, the universe is a really big place and it is composed of billions, listen to me, billions of galaxies. Now, what is a galaxy? A galaxy is a cluster of stars. of stars that group together and usually Now, what is a galaxy? A galaxy is a cluster of stars. there's about a billion stars in that galaxy. A galaxy is a cluster of stars. A galaxy is a cluster of stars. So we live in one of those galaxies, And it's a cluster of stars. one of those billions of galaxies. We live in one and it's called the Milky Way. So when you walk out at night and you look at the stars,

you are only seeing a section of our Milky Way. You're not even seeing the outer regions of it. You're definitely not seeing the other galaxies because you can't see them with your naked eye. You're only seeing the stars in our little corner of our galaxy. Now, the closest star to the Earth, other than our sun, is a star that is 4.3 light years away. Now you say, what in the world is a light year? A light year, and you gotta use this term in astronomy, is how far light will travel in one year. Now, how fast does light travel? It travels 186,282 miles per second, okay, per second. Every second, 186,282 miles. That is roughly 670 million miles an hour, okay? Now, let me help you understand this. Our sun is 93 million miles away from the Earth. If I was to get on an airplane, you know, I get on airplanes all the time and I just flew South Africa, one of the farthest points in the United States, and I was there under 24 hours, right? I can fly halfway around the world in 24 hours. If I get on one of those airplanes, like a United, a Delta, one of those airplanes, right? And I fly nonstop, and I go today and I fly nonstop to the sun, do you know how long it's gonna take me? 21 years, nonstop. Now, if I drive, I can't do it because it'd take about 200 years, all right? Do you know how long it takes light

to get from that sun to the Earth? Eight minutes and 20 seconds. That's how fast light is, okay? Now, let's go to the closest star to the Earth. It's 4.3 light years. All right, I'm gonna make this easy. Stay with me. Let's make a scale model, and we're gonna make the sun about the size of a soccer ball. If we make the sun the size of a soccer ball, how big would our Earth be? It would be the size of a peppercorn. You know those peppercorns you grind in your pepper shaker, right? So you'd have the sun as a soccer ball, you'd have the peppercorn Earth. Do you know how, on our scale model, how far would that volleyball be from the peppercorn Earth? It would be 26 yards. That would be a perfect replica of how far the Earth is to the sun, 26 yards, so a quarter of a football field. Now, the nearest star, which is 4.3 light years away, on our scale model, where would it be? Would it be a couple thousand yards away? Would it be maybe a mile away? What would be your guess? That star would be from our sun and our peppercorn 4,000 miles away. So basically, you would have your little sun,

your volleyball, or your soccer ball, your peppercorn Earth, 26 yards away, and the nearest star to Earth would be all the way, if that was in New York City, it would be all the way past Los Angeles, 1,000 miles further into the Pacific. That's the closest star. Now, when you walk outside at night, your average stars you're looking at are anywhere from 100, not 4.3, 100 to 1,000 light years away, okay? And there are some stars you can see with your naked eye when you walk out at night in our Milky Way that are 4,000 light years away. Do you know what that means? The light that you're looking at on that star in our little Milky Way left that star about the time Abraham married Sarah 4,000 years ago and is just now getting here tonight, okay? That's just a little star in our Milky Way. Now, you gotta understand, stay with me, that's just our Milky Way. There are billions of galaxies out there. Do you know the closest galaxy to our Milky Way? That's another cluster of stars, right? Do you know what the closest one is? It's called Andromeda. It's 2.3 million light years away, okay? And the James Webb Telescope, brand new telescope they put up in space

because it can see farther, not having an atmosphere to deal with, the farthest galaxy it has discovered is 13.2 billion light years away. Now, you wanna try to guess how long it'd take to fly there nonstop on a jet? There's no way your mind can even compute it. Do you understand how vast our universe is and yet God measured it with the span of His hand? Does that tell you a little bit about His glory? Okay, now, He's also into the details. If you look at the human body. Our human body is made up of cells. Do you know there's about 100,000 cells in your human body, in my human body? There's about 100,000 cells, but cells aren't the smallest particles. They are actually made up of molecules, and molecules are made up of elements, and elements are made up of atoms. So we keep going down in size, right? 100 million cells, but they're not the smallest. It goes down to molecules, it goes down to elements, it goes down to atoms. Now, what's an atom? An atom is so small that if you were to take a pencil and you were to make a little dot on a piece of paper, just go dot, there would be, if you just made a little dot on that paper, there would be over a billion atoms

in that one little dot, a billion. Now, what's an atom? An atom is made up of protons and neutrons. It's a very dense nucleus, and around it spins these electrons. So mostly an atom is space. And what holds those protons and neutrons together? They call it strong nuclear force. That's what science has given the name. What keeps the electrons flowing around and keeps them from not whizzing out? It's called electromagnetic force. That's science's way of trying to answer the mystery that God already told us is the answer. It's not strong nuclear force that's really holding all things together. It is the Lord. I'm gonna read to you what it is. Hebrews 1 verse three, who being the brightness of his glory, the speaking about Jesus, and the expressed image of God's person, and upholding all things by the word of his power. If you look at Colossians chapter one, verse 17, it says, he is before all things, and in him, all things hold together. That's what's keeping those atoms together. That's what's keeping those elements together, the molecules, the cells. Let me tell you something.

It's a wonderful, wonderful thing. God is keeping it and holding it all together. Now, when you consider the glory of the Lord, a lot of times Christians think it's a cloud. Now, why do they think that? Because when they read in the Old Testament, it says the cloud descended upon the tabernacle, and the priests weren't able to go in. The cloud descended upon Mount Sinai. You always see this dark cloud because God has to hide himself. The Bible says he wears light as a garment. He has to hide himself in a dark cloud because if he was to appear without the dark cloud, all human flesh would be immediately obliterated. This is crazy when you think about it. This is the God who says, I'm gonna come and take a body and die for these people because I love them so much. I mean, when you consider who he is and who we are, that's why John says, what manner of love has the Father bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons and daughters of God? I mean, the angels are going, what is mortal people that you are so mindful about him? The Bible says he thinks about us so much that his thoughts towards each one of us outnumber every grain of sand that's on this planet. God can't exaggerate. Do you understand he is so affectionately in love with you, he's thinking about you so much

that his thoughts outnumber every grain of sand, and that's why the angels go, what is mortal man that you're so mindful of him? It is amazing when you stop and think about it, but let's talk about God. He is light, he is light. He doesn't have light, he is light. All source of light comes from him, all right? Now, Paul makes this statement in 1 Timothy 6, one of my favorite scriptures in the New Testament. 1 Timothy 6, 15 and 16. He who is blessed and only potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality. Now listen to this, dwelling in unapproachable light. Who no man has seen or can see, to him be glory and honor, neverlasting power, amen. Are you understanding why the Bible calls in the New Testament, he's a consuming fire? See, when you think of a consuming fire, don't think of a fireplace, okay? You can look at that fireplace and don't even think of a laser beam. I mean, you've got to think of the sun, but yet, I'm gonna tell you this, his greatness, his brightness is so much brighter than the sun, because listen to what the apostle Paul said. He said in Acts 26, 13, he was speaking to King Agrippa, giving his testimony to this king. He said, at midday, O king, along the road,

I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun. Okay, are you hearing this? This is the Middle East, okay? I have traveled all over the world. I used to live in Florida. I am fine without sunglasses. I've been on so many golf courses without sunglasses. I just don't need them. When I went to the Middle East the first time, I had to wear sunglasses, why? Because the climate is so dry. Okay, with our humidity in the United States, the sun rays get diffracted. In the Middle East, there is so little humidity in the air that the sun is unhindered. And I remember it wasn't bad at eight in the morning, it wasn't that bad at four in the afternoon, but around 11, 12, one o'clock in the afternoon, the sun was so bright over there that my eyes would be like slits if I didn't have sunglasses on. Okay, now listen to Paul's words. A light from heaven brighter than the noon day, noon day, noon day, Middle Eastern sun. Okay, so now, do you understand? Now, are you getting a glimpse of why, when the Bible says that Jesus returns, the sun's gonna be darkened and the moon's not gonna give its light and the stars aren't gonna shine?

I wanna make sure you're getting it, okay? When you go outside at night, and if it's a clear night, what do you see? Stars, you see stars all over the place, right? They're everywhere, especially I love going out when you can see the Milky Way, right? You can see the cluster, almost like cloud of stars, right? You see these beautiful stars when you're out at night. I mean, I used to love doing this, even when I wasn't saved, I would love going out looking at the telescope, looking at the beautiful stars, right? But in morning, when the sun comes up, what happens? The stars all go away. So what happens? Like, are the stars like out there in the night and all of a sudden, the stars go, all just out of the blue, right in the middle of the sky. Do you see these stars glintingly? The stars continue to glint snippingly as the sun goes down. So in the sunrise, the sun is just there. Do you see the stars go out over the clouds and over the clouds through the clouds? Do you feel the sun? The sun literally starts glinting over the clouds in the birthplace and through the clouds, like in the original movie, when Moses came into the world after her life,

and everybody was like, are you getting this? When Jesus returns, He is so much brighter than the sun. He's going to darken the sun, the moon, and the stars because His brilliance is so glorious. This is why Isaiah chapter two, we read, they shall go into the holes of the rocks and into the caves of the earth from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His majesty when He arises to shake the earth mightily. In Revelations, it says men are gonna crawl into caves and they're gonna say, hide us from the face of the one who's coming, of Jesus who's coming. Remember, remember, listen, He's gonna come in His glory and every eye's gonna see Him. And when He comes, Jesus says over and over again, the sun's gonna be darkened, the moon's gonna be darkened, the stars are not gonna shine because His glory is so brilliant and all are gonna behold Him. This is the one we serve. This is the one who says, I want you to be a part of my family. This is the one who actually came and died for you. Have you gotten, is it excited? So let's define what is the glory of the Lord? I mean, when you hear the word glory, you can substitute greatness, but it doesn't do it justice. You gotta thank glory. What does the word glory mean?

Well, if you look at the word for glory in Exodus 33, 18, I mean, Moses made this request of God. He said, please show me your glory, right? The word glory there is the Hebrew word kabod and the definition of this word is the weight of something, but only in a figurative good sense. So it's weighty. You understand what I'm saying? All right, it's also defined this word kabod, the Hebrew word for glory. It's defined as splendor, abundance, and honor. So Moses was saying basically, show me yourself in all of your splendor. Exodus 33, verse 19, God says to him, in response to Moses' request to see his glory, I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I'm gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. Now, Moses asked for glory. God said, I'll cause all my goodness. The word goodness in the Hebrew is tuwab, and this word is defined as this good in the widest sense. In other words, nothing is held back, okay? And then he makes this statement. He said, I'll proclaim the name of the Lord before you. Now, you gotta understand, before a king enters into his courtroom, all right, all the people are in place, they have been prepared. Once the king, right before the king comes in,

the trumpets blow, and the herald announces the king's name, and the king comes out in all of his glory. I mean, there is no mistake in that throne room who is the king, but if that king would have been on the city streets with just a polo shirt on, you might miss him. You may not know his facial features that well. You could walk right past that king and not even know, but you're not gonna miss him when he's in all of his glory, when the trumpets blow. It's blown, the heralds announced him, and he comes in with all his royal robes on and sits on his throne. You're not gonna miss him there, okay? Do you know that there were people that saw God and didn't even know they were seeing God in the Old Testament? I mean, look at Joshua. He said, are you for us or for them? He said, neither. I'm the captain of the Lord's house, and Joshua got down and worshiped. He's looking at God and doesn't even know it because he's not in his glory. Look at Abraham. Abraham had a meal with God, and they talked about Sodom and Gomorrah at the trees of Terabith. Let me tell you, not in his glory. No way.

I mean, look at Jacob. Jacob wrestled with God, right? Not in his glory, all right? But then there's Isaiah who sees the Lord, and we're gonna talk about that one in the next lesson. Isaiah sees his glory, and we're gonna see the response that one evokes. But then you got Jesus. Jesus is raised from the dead. Mary thinks he's the gardener. He's not in his glory. Two disciples walk with him on the road of Animaus, and he starts eating a meal with them. They don't even recognize him. He's not in his glory. He's on the seashore while the disciples are fishing after he was raised from the dead, and he's cooking a fish breakfast, and they don't even know it's the Lord. It wasn't until he said, throw your nets out, and they had all those fish. Peter said, it's the Lord. But then John the apostle sees Jesus in his glory. His face shone like the sun. His eyes were like laser beams. His voice was the sound of many waters. In other words, his voice thundered, and John fell down like a dead man. Do you understand God is preparing you and I for his glory? Do you understand that Daniel makes this statement?

He said, those who are wise will shine like the stars of the firmament, and those who lead people to righteousness will shine with his glory forever. Do you know that Paul the apostle wrote that when he appears, we will appear with him in his glory? God is preparing you and I for his glory, but if we don't understand what it is, we take it for granted. That's why I'm so excited you're taking this course. So in closing, here's the deal. The glory of God is everything that makes God, God. All of his characteristics, his authority, his power, his wisdom, literally the immeasurable weight and magnitude of God, nothing is hidden or held back. Think about this a lot between now and the next lesson. God bless you.