Welcome back to Aspastor John. This summer Pastor John is out of the studio preaching in Belfast in Scotland before returning to the States for a 40-day writing leave to finish up a book on Providence on the sovereignty of God a book he started last summer and hopes to finish this summer I cannot wait to see it and all of it the travel the book writing in this very podcast is all made possible by you we are supported by the prayers and the funding of God's people so thank you for generously

investing in this important and eternal work so with Pastor John busy we're diving into our archive of 1500 episodes and this summer we're pulling out some of your favorites about once every 50 episodes we release one that touches a nerve and touches the 300,000 play mark these are the elite episodes in our six and a half year history we only have about 30 of them and here's one of them

God's glory is a big deal in Scripture and that makes it a big deal to us here at Desiring God and over the years here are just a few ways Pastor John has described the importance of the glory of God he said things like this the vindication of God's glory is the ground of our salvation and the exaltation of God's glory is the goal of our salvation in another place he said this God's glory is the goal of all things in another place he said this

God's glory is the unifying goal of all history in another place he said God's glory is the source and some of all full and lasting joy and on and on these are strong words but what exactly is God's glory what do we mean by that it's a question Pastor John sought to answer in his sermon to him be glory forever more preached on December 17th 2006 here's a clip of what he said

defining the glory of God is is impossible I say because it's more like the word beauty than the word basketball so if somebody says they've never heard of a basketball they don't know what a basketball is and they say define a basketball that would not be hard for you to do you would use your hands and you'd say well it's like a round thing

made out of leather or rubber and button 10 or 9 inches in diameter and you you blow it up you inflate it so it's pretty hard and then you can bounce it like this and you can throw it to people and you can run while you're bouncing it and then there's this hoop at the end

used to be called used to be a basket and you try to throw the ball through the hoop and that's why it's called a basket ball and they'd have a really good idea

they'd be able to spot one tell it from a soccer ball or a football you can't do that with the word beauty there are some words in our vocabulary which we can communicate with not because we can say them but because we see them

and that's we can point we can point and if we point out enough things and see enough things together say that's it that's it that's it we might be able to have a common sense of beauty but you try to put beauty the word beauty into words

it'd be very very difficult same thing with the word glory so how shall I do it we got to try because we just can't leave it for people to fill up on their own

so here's the way I'm going to try to do it I'm going to take it and contrast it biblically with the word holy and ask what's the difference between the holiness of God and the glory of God and in doing that I think we'll get a little handle on the nature of this term the glory of God

so that's why I'm going to try to do it in the holiness of God is I think his being in a class by himself in his perfection and greatness and worth his his perfection and his greatness and his worth are of such a distinct and separated you've been taught that holy means separate distinct and separated that he's in a class by himself

infinite perfections infinite greatness and infinite worth his holiness is what he is as God that nobody else is it's his quality of perfection that can't be improved upon that can't be imitated that is incomparable that determines all that he is and is determined by nothing from outside him it signifies

his infinite worth his intrinsic infinite value no when Isaiah six three says that angels are crying holy holy is the Lord God Almighty the next thing they say is this holy holy is the Lord God

Almighty the whole earth is full of his and you might have expected them to say holiness and he doesn't say holiness he says glory

intrinsically holy intrinsically holy intrinsically holy and the whole earth is full of his glory from which I stab at a definition by saying the glory of God

is the manifest beauty of his holiness it's the going public of his holiness it's it's the way he puts his holiness on display for for people to apprehend

so the glory of God is the holiness of God made manifest listen to this word from Leviticus 103 God says I will be shown to be holy among those who are near me and before all the people I will be glorified

I will be shown to be holy and among all the people say it another way I will be glorified so to see to apprehend and to reckon with his holiness and in some sense perceive it is to see glory

and thus to glorify him so here's here's an attempt at a definition the glory of God is the infinite beauty and greatness of God's manifold perfections

the infinite beauty and I'm focusing on the manifestation of his character and his worth and his attributes all of his perfections and greatness are beautiful as they are seen and there are many of them

that's why I use the word manifold so here it is in other sense the glory of God is the infinite beauty and greatness of his manifold perfections

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