Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation. He is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation, my Father's God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war. The Lord is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea. His chosen captains are also drowned in the Red Sea. The depths have covered them. They sank to the bottom like as a stone. The right hand, thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power. Thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy, and in the greatness of thine excellency thou hast overthrown them that rose up against thee. Thou sentest forth thy wrath, which consumed them as a stubble, and with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together, the floods stood upright as on a heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil. My lust shall be satisfied upon them. I will draw my sword. My hand shall destroy them. Thou didst blow with thy wind. The sea covered them. They sank as lead in the mighty waters. Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like thee? glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders. Amen. I want to speak briefly this evening about the nature of God, considering some aspect of his glorious being. I want to take a step back from everyday life, just for a few minutes, and to try and gain a wider, broader perspective on our existence and the purpose for our existence. Moses sang in verse 11 there, Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? And we would answer, well, no one. No one is like our God. He is unique. He is quite unlike any other being that exists. In fact, all other beings come from him. But how much time do we actually spend thinking about God's nature? We were created to think about God's nature. We were created to worship him and to know him. That is the glorious thing about the human race is that we can know and understand this God and yet it's so easy for us to get completely taken up with the things of this world and there are of course many legitimate things that we concern ourselves with but we must make time regularly to come apart and to consider the nature of our God he is unique he is unlike anything else in fact there are no other true gods Genesis 1 verse 1 in the beginning God think about that it actually hurts the mind a little to consider it but before there was any such thing as time before seconds started to tick away in minutes and months and years there was God and he was perfect and he was then the same God that he is now and yet there was no physical world and there was no spiritual world outside of him either there was no heaven we think of heaven as that place where God dwells in his glory where he is worshipped by the angels and by the saints and where there is no sin and we think of that place as bright and shining but that place didn't exist prior to creation there was no earth there was no human race there were no other spirit beings at all angels or men and so before the beginning of the foundation of the world there was no one to praise God there was no one to sing his praises there was no one outside of himself to articulate his glory but that didn't matter that didn't make him any less glorious than he currently is and this is where it starts to become quite difficult for us to understand there was no one for him to judge there was simply God in three persons, neither was there anyone to worship him, and yet whilst we might think with our puny human minds that that was a sad thing, that it was a problem that there was no one to worship God, it isn't, and it wasn't a problem, he was perfectly blessed without anyone to worship him, he was no less glorious when he was there before time with no creative beings whatsoever to enjoy him, or to praise him or to know him he was no less of a god then than he is now there was no universe for him to uphold no planets to keep in their orbits no stars to power no galaxies to keep from crashing into one another and yet that doesn't mean that god was any less powerful than he is now he demonstrates his power to us in these things but before they existed he still had the power to do that he was perfect and complete and exactly the same god as he is now before any of this physical world existed we know that because the bible teaches that he's unchanging we think of that sixth verse of malachi chapter three for i am the lord i change not and yet from our perspective it's quite hard to get your head around isn't it but here is a God that we know now who dwells in glorious heaven surrounded by teeming numberless saints and angels singing his praise permanently and yet he's no more glorious now than he was then and here is a hell full of damned people and here is an earth full of atheists and people who do not know him as they should and yet he's no less glorious now than he was before all these things came to be truth is that he didn't need to create he didn't need to make the human race or the universe he didn't need to make the church and the saints he didn't need to make heaven and hell and the angels and yet he did it neither adds to his glory and his perfection nor takes away from it these things are extraordinary and beyond really what we can understand we ask the question well why did he do it then? and we have the answer in two verses in Ephesians chapter 1 verse 11 according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will not specifically talking about creation but talking about why God does things the apostle Paul says he worketh all things after the counsel of his own will and in verse 5 speaks about the salvation of his people having predestined us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will why then did God create us when he had no need to when he was perfectly blessed and satisfied and glorious without us well he did it for a deep and unfathomable reason which we shouldn't really even look into he did it according to the perfect counsel and good pleasure of his own will you look at the end of Romans chapter 11 verse 34 you think of this verse who hath known the mind of the Lord or who hath been his counsellor and that's very appropriate We think of these things, but we don't inquire too much. We think of Psalm 131, which talks of, the psalmist talks of not lifting up his head and his eyes too much, not inquiring too much into those things which he cannot understand. And Deuteronomy chapter 29, verse 29, I believe it is, where we're told that there are some things which we are not to know. The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong unto us and our children forever. these are secret things and yet we must try and glimpse them because they give us a perspective God was perfect and glorious before creation and he is equally perfect now and yet on earth there are both men who honour God and glorify him and there are those who dishonour him think of that great miracle of the raising of the son of the widow of Nain and the people glorified God when they saw that young man or that boy raised from the dead who they knew to be dead and Jesus the prophet had come this man who was a stranger to them and he performed this miracle and they said a great prophet has arisen amongst us and they glorified God and we can think of many other occasions when men are said to glorify God and that is the purpose of our lives to glorify God And yet, there are others who do the exact opposite. There are those who insult God's name. They blaspheme. They make their whole lives to be the opposite of what they ought to be. And what a great tragedy that is. We strain every sinew and try, as Christians, to do the utmost to glorify God. And there are others who do the exact opposite. We don't puff ourselves up. that we're doing the right thing and they're doing the wrong thing we know that we would be like them if we hadn't been granted light and grace but think of it people whose whole lives denigrate the name of God and yet if we understand these things correctly we know that the worst atheist living for a hundred years of hatred against God does not make God any less glorious than he is Equally, the most wonderful Christian life of living a life dedicated to the glory of God doesn't add to God. It doesn't make Him more glorious. That is impossible. If we are able to make God more glorious, then He needs us. If we're able to make God more glorious, then that must mean that He was less than perfect before we came on the scene, which is ridiculous. what is going on? People say that creation, nature, glorifies God, and that is true. Of course it's true. Outside of the human race and of Christians living for the glory of God, we see on every nature program that we watch, we see every color of the fishes of the coral reef, we see in every piece of genius interweaving of the biodiversities and the habitats that we see around us, we see the glorious hand of a creator. And it's as if Creation itself is a hymn to the glory of God. And I was looking through a telescope two nights ago at the moon. I'd never looked at it so closely before. It is so luminous and bright. And if you look at it through a telescope, you can see the landscape on it. It's magnificent. And it speaks of the glory of God. And yet, if that moon was not there, it wouldn't make God any less glorious, would it? If nature was simpler, it wouldn't make God any less glorious. And so we understand that it's not about us adding to God's glory. It is about us reflecting and making manifest to those around us God's glory. It's us reflecting God's glory. It's us making God's glory more visible, as it were. when the atheist stands up and teaches on prime time TV that there is no God he is hiding God's glory he is blinding people to the truth of what a magnificent God we have when the gospel preacher stands up and speaks of God's mercy and his love through Jesus Christ then he is showing God's glory to those who can see and so To live to God's glory, which is our chief purpose and end, is to show and to reflect His nature, to make it more widely known, to be evidence of God's glory. The illustration that I can think of, and I'm not quite sure if this is scientifically correct, is I think of a chandelier made up of a single light source and then surrounded by ever so many crystals. and the crystals take that light in and then they split it and send it out now I don't know whether they actually make more light I don't think they do I just think they make the original light more visible as it were so if he had never created us he would still have been perfect and glorious but he has created us and he has given us the job of reflecting and showing and making known his glory in this world to make it more visible, as it were. But even now, in some ways, we're not that important, are we? God is still God, with us or without us. He is still glorious, whatever we choose to do and however we choose to live our lives, he was perfectly happy and blessed before we existed and he is still perfectly happy and blessed now that we do exist we could read those verses in Isaiah chapter 40 couldn't we to see how important we really are behold the nations are as a drop of a bucket and are counted as the small dust of the balance behold he taketh up the isles as a very little thing and Lebanon is not sufficient to burn nor the beast thereof sufficient for a burnt offering all the nations before him are as nothing they are counted to him less than nothing and vanity to whom then will ye liken God or what likeness will you compare unto him he is unique there is nothing that you can compare him with so what is the purpose for which we are created to glorify God not by making him more glorious but by making his glory visible now of course when we think of this amazing, unique, wonderful, perfect God that we have. We think of him before time exists. We see more clearly that he is spirit and that the creation is, for the most part, physical. We see a very clear dichotomy between the created world and the uncreated God. And that gives us an insight as to how we operate. Because God, not being physical, cannot be known. by the physical he can only be known by us in such measure as we have spiritual life and sight men who hate god pretend that they are looking for him in a physical way and they pretend that they can't find him you remember perhaps only a quote from some of the early russian cosmonauts who went up into space and said ah Well, I've been up into space and I didn't see God there, so he cannot exist. And the scientists, who think that in some way they can discover God and because the things which they can do in test tubes and look at in microscopes don't show God as far as they're concerned, they say he cannot be seen. And this is why, when we preach the gospel, we preach our hearts out, and we explain things as clearly and as persuasively as we possibly can, and we set before people life and death, they still choose death because they have no spiritual life God can only be known spiritually He can only be known when His Holy Spirit comes and awakens our souls so that's what we must pray for we must be in awe and wonder about God we must be very clear about what our purpose is in life and we must pray in a very practical way that the Lord will send His Spirit to awaken dead souls even here in our church. Amen.