From Glory To Glory

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much and hello again my dear radio friend. I’m glad to be back with you. How in the world are you? Yes, I give that little corny greeting to establish the fact that this is indeed your good friend, Bob Cook. I’ve just been praying that God would somehow put His love and truth, blessing and power into my voice and into the words that are said during these precious moments that we invest together.

We’re finishing up 2 Peter. Peter said, “Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever. Amen.” The answer to the warning about falling away and being led into the trap of the error of the wicked, now, we got that listed for us in Chapter 2 in 2 Peter. I went over that with you the last time we got together. He said, “Watch out. Don’t fall into the trap.” But instead, he said, “Grow in grace.” The only way to avoid falling away is to emphasize God’s grace in every department of your life and this is not a form of “easy believism”. To emphasize the grace of God doesn’t mean you do what you please. Emphasizing the grace of God means that more and more you do what He pleases. That’s how that is.

And so, he says, “Grow in grace.” That’s the answer to the danger of falling into the trap of said temptation and wickedness and it’s — the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He’s Lord and that means He gives the orders. So to grow in grace, you ask for His command on everything. Lord, what will thou have me to do? Pray your way through the day. God is interested in small details. I disagree heartily with those who say that you shouldn’t bother God with small things. God is interested in small details. Jesus said that He’s a big enough God to put a separate number on every hair follicle on your head so if He’s that much interested in details, He’s also interested in what happens to you.

Job said, “He knoweth the way that I take; when He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.” And the psalmist said, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord and he delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down for the Lord upholdeth him with His hand.” God is interested in taking care of you as you step through life so let Him. The Lordship of Christ, to acknowledge the Lordship of Christ, ensures your growth in the relationship you have with God’s grace. You don’t do as you please, you do as He pleases. “Thy law is within my heart.” “I delight to do thy will, oh my God. Yea thy law is within my heart,” said the psalmist. So it’s not do as you please, it’s do as He pleases, Lord Jesus Christ. You get the idea there?

Now He said, “To Him, be glory and both now and forever, Amen.” That’s the end of the passage there, the glory of Christ. Well, we’ll see at His second coming, Matthew 16:27 says, “The Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels and He shall reward every man according to his works.” He’s manifested at His second coming. John, the Apostle, of course saw Him in His glorified form and fell before Him as one dead. Daniel had the same experience in a pre-incarnation manifestation of Christ and he also fell down as though he were completely devastated and stricken until he was touched with strength from on high.

The glory of the Lord Jesus is going to be so tremendous that we can’t even describe it here and now and you won’t be able to stand it until you get a glorified body that’s adapted to glory. Well that glory is to be shared then by you and by you believers, Matthew 19:28. Jesus said unto them, “Verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed me in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Then there was something revealed on what we call the Mount of Transfiguration. Luke 9, “Peter and they that were with Him, were heavy with sleep: and when they were awake; they saw His glory and the two men that stood with Him.” That was Moses and Elijah as you recall. He was transfigured before them. His face was shining, His garments were shining and luminescent and they saw something of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

My old theology professor at Eastern Baptist, John Champion, used to say that as one who lived on the farm, he had to trim the wick in the kerosene lamps so that they would burn brightly and he said when they were turned, the way, way down, it was just a tiny flicker of a flame but if you wanted more light, you turn up the wick and the light blazed forth. He said, “On the mount of transfiguration, our Lord turned up the wick of His glory and let it shine forth a little more for those who were with Him.” The glory of the Savior is revealed in the incarnation. “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory. The glories of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth,” John 1:14 says that. In the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, you have the essence, the packaging of the glory of God.

And then of course, this is not something new. It was before the foundation of the world. Our Lord Jesus prayed in His high priestly prayer in John 17:5. “Now Father,” He said, “Glorify me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” See, to all eternity, that Lord Jesus Christ, was the glorified second person that God had. Didn’t just start now and we’re writing about it but always was, always will be.

And then of course the whole host of heaven is giving a voice in ascribing glory to our Lord Jesus. They said with a loud voice, “Worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.” In heaven, we’ll be singing about our blessed Lord and shouting His praise and giving Him glory. Now all of that it says, “To Him be glory, both now and ever.”

Now I want to make a personal connection here for you with this concept and so I’m turning back to 2 Corinthians and I want you to see something there that may shake you up a little. Now he says in 2 Corinthians 3:17, “The Lord is that spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. But we all,” verse 18, “with open face beholding as in a glass,” that’s our word mirror, “the glory of the Lord are changed, into the same image,” (Who’s image? His image.) “from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” Transformed into the same image from glory to glory.

Now can you take this in? Here’s the Lord Jesus, visually now and again when He was here on Earth. They saw that wonderful glory shining out but now He’s ascended and glorified and the next time you see Him, it will be something that John described in the book of the Revelations. He said, “I beheld a lamb as it had been slain.” “In the midst of the seven candlesticks, one like unto the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, girded with a golden girdle, head and hair, white like wool as white as snow, His eyes were as a flame of fire. His feet like unto fine brass as if they burned in a furnace; his voice as the sound of many waters. He had in his right hand seven stars; and out of His mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and His countenance was as the sun shineth in His strength. And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead.”

The next time you see the Lord Jesus, you’re going to see Him with this tremendous glory that was His before the foundation of the world and is now His again as He’s finished the work of redemption and gone back to God, the Father. If that — be so and it is, what is our relationship with it? The Holy Spirit of God dwells within us, doesn’t He? If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. What is His job? To reveal Christ. Our Lord Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would testify of Him. The work of the Holy Spirit is to reveal Christ and to make you more like Him and so you come then to 2 Corinthians 3:18 and He said, “We all with open face beholding as in a mirror.” What is the mirror, the Word of God. Go to James one. “He that is a hearer of the Word and not a doer is like a man who beholdeth his natural face in a glass; and goeth his way and forgeteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, he shall be blessed. This man shall be blessed in his deed.”

The mirror is the Word of God and as you dwell in the Word of God, the Holy Spirit changes you into His image, more like the Lord Jesus. That’s the genesis of that old song that we used to sing and I haven’t heard for a long time, “More like the Master, I would ever be more of His meekness, more humility, more like the master. Take thou my heart, I would be thine alone. More like the master.” Good old song. We don’t sing it much anymore but the truth is still there, changed into His image to be like the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now he says, “From glory to glory.” You don’t have to wait to get to heaven to have the shine of God’s glory on your life. Spend some time with your blessed Lord until your eyes are wet and your heart is warm and tender and you come from that place of prayer with the shine of God on your life, the Glory of God on you. You won’t have to tell people where you’ve been, they all know. It was said of the Apostles, they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus. You spend time with your blessed Lord day by day as I say until your eyes are wet and your heart is tender. Your sins have been confessed and forsaken and you’re right with Him and then you go out from His presence to serve Him and you’ll have the touch of glory on you and He says, “From glory to glory.”

God’s dealing with us is always on a progression. You go over to 1 Romans and He says, “I’m not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith.” From faith to faith, “as it is written, the just shall live by faith.” God gives you the ability to trust Christ and then He gives you more opportunities to trust Him and to prove Him, sometimes through trials and sometimes through troubles, and sometimes through a challenge from the Word of God but it’s from faith to faith. Believe in God for a little bit today and more tomorrow and still more the next day from faith to faith. It’s a progression.

Now you come over to 2 Corinthians 3, He says, “It’s from glory to glory.” A little shine today on your life as you wait before God but you go back again another morning and you wait before Him and God adds to the shine and you keep on through a lifetime and by the time you go off to heaven, you’re shining with the very blessing of God in your life. Anybody that touches you is blessed because God has been working in you from glory to glory. That’s what Peter was meaning when he said, “to Him be glory both now,” that’s in your life, “and forever.” That’s when we all get home to heaven. It’s great, isn’t it? Hallelujah for the truth of God.

Dear Father today, oh may the glory of God be upon us in growing measure, from glory to glory. May Jesus, our blessed Lord, get all the praise, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!