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To the Glory of
God Alone
This is the fourth in a series
of devotions on the Five Solas of the Reformed Faith. You may have noticed I
have not covered them in the order they are most often listed. I do this as a
personal preference to save the “best wine for last” which is that of Sola
Christus – the topic of our next and last devotion on the Five Solas.
But today we will cover The Glory reserved for God Alone which may be summarized as ALL
Glory to God and none to man.
The below prayer is said or sung
as a concluding prayer of the Service of Holy Communion in the Reformed
Anglican Church of England. It rightfully attributes all glory to God where it
belongs, and reflects precisely the biblical perspective on that glory due to
the Divine Sovereign of our Souls.
¶ Then shall be said Gloria in excelsis, all
standing, or some proper Hymn.
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LORY be to God on high, and on earth
peace, good will towards men. We praise thee, we bless thee, we worship thee,
we glorify thee, we give thanks to thee for thy great glory, O Lord God,
heavenly King, God the Father Almighty. O Lord, the
only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ; O Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father,
that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. Thou that takest
away the sins of the world, receive our prayer. Thou that sittest at the right
hand of God the Father, have mercy upon us. For thou only
art holy; thou only art the Lord; thou only, O Christ, with the Holy Ghost, art
most high in the glory of God the Father. Amen.
(American
Book of Common Prayer - 1928)
The most beautifully poetic
passages of the Bible give abundant counsel on our duty to give all glory to
God for without him, we are nothing. Old One Hundreth proclaims this
wonderfully: 1 Make a joyful noise unto the
LORD, all ye lands. 2 Serve the LORD with gladness:
come before his presence with singing. 3 Know ye that the LORD he is God:
it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the
sheep of his pasture. 4 Enter into his gates with
thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless
his name. 5 For the LORD is good; his mercy
is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations. (Psalm 100:1-5)
Without God, we would not even
be sheep; but a lamb can never boast of its wonderful works – of its creative
genius, of its great accomplishments – and we are less than lambs without God. 1 O LORD our Lord, how
excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the
heavens. 2 Out of the mouth of babes and
sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou
mightest still the enemy and the avenger. 3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the
moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; 4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of
man, that thou visitest him? 5 For thou hast made him a little
lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. (Psalm
8:1-5)
I love to read of inspiring
events from the past when Christian faith was more a common possession than the
exception it has become today. Here is one which inspires the heart, mind, and
ear:
A Custom Involving
Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus:
On 23 March 1743, when Handel’s Messiah was first performed in London to raise
funds for orphans, the King of England – George II - was present in the
audience. As King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, was wafted by the
multitudinous choir with overwhelming power and majesty, King George could not
resist the urge to stand up. From that first performance to today, it is
customary - nay, mandatory! – that all stand when the Hallelujah Chorus
is sung.
When one comes face-to-face to the reality of God’s majesty, he cannot help but
stand to glorify that magnificent Personage!
Of course, when we glorify God, we are glorifying the Three in One – Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Though we can own no
glory to ourselves, we can share in that glory by being safe in the Ark of
Christ who is glorious beyond measure.
The people of God first glimpsed the splendor and majesty of God’s glory in the
Glory Cloud that both followed and led the Children of Israel across the
Red Sea Basin and throughout their Wilderness Journey. He, by the way, both
follows and leads us in this wilderness journey of the modern day. 19 And the angel of God,
which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the
pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them: 20 And it came between the camp of
the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them,
but it gave light by night to these: so that the one came not near the other
all the night. (Ex
14:19-20)
Amazingly, the glory of God blinds the wicked and gives Light and Guidance to
the righteous.
When the hearts of the American people were fixed on the Rock of their
Salvation at the nation’s founding, symbols of the glory of God were inculcated
in our national symbols. One of those symbols in the Glory Cloud found on the
one dollar bill and incorporated in the National Seal. If you look on the
obverse side of the one dollar bill (the green side) you will see the Glory
Cloud depicted above the Great Eagle. Inside the Glory Cloud you will find
thirteen stars with the dual reference to the thirteen colonies as well as the
thirteen tribes of Israel. Remember the
tribe of Levi was dispersed among the other twelve tribes much as the Holy Ghost
is dispersed among the Church.
We not only have as our Sovereign the King of Kings, but the King of Glory as
well. 7 Lift up your heads, O ye
gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall
come in. 8 Who is this King of glory? The
LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle. 9 Lift up your heads, O ye gates;
even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. 10 Who is this King of glory? The
LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah. (Psalm
24:7-10)
Reverence, honor, dignity, and respect are gone along with the days of chivalry
in our time. We see adult men walking about with their pants down about their
bottoms. Self-respect is gone along with the loss of reverence for God. If we
do not revere God, it is unlikely we will bear respect for others. Public dress
has grown sloppy and immodest in both men and women. This is an outward sign of
the inward spiritual depravity of our age. Even our worship music has become
more worldly than that of the WORLD. Instead of modest dress and dignity of
appearance, men and women have graven images in their flesh (tattoos). The
glory of God’s Creation is marred by irreverent paintings that mar the
perfection of nature, and music which appeals to the sensual rather than the
spiritual. The Great Masters of the past would be overcome with despondency to
see the low point of morality to which modern man has sunk.
I spoke with a friend about this the other day and he responded, “Yes, I know;
however, every generation has claimed the present to be of lesser moral value
than the previous.”[1]
That is a great deception. I know because I have lived in times and places –
perhaps long ago and far away – in which a divorced person was never seen in my
community. No girls became pregnant in school. None of us knew what marijuana,
cocaine, or homosexuality was. I believed the latter was simply a bad joke when
I heard of it in high school. I did not realize the reality of this filthy sin
until after I graduated high school.
Perhaps you are one of those light-headed scholars who do not believe that the
wicked imaginations of man’s heart have no limits for worsening. 5 And GOD saw that the
wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And it repented the LORD that he
had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. 7 And the LORD said, I will
destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and
beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me
that I have made them.
(Gen 6:5-7)
The condition of the world today reminds me precisely of those days of Noah.
How long will the Lord withhold His hand of judgment against such a vile
society as we see about us today. Of course, there remain devoted remnants of
God in wilderness areas – in the mountains of Luzon, in the jungles of the
Solomons, in the threatening environment of Pakistan and Syria, and in the
faithful plains of Serbia/Macedonia. There even remains a remnant of God’s
people in modern-day America, but the numbers are growing fewer with the
passage of time.
For those intoxicated on the modern indoctrinations of schools, here is food
for thought: 7 And shall not God
avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long
with them? 8 I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the
Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? (Luke 18:7-8)
A good start to restoration of soul and spirit would be to return to glorifying
God. In doing so, we see how small we are; and how great and mighty He is!
[1]
By the way, this, if
true, is merely indicative of a gradual decline in the world; not a thing in
which to take comfort.
