Matt. 5:16 “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Psalm 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.”

Ezekiel 34: 29-31 “And I will raise up for them a garden of renown, and they will no longer be victims of famine in the land or bear the scorn of the nations. Then they will know that I, the LORD their God, am with them, and that they, the house of Israel, are My people,’ declares the Lord GOD. ‘You are My flock, the sheep of My pasture, My people, and I am your God,’ declares the Lord GOD.”

As many of you will know, Dr. John MacArthur went home to be with the Lord this week. He was a great Bible scholar. I did not agree with all that he taught, in particular the idea of Calvinism, but in just about every other aspect, his theology was solid. In an interview a while ago, he was asked about his goal in life, and he simply replied that his goal was to ‘glorify God.’ There was no fanfare, no accolades, and no pretense, just the plain and simple truth of his life’s goal, to ‘glorify God.’

We are told in many places to keep the main thing the main thing, and Dr. MacArthur knew how to do that. In every interview, in all of the interactions that we often see online, he was able to live out his goal of glorifying God. He never wavered in his doctrinal stands and did not compromise for money or fame. May we all be like this.

But as I was thinking about this, it hit me, and it kept hitting me that too many of us have missed the point of why we exist and why we are saved; it is to glorify God. But what does that mean?

The word glorify is not as mysterious as we think it is; it simply means to ‘form the right opinion.’ Our goal, our purpose, and what should drive us is to live in such a way, carry ourselves in such a way, operate our local churches in such a way as to help people form the right opinion of God. Let that sink in; we are to live in such a way as to help the people around us form the right opinion of God.

Are you and I doing that? And, if we are, are we doing so faithfully? Are we doing so consistently? These are legitimate questions about how we are living our lives.

Let us take a look at Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God”; the heavens help people to form the right opinion of God. Now, there are a lot of people who do not come to the right conclusion, and that is because they have preconceived opinions that hinder them from coming to the right conclusion about God. Over and over again, I see that when these supposed ‘evolutionists’ are confronted with questions about origins, they get stumped and fumble their words because intrinsically they know that the world in which we live, the planet on which we live, was intelligently designed. There are no ways around it once they begin to dissect the science.

One has to ignore several very concrete laws of life, physics, and science to be an evolutionist. One has to suspend rational thought to be an evolutionist, and one has to take a huge leap of faith to be an evolutionist. Thus, the heavens do their job, but sinful people refuse to come to the right conclusion. We learn from this that we are not responsible for how people react to our glorifying, but that we do glorifying right.

Many people disagreed with Dr. MacArthur on same sex marriage, on the simplicity of the Gospel, on the fact that Jesus was and is the only way, and that there is a Hell to shun and a Heaven to gain, but nonetheless, Dr. MacArthur stood firm and stood on the sanctity and security of the Holy Bible. We should endeavor to be just as secure, just as sure, just as dogmatic, and just as well-versed as he was. We should all be diligent students of the Holy Bible and be secure in its doctrines.

Do our marriages show the glory of God? Do our relationships show the glory of God? Do our churches show the glory of God? On and on we can go with these questions.

What if we based all of our actions on this simple foundation? Will what I am about to say, do, act, re-act, and endorse help those around me to form the right opinion of God? How would this simple action change the way we live out our lives? How would it make our marriages better? Our churches better? Our spending better? Our whole approach to life better?

If we make glorifying God the sole goal, the sole focus, I am not sure that we know how that would change the world around us. We have to be ready for the pushback, even from Christians. Dr. MacArthur and other leaders like him were hated by just as many or more people than those who loved him. But his sole goal was to please God; all else was second, and at that, a distant second.

All too often, when the world thinks of glorifying God, they only think of Him as loving, as kind, as a big jolly spiritual Santa Claus of sorts. But if we are to let the world know who God is and to form the right opinion of Him, then we have to also show the other side of God. He is a God to be feared, not only in the respectful sense, but in the drop on your face, trembling kind of fear.

Isaiah 6:5, “So I said: ‘Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The LORD of hosts.’”

He created Hell; He sent the flood; He sent snakes to kill thousands of Israelites in the wilderness; He allowed some 600,000 men to die in the wilderness because they refused to enter the Promised Land; He poured out His wrath on His own Son when He became sin for us; and one day, billions will go to the Lake of Fire as a consequence of rejecting the free offer of salvation that our gracious, loving God provided. This is the part of God that we do not often show, that we try to avoid, and that we ourselves fear. God is good, and as such, He hates evil; we must be careful not to condone it.

How do we love our brothers and sisters in Jesus? Can they see and form the right opinion of God from our love? Are our churches dens of Godly love, forgiveness, grace, kindness, peace, safety, holiness, security and joy for our Christian family? Can a saved stranger walk in and feel as if they have been here for a lifetime? They should be able to because of Jesus and His Spirit in us that binds us together.

What is my purpose, our purpose, the purpose of my family, our local church? It is simply this: we are to glorify God, and in so doing, help others to form the right opinion of Him.

Jesus is coming soon; let us be about the Master’s business.

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church
70 Victoria Street, Elora, Ontario

Ezekiel 3:17-19

“Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.”

Over the past few weeks, the idea of taking responsibility has really been on my mind. I remind myself that there is a judgment coming to me and that I must give an account to the Lord. At the age of almost 59, that judgment is sooner than I would like, to truly be honest with myself about.

I saw a lovely post today on FB about a Vietnam Veteran who was badly wounded in a helicopter crash, actually had his arm mangled, and eventually had it amputated. In spite of the pain, he manned his automatic weapon on the helicopter and took out the enemy. He spent 4 or 5 months in a hospital in Tokyo before returning home, and he said that the thing that really got to him was that the men he helped save by manning his gun in spite of the pain and injury would come and show him pictures of their kids, their girlfriends, their wives and other family members, and they would thank him.

In this life, much like in the field of combat, we are going to get hurt. Things will happen that will change our lives forever, but God has called us, much like this soldier, to keep fighting, keep being the watchman, keep warning the people around us, both our loved ones and enemies alike, that Jesus is real, Jesus died for their sins, that He rose from the dead, and that He is coming again to reveal Himself to the world once more. We need to let them know that there is a judgment coming and they need to be ready. But a lot of us Christians are not sharing the Gospel; some are drawing further and further away from the lost, leaving them without any hope.

But there is more than just that. Let’s say that God, in His love and wisdom, does not send Jesus as soon as we think. We need to stand for the truth to preserve the freedoms and rights for our children and grandchildren. Too many of us are happy as long as the ‘bad stuff’ does not happen in our time. But that is not how we should be thinking. I do not want my granddaughters to grow up in a Canada that has become an Islamic republic. This is why the Gospel is so important. True Christianity is the only guarantee of freedom that our kids have. The truth of God’s love, Jesus’ sacrifice, and the peace that it offers is all we have, but it is all we need. The idea of loving God and loving our neighbors is the only true guarantee that we will be a free nation for our children and grandchildren to live in.

We are the watchmen/watchwomen; we need to know the truth, live the truth, speak the truth, and stand up for the truth, or the lies will take over and we will become the hated ones.

I just saw a police chief here in Canada say publicly that those who embrace ‘traditional values’ are extremists. Let that sink in – the idea that the family is most important, that men are men, women are women, and that marriage is sacred and should be between a man and a woman forever, if at all possible, is now considered an extremist stance. This is the prophecy from Isaiah 5:20 playing out: “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

Even our governments are lying to us, avidly promoting evil as good and silencing those who speak what we ALL KNOW to be TRUE. Our governments are now the mouthpieces for evil. They are trying to silence the dissenters who speak the truth. If we are silent about the truth, it will go away, and our kids will not know it. They will be lied to at their schools, and when we tell them the truth, they will think we are the liars. How sad. Soon, they will be God-haters like the vast majority of people around us, and we will lose them because we, the watchmen, kept silent.

For a long time, these verses in Ezekiel were used almost exclusively about the Gospel, and rightly so. But truth extends so much further than the Gospel; Jesus taught the truth on a variety of subjects, and we as Christians should be well-versed on issues of the truth. There is no freedom without truth, NONE.

This is not just about the Gospel, but ALL truth is about freedom. Too many of our kids and a lot of our adults are trapped in a prison of lies. They have been trapped for so long, they have swallowed the lies and cannot live outside of the lies. Our silence as saved people, as churches, and as people of the light has been and continues to be very dangerous.

It still amazes me how many Christians vote for people who promote evil, vote for people who murder babies in abortion clinics; it amazes me how many people of color vote for people who are actively killing them off; it amazes me how many people vote for socialism and how many Christians think that the LGBTQ2+ movement is about freedom and not about the dominance to indoctrinate our kids.

A lot of Christians will be astonished at the law and order Jesus is bringing. They will cringe at the things Jesus will do away with and that He will not water down God’s laws nor make excuses for the abuse thereof.

Look at Psalm 2: 8-9; “Ask Me, and I will make the nations Your inheritance, the ends of the earth Your possession. You will break them with an iron scepter; You will shatter them like pottery.”

Jesus will execute absolute authority; He will not need to take a vote or ask for an opinion. Why then are we so wishy-washy? I admit that I can be at times; I don’t want the fight today, and I take a break from being a watchman. But, at what price? I have to remind myself that judgment is coming. My sins are covered by Jesus, but I will answer for my life after salvation and how I did my job as a watchman. Lord, have mercy on me!