"I beseech You, show me Your Glory." That was a large request for Moses to make. He could not have asked for more. It is the greatest petition that man ever asked of God! And you have learned to pray after this manner, setting the Father’s glory first, His name honored, His kingdom come, His will done. This is a giant’s plea, a colossus among prayers, and it pleases the heart of God.
But where is this glory to be seen? God’s Glory evidently lies in His Goodness. When Moses said, "I beseech You, show me Your Glory," the answer given him was this: "I will make all My goodness pass before you." The brightest gem in the crown of God is His goodness! The true Glory of God is like the glory of the king who will not glory in the numbers executed upon the hill of death, but who glories in his subjects who are happy and blessed. And this goodness is sovereign, "I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy to whom I will show mercy." His Glory and His Sovereignty are one.
And how is this goodness most brightly displayed? Christ says, "Said I not unto you that if you would believe you should see the Glory of God?" The death, the burial, the very stinking of Lazarus, all this is only a platform for the Divine Glory to display itself! And when a soul dead in sin is converted, you do see the Glory of God! Most conspicuously in the conversion of the chief of sinners. Such a sight of God’s Glory will make it impossible for a single note of praise to be given to yourselves, but all the Glory, all the Glory shall be to His rich, all-conquering, Sovereign Grace! His Glory is also seen in the fact that these sinners, when saved, hold on and continue to the end. The Glory of the Lord shall be their rereward, their shelter and protection.
You then add your needs, as our Lord taught: "Give us our daily bread." Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits! Temporal and spiritual benefits so numerous, and each one so weighty, that we cannot say less than this, that He daily loadeth us with His benefits, until we seem bowed down to the earth under a joyful sense of obligation to His mercy. It has been your lot, like that of Mephibosheth, to sit daily at the King’s table. Yet you murmur. You have been unbelieving, proud, idle; all sorts of ill-tempers have you shown. Yet has He daily loaded you with benefits.
And now you cry, "Forgive our debts, as we forgive our debtors." This is a divine forgiveness. "I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins." It is a surprising forgiveness, for the text speaks as if God Himself were surprised that such sins should be remitted: "I, even, I." However sinful your life may have been up until now, there is forgiveness with God even for you! He sends this message to you, "There is forgiveness." And what does He ask of you? "It is the glory of God to cover a matter." Then, you cover matters, too. I know some people who always like to be poking into any filth there is. But the spirit of forgiveness would keep us always in a state of love, and this is exactly what the Lord Jesus aims at.
"Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." The Glory of the Lord shall be your rereward. Ready-to-Halt, they have to go on crutches, yet the Glory of the Lord shall be their shelter and protection. There are some of you who, in your humble estimate of yourselves, put yourselves in the rear. But the Glory of the Lord must do it, and we shall have to give Him all the praise! The Glory that excels the glory of perfection! The Glory of being made like unto the First-Born among many brethren! "The glory which thou gavest me, I have given them."
"For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever." When the Lord shall build up Zion, He shall appear in His Glory. Earthly kings often glory in the terror of their power and the splendor of their majesty. What a condescending God is ours, whose Glory is a moral glory and whose chief delight consists in blessing the poor and needy! Let us bless His name for this.
His Glory can be best seen in the clift of the rock. You must be hidden in Christ, the Rock of Ages, to behold His goodness pass by. Now, can you believe this? Can you trust Jesus Christ, alone, to utterly save you? If you have been the chief of sinners, you may have the chief of sinner’s forgiveness, and God can bestow it now. The Glory of the Lord is the Lord Himself! After all, we cannot dissociate the Glory from the Glorious One! God Himself we must have if we would see His Glory!
"Pray then after this manner:
‘Our Father who is in Heaven,
Your Name be Honored!
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