June 15, 2025 • 25 mins
In this episode, from a chapel service held on Friday 9 May 2025, John Forsyth, Vicar of St Judes Church in Melbourne, Australia, speaks on Ezekiel 1 and the prophet Ezekiel’s terrifying encounter with the living God.
John reminds us of the incomprehensible otherness of the God we worship, and encourages us with the fact that seeing the glory of God gives us gospel confidence that shapes our lives and ministry.
For more audio resources, visit the Moore College website. There, you can also make a donation to support the work of the College.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:09):
Welcome to Moore in the Word, a podcast of Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia, that seeks
to glorify God through biblically sound, thought-provoking and challenging talks and interviews.
In this episode, from a chapel service held on Friday the 9th of May 2025, John Forsyth, Vicar of St Jude's Church
(00:30):
in Melbourne, Australia, speaks on Ezekiel 1 and the prophet Ezekiel's terrifying encounter with the living God.
John reminds us of the incomprehensible otherness of the God we worship, and encourages us with
the fact that seeing the glory of God gives us gospel confidence that shapes our lives in ministry.
We hope you find the episode helpful.
(00:54):
This is the God that we worship.
This is the God that we worship.
To have an encounter with the living God is not what us moderns would call a safe space.
It is life changing.
Indeed, it is life shaking.
(01:18):
In Ezekiel chapter one, verse one, we read that Ezekiel has turned 30.
It's the fourth month.
The fifth day, and he's among the exiles by the Kuba River.
The heavens opened and what does he see?
He sees visions of God.
Now that age of 30 is important.
(01:42):
It was the age that most Levites would then begin their priestly duties in the temple.
Uh, Ezekiel, we know in verse three is a priest in Babylon.
This was the age where you had enough strength and wisdom to do the responsibilities that you needed to do.
And in fact, some rabbis have insisted that you're not allowed to even read Ezekiel until you've turned 30.
(02:05):
So if you're under 30 this morning, uh, please ensure you have parental supervision.
What's the context?
Well, we're given that in verses two and three on the fifth of the month, it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehova Chin.
The word of the Lord came to Ezekiel, the priest, son of boozy by the Kibar River in the land of the Babylonians.
(02:29):
It's the fifth year of the exile, though.
The year is 593 bc. The Babylonians have come.
They've invaded.
They defeated Israel.
It's a judgment from God.
Israel's repeated unfaithfulness has led to God to act powerfully, and the key
leaders of Israel, including Ezekiel, have been sent into exile in Babylon.
(02:52):
But Jerusalem still standard has not been, uh, destroyed yet.
That's where we are in, in verse one and two.
It's six years before the city will be destroyed.
The most gifted people from the the nation of Israel have left, taken into exile.
And so the question left hanging is, what happens to Jerusalem?
(03:14):
What happens to the temple?
Where is God in the midst of this?
And then in verse four, out of a dust storm, Ezekiel has an extraordinary vision of God.
It is the mobile throne of the glorious and leaving God.
(03:35):
Uh, it's a bit like two kings, two where there's a charity of fire.
This is actually what this is a picture of.
There are angels, there are are fire, there's wind, there's wheels, there's, there's this fiery,
terrifying figure on a throne whose speech is deafening and the vision is summarized for us in verse 28.
I've got a NIV 2011, so you might have a slightly different translation.
(03:58):
This was the appearance of the likeness, of the glory of the Lord.
That is what we have in these verses, and, and I've got a limited time, so what I wanna do is just share with you two key aspects
of this vision that I think are, are crucial not just for us to understand, but for us to take with us as we prepare for ministry.
(04:25):
We have the sheer, firstly, the sheer otherness of God, his holiness, and secondly, the sheer weightiness of God, his glory.
This is a vision where God's holiness and God's glory are in full display.
God's holiness, his complete otherness.
(04:48):
Now, when you read through Ezekiel chapter one, uh, it's sort of one of those passages where you go, oh, what's.
Gee, what?
What the heck's going on here?
It's complicated.
There are these weird angel like creatures with wings and four faces, which we'll read in chapter 10 of Ezekiel are cherub.
There are wheels within wheels, there are eyes on these wheels, there's fire, there's lightning, there's a vault or an expanse.
(05:13):
There's precious jewels and that the, as you read it, it becomes overwhelming and confusing.
And yes, that is actually the point.
That is what this text is meant to do.
It's apocalyptic language, of course, similar to Revelation.
It is deep with symbols.
(05:34):
The powerful rabbit of the South went west and destroyed the mighty eel.
Like we, we understand what that means.
That's apocalyptic literature.
That's the symbols mean something.
Now, why would you use that language?
Why not just say God has brought his judgment upon God's people because of sin?
(05:57):
Why?
Why go through all this?
And the answer is, how do you describe the indescribable otherness of God?
How do you describe the holiness of God with mortal language?
If
somebody has a chromo, topia, it means they can only see in black and white.
How would you explain the difference between blue and red?
(06:21):
To somebody who had that condition.
It's tricky.
You, you have to kind of use symbols and metaphor, and that's what we have.
It looked like it appeared, like, it seemed like Ezekiel is struggling for the words to, to put into human words what he sees in this vision.
And what's interesting is this is not a vision of God's glory.
(06:44):
This is not an even a vision of the likeness of God's glory.
It is what the vision of the appearance of the likeness, of the glory of God, that it can't even get close.
And what we see is in this vision, the glorious mobile chariot slash throne of God, in verses four to 21, we see there are clouds.
(07:10):
There's flashing fire, and inside these fire, there's these strange angelic creatures.
In chapter 10, we know they're cherub, that their faces represent the highest form of God's creation.
We've got a human, obviously made in God's image, got a lion who was the king of the wild
beasts, the ox, the king of the domestic beast, and the eagle, the chief bird of the air.
(07:32):
And of course fire and coal and lightning are symbols of God's holiness and purity.
Of course, fire is used to purify things
and what's really interesting, as terrifying as these creatures are, 17 times, we are told they are creatures.
(07:53):
Ezekiel is at pains to tell us, you think these things are terrifying?
They're just creatures.
They're not worthy of worship.
They're terrifying, but not divine.
And there are wheels.
Within wheels.
God moves where his spirit commands, his presence and throne moves everywhere, which of course is a blessing, but it's also a warning.
(08:19):
God is not limited to Jerusalem.
God cannot be removed.
You can be blessed even in exile, but the warning is God can remove his presence and as we know the story, he
will at one point very powerfully and symbolic, remove his presence from the temple, and the wheels have eyes.
(08:43):
God is all seeing omniscient.
Nothing is hidden from his eyes.
Whether you are in Jerusalem or in exile, or in Melbourne or in Sydney.
God is sovereign.
And in verse 22, we read, spread out above the heads of these living creatures
was what looked like a vault and expanse sparkling with crystal and awesome.
(09:12):
It's a tricky word or concept to understand.
It's actually used in Genesis one and two to describe the space between creation.
The heavens and the earth and the place where God lives.
It's not really much a geographical place because God is beyond time and space, which is hard to grasp how we use poetic language.
(09:37):
Then in verses 24 and 25, Ezekiel hears a voice that is terrifyingly loud.
It, it's the deafening waterfall.
It's, it's the sound of an army charging into battle.
But yet he keeps looking up and above the vault, there's something even more terrifying.
(10:00):
A more glorious picture.
High above the throne was a figure like that of a man.
I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up.
He looked like glowing metal.
It's full of fire and therefore he looked like fire and brilliant lights surrounded him like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day.
(10:22):
So was the radiance around him.
This was just the appearance of the likeness, of the glory of the Lord.
This is the complete, incomprehensible otherness of God.
(10:46):
This is the God that we worship.
And here's the challenge.
I think we don't often want a genuinely holy God.
And what I mean by that is I don't mean we don't want a moral God.
We want a God that we can completely comprehend
(11:09):
a God that suits our tastes.
That fits into our timetable and plans.
Uh, God becomes a subject that we study at theological College.
That's what we reduce God down into
brothers and sisters and aunt has a better chance of understanding calculus than we do a fully comprehending God.
(11:34):
It's not that we can't know anything about God.
Of course, creation speaks of his glory and he has wonderfully and graciously given us his word.
And at College you have a tremendous opportunity to understand God more.
But you need to understand this is not knowledge to learn about something.
(11:56):
This is for worship.
So you know better the God that you are called to serve and worship,
not to get an a plus, but to worship for this is the God that we worship.
(12:17):
He's holy, he's beyond space and time.
He's completely other.
In this passage, we also see the weightiness of God, his glory, his vo
for your Hebrew scholars still compulsory, I hope.
(12:41):
Verse 22.
This was the appearance of the lightness of the glory of God, and that word glory, as you know, it means heaviness and it means weightiness.
And it means permanence, it means eternal, and everything else by comparison is fleet and flimsy, uh, and light and temporary and tissue paper.
(13:04):
Now, back before I, when I was starting at Sydney University, I played, and you can tell this by looking at me.
I played American football for Sydney University, and to be fair, at the time I was 10 kilos lighter than I'm now.
And we had a training drill where I had to tackle Manu, who weighed 140 kilos.
I weighed 69 kilos, uh, and there were three cones set up, and Manu had to run and either turn left at the first, the second
(13:29):
or the third, and it was my job attempt to stop him and the whole team were watching, and Manu ran past the first cone.
Manu ran past the second cone, and at this point, the whole team knew what was about to happen.
Man who turned past the third cone, and as he laughed under his breath, attempted to run me over, which he primarily achieved in doing.
(13:55):
The only thing was as I was run over by him, I grabbed hold of his sock and I ripped a small part of his sock off, and I said to him.
Haha, Manu, I've got your sock.
At which point he tripped as he turned over and fell down and the whole team ruled.
In other words, glory, weightiness versus lights.
(14:19):
Who wins glory every time.
God's glory is a full body experience.
It's overwhelming in every sense.
And I think often we're happy with God as a concept, as an idea, as a theological concept, but the reality of God, his glory, it's something else.
(14:48):
And so we need to be challenged, not just by the concept of God, but the reality of God's glory.
See, if we think of God as a concept or a subject, uh, we shape it.
We think of ourselves as heavier than it.
It's safe.
It's our agenda.
It's our words.
(15:08):
It's not God's words.
But to have an encounter with a glorious God, it means you are powerfully shaped by his glory.
He is of supreme importance.
He arranges you.
He shakes you.
His agenda.
(15:28):
He's heavier than your agenda.
It is his words, not your words.
That's the God we worship.
So how do we respond then?
How do you know you've had an encounter with the glory of God, with the holy and righteous God?
The answer is very simple.
You fall over.
(15:50):
You fall down.
You prepare yourself for death.
When you encounter the reality of God, Ezekiel realizes there's no place left to sand.
He falls down in Revelation.
When John meets John, the beloved disciple meets Jesus in his glory.
Hey, Jesus, great to catch up again.
(16:12):
You're here for the reunion.
Wonderful falls down.
On the 26th of April, 1986, the number for reactor in Chernobyl exploded into a catastrophic meltdown.
And in order to assess the damage, they sent three young engineers to get as close to the reactor core as possible.
(16:37):
Uh, and for protection, they wore cotton overalls.
After much effort, they opened the buckle door to the reactive vessel, which was normally contained and safe.
And they were shocked when they opened that door.
They were looking into the nuclear reaction itself, the glowing core of uranium, and they realized at that moment that they were dead.
(17:04):
No one looks into an active nuclear reaction in Lis Brothers and sisters.
This is the one who makes stars.
You come to God, face down.
This was the appearance of the likeness, of the glory of the Lord.
(17:25):
And when I saw it, I fell face down.
Our sovereign Lord holds the universe together by the power of his word.
Is this the kind of person that you invite into your life to be your assistant?
To fit into your life, to fit into your plans for ministry.
(17:45):
I dunno if this is true for current more College students, so if I Sounds like I'm talking not about you, that's okay.
But I've noticed an increasing hesitancy for assistance and rectors to serve where it is not
comfortable that if we wanna stay in one place and do everything safe, we don't wanna move.
(18:06):
And so my challenge this morning is.
In your ministry, are you using the God of comfort as the thing you are bowing to or the God of glory?
It doesn't mean, by the way, you all have to move to Melbourne.
Some of you can, but if moving out of your comfortable space is off the agenda completely.
(18:27):
My question is why if you worship the God of glory, because beyond the God of glory, there's also the glorious news of the gospel.
We read in Ezekiel that God is terrifyingly holy and glorious and transcendent.
You cannot come into his presence.
Why?
It's because of sin.
(18:48):
But what does God do in his mercy?
He comes and he lifts us up.
What is really interesting is how Hebrews, I think rifs a lot on the language of Ezekiel.
Hebrews one, three.
We read that Jesus is what?
He's the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.
(19:13):
That's the God we worship.
In other words, this terrifying, incomprehensible vision that Ezekiel has of the
appearance of the likeness, of the glory of God also applies to the Lord Jesus Christ.
But yet, how did Christ come to us?
Glorious and terrifying with fire and lightning on a chariot.
(19:37):
There was no throne.
There were no wheels.
There was no vault.
He set his glory aside in gloriously being born in a stable incarnate of the very humanity,
which had sinned and turned against him and more powerfully through his death on the cross.
(19:58):
We are truly lifted up because our sins are there forgiven, and he lifts us up to stand in God's presence.
Read Jude, stand in the presence of God, not lying down face first.
How on earth can we stand unless our sins are forgiven?
(20:18):
Therefore, in the words of Hebrews four 16, let us then approach God's throne of grace.
With confidence.
I spoke earlier about having gospel confidence.
When you see the glory of God and you have gospel confidence,
(20:43):
that should shape your ministry, that should shape your study.
I.
So that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Brothers and sisters, this is the God that we worship and this is the God that we serve.
Let me pray that we would continue to do that wherever he sends us for his glory and his holiness.
(21:08):
Let me pray.
Our glorious and holy, heavenly Father.
Heavens and earth sing of your glory.
They proclaim your works
in your glory.
You are inapproachable and perfect and just and deserving of all our praise,
(21:35):
and we thank you that through the Lord Jesus, through his death and resurrection, we come to you not face down as we deserve.
But lift it up due to your grace.
Father, may we respond to your glory and holiness.
May you shape and guide and direct our paths that as we take the glorious news of Christ to this world, we do so for your glory.
(22:07):
The glory of the risen Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray?
Amen.
Thank you for listening to Moore in the Word, a podcast of Moore Theological College.
Our vision as a College is to see God glorified by men and women living for
(22:28):
and proclaiming Jesus Christ, growing healthy churches and reaching the lost.
We invite you to attend any of our upcoming events, including this one from the Donald Robinson Library.
In 1788, the Reverend Richard Johnson sailed on the First Fleet with his wife Mary, to take up an appointment
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The choice of Johnson was no accident (22:53):
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This collection of upper class, wealthy, evangelical Anglicans who lived around Clapham, which was at the time a small
village southwest of London, were interested in social reform issues such as the abolition of slavery, the revision of the
(23:19):
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Motivated by their Christian faith and their concern for justice and fairness for all, their legacy persists even today.
This year, the Donald Robinson Library Lectures will examine the lives of key figures in the Clapham Sect, their
interest in the new colony, and its social and spiritual development, and the evangelical legacy of Richard Johnson.
(23:46):
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(24:10):
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(25:06):
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Until next time.
Welcome to Moore in the Word, a podcast of Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia, that seeks
to glorify God through biblically sound, thought-provoking and challenging talks and interviews.
In this episode, from a chapel service held on Friday the 9th of May 2025, John Forsyth, Vicar of St Jude's Church
(00:30):
in Melbourne, Australia, speaks on Ezekiel 1 and the prophet Ezekiel's terrifying encounter with the living God.
John reminds us of the incomprehensible otherness of the God we worship, and encourages us with
the fact that seeing the glory of God gives us gospel confidence that shapes our lives in ministry.
We hope you find the episode helpful.
(00:54):
This is the God that we worship.
This is the God that we worship.
To have an encounter with the living God is not what us moderns would call a safe space.
It is life changing.
Indeed, it is life shaking.
(01:18):
In Ezekiel chapter one, verse one, we read that Ezekiel has turned 30.
It's the fourth month.
The fifth day, and he's among the exiles by the Kuba River.
The heavens opened and what does he see?
He sees visions of God.
Now that age of 30 is important.
(01:42):
It was the age that most Levites would then begin their priestly duties in the temple.
Uh, Ezekiel, we know in verse three is a priest in Babylon.
This was the age where you had enough strength and wisdom to do the responsibilities that you needed to do.
And in fact, some rabbis have insisted that you're not allowed to even read Ezekiel until you've turned 30.
(02:05):
So if you're under 30 this morning, uh, please ensure you have parental supervision.
What's the context?
Well, we're given that in verses two and three on the fifth of the month, it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehova Chin.
The word of the Lord came to Ezekiel, the priest, son of boozy by the Kibar River in the land of the Babylonians.
(02:29):
It's the fifth year of the exile, though.
The year is 593 bc. The Babylonians have come.
They've invaded.
They defeated Israel.
It's a judgment from God.
Israel's repeated unfaithfulness has led to God to act powerfully, and the key
leaders of Israel, including Ezekiel, have been sent into exile in Babylon.
(02:52):
But Jerusalem still standard has not been, uh, destroyed yet.
That's where we are in, in verse one and two.
It's six years before the city will be destroyed.
The most gifted people from the the nation of Israel have left, taken into exile.
And so the question left hanging is, what happens to Jerusalem?
(03:14):
What happens to the temple?
Where is God in the midst of this?
And then in verse four, out of a dust storm, Ezekiel has an extraordinary vision of God.
It is the mobile throne of the glorious and leaving God.
(03:35):
Uh, it's a bit like two kings, two where there's a charity of fire.
This is actually what this is a picture of.
There are angels, there are are fire, there's wind, there's wheels, there's, there's this fiery,
terrifying figure on a throne whose speech is deafening and the vision is summarized for us in verse 28.
I've got a NIV 2011, so you might have a slightly different translation.
(03:58):
This was the appearance of the likeness, of the glory of the Lord.
That is what we have in these verses, and, and I've got a limited time, so what I wanna do is just share with you two key aspects
of this vision that I think are, are crucial not just for us to understand, but for us to take with us as we prepare for ministry.
(04:25):
We have the sheer, firstly, the sheer otherness of God, his holiness, and secondly, the sheer weightiness of God, his glory.
This is a vision where God's holiness and God's glory are in full display.
God's holiness, his complete otherness.
(04:48):
Now, when you read through Ezekiel chapter one, uh, it's sort of one of those passages where you go, oh, what's.
Gee, what?
What the heck's going on here?
It's complicated.
There are these weird angel like creatures with wings and four faces, which we'll read in chapter 10 of Ezekiel are cherub.
There are wheels within wheels, there are eyes on these wheels, there's fire, there's lightning, there's a vault or an expanse.
(05:13):
There's precious jewels and that the, as you read it, it becomes overwhelming and confusing.
And yes, that is actually the point.
That is what this text is meant to do.
It's apocalyptic language, of course, similar to Revelation.
It is deep with symbols.
(05:34):
The powerful rabbit of the South went west and destroyed the mighty eel.
Like we, we understand what that means.
That's apocalyptic literature.
That's the symbols mean something.
Now, why would you use that language?
Why not just say God has brought his judgment upon God's people because of sin?
(05:57):
Why?
Why go through all this?
And the answer is, how do you describe the indescribable otherness of God?
How do you describe the holiness of God with mortal language?
If
somebody has a chromo, topia, it means they can only see in black and white.
How would you explain the difference between blue and red?
(06:21):
To somebody who had that condition.
It's tricky.
You, you have to kind of use symbols and metaphor, and that's what we have.
It looked like it appeared, like, it seemed like Ezekiel is struggling for the words to, to put into human words what he sees in this vision.
And what's interesting is this is not a vision of God's glory.
(06:44):
This is not an even a vision of the likeness of God's glory.
It is what the vision of the appearance of the likeness, of the glory of God, that it can't even get close.
And what we see is in this vision, the glorious mobile chariot slash throne of God, in verses four to 21, we see there are clouds.
(07:10):
There's flashing fire, and inside these fire, there's these strange angelic creatures.
In chapter 10, we know they're cherub, that their faces represent the highest form of God's creation.
We've got a human, obviously made in God's image, got a lion who was the king of the wild
beasts, the ox, the king of the domestic beast, and the eagle, the chief bird of the air.
(07:32):
And of course fire and coal and lightning are symbols of God's holiness and purity.
Of course, fire is used to purify things
and what's really interesting, as terrifying as these creatures are, 17 times, we are told they are creatures.
(07:53):
Ezekiel is at pains to tell us, you think these things are terrifying?
They're just creatures.
They're not worthy of worship.
They're terrifying, but not divine.
And there are wheels.
Within wheels.
God moves where his spirit commands, his presence and throne moves everywhere, which of course is a blessing, but it's also a warning.
(08:19):
God is not limited to Jerusalem.
God cannot be removed.
You can be blessed even in exile, but the warning is God can remove his presence and as we know the story, he
will at one point very powerfully and symbolic, remove his presence from the temple, and the wheels have eyes.
(08:43):
God is all seeing omniscient.
Nothing is hidden from his eyes.
Whether you are in Jerusalem or in exile, or in Melbourne or in Sydney.
God is sovereign.
And in verse 22, we read, spread out above the heads of these living creatures
was what looked like a vault and expanse sparkling with crystal and awesome.
(09:12):
It's a tricky word or concept to understand.
It's actually used in Genesis one and two to describe the space between creation.
The heavens and the earth and the place where God lives.
It's not really much a geographical place because God is beyond time and space, which is hard to grasp how we use poetic language.
(09:37):
Then in verses 24 and 25, Ezekiel hears a voice that is terrifyingly loud.
It, it's the deafening waterfall.
It's, it's the sound of an army charging into battle.
But yet he keeps looking up and above the vault, there's something even more terrifying.
(10:00):
A more glorious picture.
High above the throne was a figure like that of a man.
I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up.
He looked like glowing metal.
It's full of fire and therefore he looked like fire and brilliant lights surrounded him like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day.
(10:22):
So was the radiance around him.
This was just the appearance of the likeness, of the glory of the Lord.
This is the complete, incomprehensible otherness of God.
(10:46):
This is the God that we worship.
And here's the challenge.
I think we don't often want a genuinely holy God.
And what I mean by that is I don't mean we don't want a moral God.
We want a God that we can completely comprehend
(11:09):
a God that suits our tastes.
That fits into our timetable and plans.
Uh, God becomes a subject that we study at theological College.
That's what we reduce God down into
brothers and sisters and aunt has a better chance of understanding calculus than we do a fully comprehending God.
(11:34):
It's not that we can't know anything about God.
Of course, creation speaks of his glory and he has wonderfully and graciously given us his word.
And at College you have a tremendous opportunity to understand God more.
But you need to understand this is not knowledge to learn about something.
(11:56):
This is for worship.
So you know better the God that you are called to serve and worship,
not to get an a plus, but to worship for this is the God that we worship.
(12:17):
He's holy, he's beyond space and time.
He's completely other.
In this passage, we also see the weightiness of God, his glory, his vo
for your Hebrew scholars still compulsory, I hope.
(12:41):
Verse 22.
This was the appearance of the lightness of the glory of God, and that word glory, as you know, it means heaviness and it means weightiness.
And it means permanence, it means eternal, and everything else by comparison is fleet and flimsy, uh, and light and temporary and tissue paper.
(13:04):
Now, back before I, when I was starting at Sydney University, I played, and you can tell this by looking at me.
I played American football for Sydney University, and to be fair, at the time I was 10 kilos lighter than I'm now.
And we had a training drill where I had to tackle Manu, who weighed 140 kilos.
I weighed 69 kilos, uh, and there were three cones set up, and Manu had to run and either turn left at the first, the second
(13:29):
or the third, and it was my job attempt to stop him and the whole team were watching, and Manu ran past the first cone.
Manu ran past the second cone, and at this point, the whole team knew what was about to happen.
Man who turned past the third cone, and as he laughed under his breath, attempted to run me over, which he primarily achieved in doing.
(13:55):
The only thing was as I was run over by him, I grabbed hold of his sock and I ripped a small part of his sock off, and I said to him.
Haha, Manu, I've got your sock.
At which point he tripped as he turned over and fell down and the whole team ruled.
In other words, glory, weightiness versus lights.
(14:19):
Who wins glory every time.
God's glory is a full body experience.
It's overwhelming in every sense.
And I think often we're happy with God as a concept, as an idea, as a theological concept, but the reality of God, his glory, it's something else.
(14:48):
And so we need to be challenged, not just by the concept of God, but the reality of God's glory.
See, if we think of God as a concept or a subject, uh, we shape it.
We think of ourselves as heavier than it.
It's safe.
It's our agenda.
It's our words.
(15:08):
It's not God's words.
But to have an encounter with a glorious God, it means you are powerfully shaped by his glory.
He is of supreme importance.
He arranges you.
He shakes you.
His agenda.
(15:28):
He's heavier than your agenda.
It is his words, not your words.
That's the God we worship.
So how do we respond then?
How do you know you've had an encounter with the glory of God, with the holy and righteous God?
The answer is very simple.
You fall over.
(15:50):
You fall down.
You prepare yourself for death.
When you encounter the reality of God, Ezekiel realizes there's no place left to sand.
He falls down in Revelation.
When John meets John, the beloved disciple meets Jesus in his glory.
Hey, Jesus, great to catch up again.
(16:12):
You're here for the reunion.
Wonderful falls down.
On the 26th of April, 1986, the number for reactor in Chernobyl exploded into a catastrophic meltdown.
And in order to assess the damage, they sent three young engineers to get as close to the reactor core as possible.
(16:37):
Uh, and for protection, they wore cotton overalls.
After much effort, they opened the buckle door to the reactive vessel, which was normally contained and safe.
And they were shocked when they opened that door.
They were looking into the nuclear reaction itself, the glowing core of uranium, and they realized at that moment that they were dead.
(17:04):
No one looks into an active nuclear reaction in Lis Brothers and sisters.
This is the one who makes stars.
You come to God, face down.
This was the appearance of the likeness, of the glory of the Lord.
(17:25):
And when I saw it, I fell face down.
Our sovereign Lord holds the universe together by the power of his word.
Is this the kind of person that you invite into your life to be your assistant?
To fit into your life, to fit into your plans for ministry.
(17:45):
I dunno if this is true for current more College students, so if I Sounds like I'm talking not about you, that's okay.
But I've noticed an increasing hesitancy for assistance and rectors to serve where it is not
comfortable that if we wanna stay in one place and do everything safe, we don't wanna move.
(18:06):
And so my challenge this morning is.
In your ministry, are you using the God of comfort as the thing you are bowing to or the God of glory?
It doesn't mean, by the way, you all have to move to Melbourne.
Some of you can, but if moving out of your comfortable space is off the agenda completely.
(18:27):
My question is why if you worship the God of glory, because beyond the God of glory, there's also the glorious news of the gospel.
We read in Ezekiel that God is terrifyingly holy and glorious and transcendent.
You cannot come into his presence.
Why?
It's because of sin.
(18:48):
But what does God do in his mercy?
He comes and he lifts us up.
What is really interesting is how Hebrews, I think rifs a lot on the language of Ezekiel.
Hebrews one, three.
We read that Jesus is what?
He's the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.
(19:13):
That's the God we worship.
In other words, this terrifying, incomprehensible vision that Ezekiel has of the
appearance of the likeness, of the glory of God also applies to the Lord Jesus Christ.
But yet, how did Christ come to us?
Glorious and terrifying with fire and lightning on a chariot.
(19:37):
There was no throne.
There were no wheels.
There was no vault.
He set his glory aside in gloriously being born in a stable incarnate of the very humanity,
which had sinned and turned against him and more powerfully through his death on the cross.
(19:58):
We are truly lifted up because our sins are there forgiven, and he lifts us up to stand in God's presence.
Read Jude, stand in the presence of God, not lying down face first.
How on earth can we stand unless our sins are forgiven?
(20:18):
Therefore, in the words of Hebrews four 16, let us then approach God's throne of grace.
With confidence.
I spoke earlier about having gospel confidence.
When you see the glory of God and you have gospel confidence,
(20:43):
that should shape your ministry, that should shape your study.
I.
So that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Brothers and sisters, this is the God that we worship and this is the God that we serve.
Let me pray that we would continue to do that wherever he sends us for his glory and his holiness.
(21:08):
Let me pray.
Our glorious and holy, heavenly Father.
Heavens and earth sing of your glory.
They proclaim your works
in your glory.
You are inapproachable and perfect and just and deserving of all our praise,
(21:35):
and we thank you that through the Lord Jesus, through his death and resurrection, we come to you not face down as we deserve.
But lift it up due to your grace.
Father, may we respond to your glory and holiness.
May you shape and guide and direct our paths that as we take the glorious news of Christ to this world, we do so for your glory.
(22:07):
The glory of the risen Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray?
Amen.
Thank you for listening to Moore in the Word, a podcast of Moore Theological College.
Our vision as a College is to see God glorified by men and women living for
(22:28):
and proclaiming Jesus Christ, growing healthy churches and reaching the lost.
We invite you to attend any of our upcoming events, including this one from the Donald Robinson Library.
In 1788, the Reverend Richard Johnson sailed on the First Fleet with his wife Mary, to take up an appointment
by the Church of England as the first chaplain of the Australian prison colony of New South Wales.
The choice of Johnson was no accident (22:53):
it was due to the influence of William Wilberforce, Henry Thornton,
John Newton, Hannah Moore and other members of a group that later became known as the Clapham Sect.
This collection of upper class, wealthy, evangelical Anglicans who lived around Clapham, which was at the time a small
village southwest of London, were interested in social reform issues such as the abolition of slavery, the revision of the
(23:19):
penal code, the regulation of working conditions and factories, and the promotion of schools and other educational ventures.
Motivated by their Christian faith and their concern for justice and fairness for all, their legacy persists even today.
This year, the Donald Robinson Library Lectures will examine the lives of key figures in the Clapham Sect, their
interest in the new colony, and its social and spiritual development, and the evangelical legacy of Richard Johnson.
(23:46):
Join us on Saturday, 30th of August 2025, for a day of fascinating historical talks delivered by Stuart
Piggin, Mark Thompson, Michael Gladwin, Ruth Lukabyo, Nicole Starling, Colin Bale, Ed Loane and Susan An.
Visit the Moore College website for further details more.
That's moore.edu.au.
(24:10):
That's moore.edu.au.
You can find out more and register by going to the Moore College website (24:18):
moore.edu.au.
That's moore.edu.au.
If you have not already done so, we encourage you to subscribe to our podcast
through your favourite podcast platform so that you'll never miss an episode.
For past episodes, further resources and to make a tax deductible donation to support
(24:40):
the work of the College and its mission, please visit our website at moore.edu.au.
If you found this episode helpful, please share it with a friend and leave a review on your platform of choice.
We always benefit from feedback from our listeners, so if you'd like to get in touch, you can email us at comms@moore.edu.au.
(25:06):
The Moore in the Word Podcast was edited and produced by me, Karen Beilharz, and the Communications Team at Moore Theological College.
The music for our podcast was provided by MarkJuly from PixaBay.
Until next time.
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