Sola Deo Gloria is one of the five solas propounded to summarize the Reformers' basic beliefs during the Protestant Reformation; it is a Latin term for Glory to God alone. The doctrine states essentially that everything that is done is for God's glory to the exclusion of humankind's self-glorification and pride. Christians are to be motivated and inspired by God's glory and not their own. To constantly, consistently, and habitually give glory to God alone is another way to achieve the humility we are to strive for as believers.

God, through the Prophet Isaiah reminds us that all things must be done to the glory of God alone. God decrees in this passage that a time is coming when every knee will bow in homage and every tongue confess that in the Lord alone are righteousness and strength.

I. A GOD OF GLORY SWEARS BY HIMSELF

• “By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked: Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear.” (Isaiah 45:23, NIV84)

1. it is so certain that men—all men—will bow their knee before a Sovereign God that the Lord has sworn by Himself that it will happen
1. God say, By myself I have sworn ...
1. literally the phrase in Hebrew is As I live and is an oath
2. who else can God swear by since there is no one greater than He?
2. God is about to utter a truth that cannot be revoked—it will absolutely come to pass
1. God says “ ... my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked ... “
2. again the original Hebrew actually says, there has gone out from the mouth of righteousness a word, and it will not return
3. the mouth of righteousness is God’s mouth—it is a voice that speaks only right-ness
3. the emphasis is on God’s revelation
1. God’s word is efficacious
2. efficacious means having the power to produce a desired effect
• ILLUS. We see the efficaciousness of God’s word in the Creation Account—God merely spoke and things that were not came to be. We also see the efficaciousness of God’s word in the Word—the incarnation of Jesus. He became flesh and dwelt among us and in his life he accomplished exactly what God planned to accomplish—the redemption of sinners.
2. what has God spoken that will absolutely come to pass here in this passage?
1. God declares that Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear
2. all men will sooner or later be in complete submission to the Lord God of Israel

A. ALL MEN WILL GLORIFY GOD

1. God testifies that “ ... Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear.”
1. this declaration comes on the heels of God’s condemnation of idolaters where He reveals their folly in worshiping gods that cannot help them, and neglecting a God that can
2. in Isa. 45:20 He refers to those who pray to gods that cannot save and then, in Isa. 45:22 encourages all you ends of the earth to turn to me and be saved
3. the day will come when all men shall give glory to the Father
1. some will do so in joy
2. some will do so under compulsion
3. but all men shall give glory to the Godhead
• “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” (Psalm 46:10, NIV84)
• “After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: “Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!” (Revelation 7:9–12, NIV84)
4. Sola Deo Gloria—to the glory of God alone—is the overarching principle found throughout the Scriptures
2. God is worthy of our honor, and our praise, and our worship, and our reverence, and our veneration, and our awe, and our adoration because he is a glorious God as revealed in His attributes, and His actions
• "Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted; his majesty is above earth and heaven," (Psalm 148:13, ESV)
• "to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen." (Romans 16:27, ESV)
• "to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen." (Jude 25, ESV)
• "Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed." (Revelation 15:4, ESV)

B. THE GLORY OF GOD IS REVEALED IN HIS SUPREMACY

• v. 22 " ... for I am God and there is no other."
1. you will never experience the full blessings of God until you recognize that Jehovah is God and you ain't
1. He is supremely sovereign over all the created order
2. the average member of our society no longer has a reverence or holy fear of an awesome God
1. for many, God ranks right up there with Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Ferry
1. creatures of sentimentality who pass out blessings when we are "good" and who leniently wink at the "indiscretions" of our life as if they were insignificant
2. others see God as a cosmic Charlie Brown
1. wishy-washy to the core
2. inept and never willing to carry through with what he says
3. never meaning what He says and never doing what he plans
3. like the un-believers of the first century, they scoff
• "knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. 4They will say, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation." 5For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God," (2 Peter 3:3-5, ESV)
3. the lost man looks at himself and thinks, "God can't be much different than I am."
1. this is what Israel thought and God condemned them for it
• "These things you have done, and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you." (Psalm 50:21, ESV)
• ILLUS. A.W. Pink, in his book The Attributes of God, writes, "The 'god' of this ... century no more resembles the Supreme Sovereign of Holy Scripture than does the dim flickering of a candle the glory of the midday sun. The 'god' who is now talked about in the average pulpit, spoken of in the ordinary Sunday School, mentioned in much of the religious literature of the day, and preached in most of the so-called Bible Conferences is the figment of human imagination, an invention of maudlin sentimentality."
2. what’s even more amazing is that A.W. Pink wrote that in 1930! —can you imagine what he would say in 2011?
4. if you really want to know God you must catch a glimpse of the supremacy of God as Isaiah did
• “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” (Isaiah 6:1–3, NIV84)
1. no where is God’s supremacy and sovereignty more clear than in the infinite distance that separates God in His Holiness and man in his sinfulness
• “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.” (Isaiah 6:5, NIV84)
• ILLUS. The Gospel Hymn—At Calvary—tells us, "Oh, the love that drew salvation's plan! Oh, the grace that bro't it down to man! Oh, the mighty gulf that God did span At Calvary."
5. God is absolutely supreme and sovereign
1. He is supremely sovereign over the universe
2. He is supremely sovereign over the affairs of nations
3. He is supremely sovereign over the lives and will of men
• "Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all. 12Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all." (1 Chronicles 29:11-12, ESV)

C. THE GLORY OF GOD IS REVEALED IN HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS

• “They will say of me, ‘In the LORD alone are righteousness and strength.’ ” All who have raged against him will come to him and be put to shame.” (Isaiah 45:24, NIV84)
1. there is none other like our God
1. He is perfect in all of His ways
2. the Apostle John said it this way . ..
• "This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." (1 John 1:5, ESV)
2. when the Scriptures speak of God's righteousness they are referring God’s adherence to His own moral rightness
1. the bible says that we are to praise God for who He is
1. that means that we must know who He is, and the only way to know who He is to dig into the Scriptures and discover the attributes that are the core of God's personality
2. A. W. Tozer lists 18 attributes that describe God's character (and no, I'm not going to get into all of them)
3. I will say, that of all of God's attributes, His righteousness is one of His supreme character traits
2. God is completely pure, undefiled and unsullied by even the shadow of sin
3. because God is righteous, He loves everything which is in conformity to His glory
4. because God is righteous, He loathes everything which is contrary to His glory
1. this is why God hates sin
1. sin is contrary to His righteousness and denies Him His glory
• "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," (Romans 3:23, ESV)
2. all of Israel's religious rituals were a reminder that God is holy
1. ceremonial washings
2. the divisions of the tabernacle
3. the divisions of the people into ordinary Israelites, Levites, Priests and High Priests who were permitted different degrees of approach to God under strictly defined conditions
3. the insistence upon sacrifice as a necessary medium of approaching God
4. all of these things reminded the Hebrews that God is unapproachably holy
5. man needs to experience the glory of God because it forces him to his knees in confession

D. THE GLORY OF GOD IS REVEALED IN HIS SALVATION

• v. 22 “Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth ... “
1. the Scriptures teach us of man's total inability to turn to God
1. we are dead in trespasses and sin
• "And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind." (Ephesians 2:1-3, ESV)
2. when the disciples asked Jesus who can be saved, Jesus looked at them and said,
• "... "With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God."(Mark 10:27, ESV)
2. if a sinner is going to be saved it's only because of God's loving and merciful intervention
• "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, Seven when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9not a result of works, so that no one may boast." (Ephesians 2:4-9, ESV)
1. God's rich mercy and His great love and the immeasurable riches of his grace where all applied through the prescription of Jesus' substitutionary atonement on the Cross
2. Christ went to the alter of sacrifice that our sins might be purged
• "For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. 22He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. 23When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. 24He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed." (1 Peter 2:21-24, ESV)
3. this salvation, while an eternal blessing to us, brings eternal glory to God
• "His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire." (2 Peter 1:3-4, ESV)

CON. How are we to respond to the Glory of God? “Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. 16Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God." (Hebrews 13:15-16, ESV) ILLUS. In his momentous work entitled The Messiah, George Handle open his Oratorio with the line: "And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." First the Tenors sing, "And the glory, the glory of the Lord," to which the sopranos, altos and bases all echo and eventually reach a crescendo reminding us that "... the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." Which is a quote from Isaiah 45:22! The glory of God must be proclaimed in our worship and exalted in our lives. "Whatever you do...do it all for God's glory!" I Corinthians 10:31. What are you going to do tomorrow? Will you do it to the glory of God? If whatever you plan to do, can't be done for the glory of God, will you abandon it?