The Banquet Table of God: BEHOLD THE BEAUTY OF GOD!


By Dustin Shramek


John Piper writes, "If you don't feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Your soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great. God did not create you for this. There is an appetite for God. And it can be awakened. I invite you to turn from the dulling effects of food and the dangers of idolatry, and to say with some simple fast: 'This much, O God, I want you.'"[1]

This weekend we are fasting. Why? Because we want God. We are turning from the dulling effects of food and we are saying, "God we want you!" Tonight I invite you to turn from the banquet table of food, to the banquet table of God. Tonight we are going to feast. I want us to stuff ourselves with the glory of God. Dig in, be gluttonous. Gorge yourself at His table. Feast on Him. Jeremiah 15:16 says, "Thy words were found and I ate them, and Thy words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart; for I have been called by Thy name, O Lord God of hosts."

Oh what great joy we receive as we feast on the Word of God. We must diligently seek that joy. We must crave it. For by so doing, we greatly honor the Lord. For we acknowledge that He is the one who satisfies!

Tonight I want to lay before us the wonderful table of God. To do this, I want to show how God has so wondrously revealed His nature through His acts so that we can satisfy ourselves with His glory. It may seem like a lot, but I am not expecting you to feast on it all. I only ask that you find that delicacy that you crave most for and eat. Eat as you have never eaten before. Take it home with you and have more there. Don't stop eating from this table, for it is the banquet table of God that will most satisfy us. Take His word and let it sit on your taste buds as you savor its beauty. "O taste and see that the Lord is good." Yes! Let's taste.

O, but we mustn't stop there. Don't just settle for a taste of the Lord. I don't want to just taste the Lord, I want a full stomach. I want him to so fill me that I can do nothing but praise Him as His goodness overflows my soul.

My theme for these talks is Psalm 27:4, "One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple."

That is my desire. I want to dwell in God's house all the days of my life. I want to behold His beauty and I want to meditate in His temple, in His presence.

There is nowhere else that we can find beauty. We must look to God. As we fast this weekend and feast on God's glory, our stomachs will cry out to us. They will urge us to eat. But when that hunger pain comes turn it from a cry for food to a cry for God. "This much O God, we want you!"

Tonight we will enter into the house of God and we will behold His beauty. We will spend the next half hour meditating on the greatness of our God as we bask in His presence. It is going to be a glorious feast.

Our main course tonight is the nature of God, His glory. I want to specifically look at how the nature of God is revealed through His acts in redemptive history up to the time of Christ. To do this we will do a short survey of the mighty acts of God in the Old Testament.

How do we come to know Him by watching Him in action? We know that in everything God does, He is motivated by His nature. All of his acts are an extension of who he is.

And just as Moses said in Exodus 33:13, "Now therefore, I pray Thee, if I have found favor in Thy sight, let me know Thy ways, that I may know Thee..." we too, come before God asking that He would be pleased to show us His ways so that we might come to know Him. That is our prayer tonight.

Father, as we look into your word, let us know your ways so that we may know you. Give us understanding and cause us to feast on who you are.


Let's start our feast in Genesis one. The very first thing that God has revealed about Himself is that He is the Creator. Genesis 1:1-3 says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light."

Romans 4:17 says, "God gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist." John 1:3 says, "All things came into being by Him [Christ], and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being." Colossians 1:16 says, "For by Him [Christ] all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things have been created by Him and for Him."

God has created all things. There is nothing that we see that was not created by Him and for Him. We think of Thomas Edison inventing the light bulb, God did that. The Wright brothers flying the first plane, God did that. Alexander Graham Bell inventing the telephone, God did that. He made the light bulb, the airplane, the telephone. He has done it all. That chair you're sitting on, God made that . Everything we see, God made it. And all He had to do was speak it into being. He just said "Chair!" and there was a chair. There is power in God's word. By it, He calls things into being which never existed. I love the song, "Only you." Are you amazed by the glory of God in His awesome creation when you sing, "With a word you spoke the heavens into place, scattered stars and gave the earth its frame"?

And not only did God bring it into being by the power of His word, but it is also by His word that it stays in existence. It is only by God's word that the chair your sitting on remains under you. If He ever decided to stop calling it into existence, it would vanish--and you would fall!

Colossians 1:17 says, "And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together." It is only through Christ that the molecules holding that chair in place remain together. Hebrews 1:3 says "And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power."

We are sustained by Christ's word. Our being is dependent on God. It is owing to the great power of God's word that when you wake up tomorrow you will still be you. God is the one who keeps my personality. He is the reason why every morning I'm still Dustin Shramek. My very identity is dependent on God. Meditate on this. Praise God for His awesome power to uphold all things by the word of His power. Thank Him that He chooses to hold you and all of your things together. His word is powerful. What great power is shown by God's creation for He is the masterful Creator of the universe. What great power is shown by the sustaining power of His word. God is the Creator of all things and He is the Sustainer of all things. O what delicacies await us in the Creator of the universe.


For the next dish, I want us to look ahead a little to Genesis chapter three. God had originally created the universe good, but by Adam and Eve's sin, the universe has been corrupted. We continue to pollute the creation of God today with our sin. This is bad news for us, for God is just and He will not tolerate sin. Nevertheless, it is a wonderful entree for our banquet.

Genesis 3:22-24 says, "Then the Lord God said, 'Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now lest he stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever'--therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim, and the flaming sword which turned every direction, to guard the way to the tree of life."

When Adam and Eve sinned God immediately punished them. He banished them from His presence by kicking them out of the garden. For God is a just God and He cannot let sin go unpunished. When someone attacks His glory by trusting something other than Christ for satisfaction, God's glory is greatly profaned. Evil has occurred and God's nature will not let Him stand idly by. He must act and vindicate the holiness of His name. Therefore He judges those who sin against Him. He punishes them and bans them from His presence.

For God to be just there must be consistency and agreement between His nature and His acts. If His nature is truly of infinite worth, He must show it by His acts. If someone prizes the worth of His nature, He rewards them. But if someone attacks the worth of His nature He punishes them. This is what it means to be just.

2 Thessalonians 1:9 says, "And these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power." Since God's glory is of infinite value, God's justice demands that any attack on that glory is worthy of infinite punishment. The just act of God in sending someone to hell magnifies the great worth of His nature because we know that such a punishment would only be just if God was infinitely valuable.

God is a just God and He will not let attacks on His glory prevail. "I will vindicate the holiness of My great name which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord,' declares the Lord God, 'when I prove Myself holy among you in their sight." (Ezekiel 36:23).

May we feast on our Just God.


Behold, our God is not only just. He is also faithful. Which is where we will know turn our appetites.

Genesis 17:1-2 says, "Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the lord appeared to Abram and said to him, 'I am God Almighty; walk before Me, and be blameless. And I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly.'"

God is faithful. Thousands of years ago He made a promise to a man named, Abram. And to this day He is still working to bring that promise to its completion. He has not forgotten. He is faithful and He will save all of His people, those whom He has chosen out of the world since before the foundation of the world. We know God will do this because neither He nor His purposes change.

In Numbers 23:19 God spoke through Balaam saying, "God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent; has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?" Of course God will make it good. For He has the power to do as He pleases. "But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases" (Psalm 115:3).

When God makes a promise we can be sure that He will bring it to pass. Why? Because His name is at stake. If God does not fulfill His promises, He proves to be a powerless liar. What a dishonor when we don't trust the Lord and by so doing call God a powerless liar in our hearts.

He can do it and He will! This is our great hope. Revelations 7:9-12 gives the ultimate fulfillment of God's promises to Abraham. "After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; and they cry out with a loud vice, saying, 'Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.' And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and he four living creatures; and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, 'Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen.'"

"Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass" (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24). Just as we saw that God must continually preserve the creation so that it stays in existence, He must also continually preserve us in faith. And because He is faithful, we know that He will do it.

Our God is faithful, let us bank our hope on him. Let us dig our teeth into such a wonderful truth.


Let's now turn our attention to the next dish on the all satisfying banquet table of God. This is the wonderful Providence of God.

God's Providence is simply His grace and power by which He controls all things for the promotion of His great glory. Or to put it another way, God is always working in all situations with all of His power to make known all of His glory.

This is beautifully illustrated in the story of Joseph. Joseph was one of Jacob's twelve sons and all of his brothers hated him because they knew that he had a special place in their father's heart. They then determined to kill him, but by the providence of God they chose to sell him as a slave to the Ishmaelites who eventually took him to Egypt. God richly blessed Joseph while in Egypt and he eventually was placed second in command of all of Egypt, his authority only being less than Pharaoh.

It was during this time that God sent a huge famine to the land, causing Jacob's sons to go to the land of Egypt to buy grain. God had masterfully worked through the evil and sin of Joseph's brothers, so that they would meet Joseph in their time of great need and that he would be in a position to save all of Israel.

All of this was God's doing. It was God who incited Joseph's brothers to hate him so that they would sell him and it was God who moved in Pharaoh's heart so that Pharaoh would look favorably towards Joseph. This is brought out crystal clear in Genesis 50:19-21, "Joseph said to them, 'Do not be afraid, for am I in God's place? And as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive. So therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones.' So he comforted them and spoke kindly to them."

The very evil that they had intended was the very good that God had intended. God was in control of their evil acts, He was in control of who Joseph would be sold to, He was in control of the weather to cause a famine, and He was in control of who was the leader in Egypt. God was and is in control all things at all times in all places.

Even today God is always working things according to His purposes. If this isn't true, we wouldn't be able to take in hope in Romans 8:28, "For we know that God causes all things to work for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose." We can only believe that promise if God has the power and authority to control all things in order to insure that everything will work for the good of those who love Him.

What wonderful Providence! Feast on this truth. Praise God that He is in control. He is the Sovereign King of the universe. He can do as He pleases and none of His purposes can ever be thwarted. He is the King and we must bow to His will.

What a glorious God who is in control of all things. What hope could there ever be in a God who is unable to control His creation and bring forth His desires? There would be no hope. But thank God, that we do not serve such a weak God. No, our God is strong and mighty, able to always bring forth His will. Feast on our sovereign God!


As we were able to get a taste of the mighty power of a Sovereign God, so also we can taste the mighty power of our God who is a mighty Deliverer.

God's people had been taken as slaves in the land of Egypt. God wanted them set free, so He freed them. Isaiah 63 says, "I shall make mention of the lovingkindnesses of the Lord, the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord has granted us, and the great goodness toward the hose of Israel, which He has granted them according to His compassion, and according to the multitude of His lovingkindnesses....Who caused His glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them to make for Himself an everlasting name, who led them through the depths? Like the horse in the wilderness, they did not stumble; as the cattle which go down into the valley the Spirit of the Lord gave them rest. So didst Thou lead Thy people, to make for Thyself a glorious name" (vv. 7, 12-14).

Israel triumphed over the might of Pharaoh. Why? Because God delivered them. Imagine being amongst the millions of Israelites standing on the shore of the Red Sea. There is nowhere to go and then you hear Moses say, "Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the Lord which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever. The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent."

Moses tells you to run into the sea, and as you begin to run the waters divide providing dry ground. How terrifying to look on both sides of you and see a huge wall of water that would crush you if it fell. Then you look behind and see Pharaoh and his army chasing you. They are better armed and know how to fight. If they over take you, you will be doomed. They will certainly destroy you and your people. You finally get across and you happen to see Moses in the corner of your eye as he stretches his hand over the sea. Then the waters begin to fall. O, the sound of rushing water colliding, the sound of men screaming as they face their deaths. And just like that, God has destroyed the whole army of Pharaoh--but you have been delivered.

Is our deliverance from sin any less spectacular? The walls of sin and death have been divided by the out stretched arms of Christ! He has called you forth from death to life. As you lay dead at the bottom of the sea, He spreads forth the waters and runs in and rescues you from your sin. And as He pulls you out, the waters of sin and death collide together as your former self is crucified with Christ. For it is Christ who is devoured in the waters this time. But Christ is the mighty deliverer and He rises again. Oh how glorious. We have been delivered! What joy and comfort we receive from such a wonderful truth as it rests on our hungry palates. Exult in our great Savior.


And O how desperately we needed this savior. We see this clearly as we move to the next entree on the banquet table of God. We so desperately need a savior because our God is holy.

God is holy and He cannot let sin exist in His presence. He doesn't even let what seems to be the smallest of sins go by without being punished. If God even permits one little sin without punishing it, He proves to be an unholy, unrighteous God. But that is not the God of scriptures. He is a holy God.

We see this clearly in 2 Samuel 6. David was having the ark of God moved to Jerusalem where it should be. David's motives were pure and good. He wanted to honor God. David was very excited about the ark coming. It says in verse 5 that while they were carrying the ark, "David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the Lord with all kinds of instruments made of fir wood, and with lyres, harps, tambourines, castanets and cymbals." They were honoring the Lord by delighting in Him and His presence. They knew that with the ark came the blessings of God and they desired Him.

Unfortunately, David was ignorant to the commands of God. God is not tolerant of ignorance when His glory is at stake. He is holy and will punish all sin.

Now the ark had four rings on the side of it. It looked like a big box with these rings where one could slide pulls though. This was for carrying the ark. One would slide the pulls through the rings on both sides and then four men (who must be from the Kohath tribe) could pick the ark up. But they were not to touch. They weren't even to look at it. God was very specific about that. Numbers 4:15 says, "And when Aaron and his sons have finished covering the holy objects and all the furnishings of the sanctuary, when the camp is to set out, after that the sons of Kohath shall come to carry them, so that they may not though the holy objects and die." The ark was to be covered and prepared before it was to be moved. The Kohathites who were to carry the ark could not see it or touch it, lest they die.

David seemed to be ignorant of this and those carrying the ark were either ignorant of it or just plain apathetic. Either way they were carrying the ark in a cart and were clearly disobeying God. "But when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out toward the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen nearly upset it. And the anger of the Lord burned against Uzzah, and God struck him down there for his irreverence; and he died there by the ark of God."

Uzzah disobeyed God and God killed him. The ark was about to fall on the ground and all Uzzah was try to steady it so it wouldn't fall. Would anyone today consider that to be an act worthy of capital punishment? Probably not. But it is. Because Uzzah did it out of a lack of reverence for God. He assumed that the ground was more dirty than he. What a foolish presumption, for as a human he was full of evil. He was by nature a sinner. The ground is always obedient to the Lord. Evil is not part of its nature. And so because of this seemingly insignificant sin, God killed Uzzah.

Hear this people, God killed him. He killed him. I wonder if we are any more reverent towards God than Uzzah? Are we any less deserving of death? Do we not stand before a holy God with an air of arrogance as if we are good enough to be with in His presence?

David responded correctly. It says that "David was afraid of the Lord that day..." (v. 9). Do we fear our holy God?

The prophet Isaiah received a stunning vision of God's holiness. He writes, "In the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings; with two he covered his face and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.' And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I said, 'Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts" (Isaiah 6:1-5).

Our God is holy. He doesn't even overlook the slightest infraction of His law. No, He cares about the details because nothing impure can be in the presence of His glory. Therefore He must eradicate impurity.

"And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within; and day and night they do not cease to say, 'Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God , the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come" (Revelations 4:8). Our God is a holy God. And we praise Him in His holiness. We feast on His purity and uprightness. He is holy and we exult in worship. But we are only able to feast on God's holiness because of Christ and His grace. Piper says, "Christ died in our place so that we can feast on the holiness of God without being destroyed."[2]


Let us now, having feasted on that holiness, feast on the grace of God by which we are enabled to feast at all. "But Thou, O Lord, art a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness and truth" (Psalm 86:15).

In the light of God's holiness, His mercy seems even more amazing. And He never ceases to amaze us by His mercies. Think of all the times that Israel was disobedient and yet, God did not forsake them. What a wonderful display of His mercy. What about when David killed Uriah after committing adultery with His wife, Bathsheeba? He deserved death, but God spared His life. Praise God for His wonderful mercies.

I think one of the most wonderful examples of God's mercy is found way back in Genesis 3. Adam and Eve had just sinned. We already saw that God's justice demanded that they be kicked out of the garden. Because of His holiness, God could not tolerate their disobedience. Therefore we read in verses 14-19 the curses that God gives to each, first to the serpent, then Eve, and finally to Adam.

Verse 14-15 says, "And the Lord God said to the serpent, 'Because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly shall you go, and dust shall you eat all the days of your life; and I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel."

Did you hear that beautiful declaration of the mercy of God? Did you hear it? Let me read it again. "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise you On the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel."

Did you hear it that time. Oh, this is so glorious that I want to read it again. "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel."

That seed of woman is Jesus. Galatians 4:4-5 says, "But when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, in order that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons."

This is the first promise of the coming Messiah. And God promises Jesus, the salvation we now need, before he curses Adam and Eve. Is that incredible or what? Before they even receive their curses, God has already promised the Messiah by whom they can be saved!

"But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; if He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand. As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, my Servant, will justify the many, as He will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, and He will divide the booty with the strong; because He poured out Himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet He Himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors" (Isaiah 53:10-12).

What a glorious hope God has given us in Christ, what great mercy has been shown to us. And to think that God was extending this mercy even in the midst of Adam's fall. The cross has been on the heart of God from all of eternity. Ephesians 3:11 says that the eternal purpose of God was carried out in Christ Jesus. Sending Christ to die on the cross wasn't plan B. No it was plan A, planned from all of eternity. God wanted to display the full spectrum of His great character, especially His love and mercy as seen in the cross.

Behold the mercy of God. All of history points to the cross of Christ. All things before the cross look forward to it and all things after the cross look back to it. It is the culmination of God's glory. And tomorrow night we will feast on the Cross of Shame; the Cross of Glory.


This evening I have laid out only a few delicacies of God. And only in a very small portion. It is now up to you to continue the feast. Continue to delight in Him. When we seek our satisfaction elsewhere we sin. We say to God that He is not the one who satisfies, He is not our all in all. What a dishonor.

Don't be content with the food of this world. Don't settle for the fleeting pleasures of this world. No. Seek Christ! Feast on Him! Be satisfied in Him! Delight in Him! Mediate on Him! Glory in Him! Glory in Him! Glory in Him!

"One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to meditate in His temple" (Psalm 27:4).

Notes

1. John Piper, A Hunger for God: Desiring God Through Fating and Prayer, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1997), p. 23.
2. John Piper, A Godward Life, (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, 1997), p. 21.

All Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1975, 1977, by the Lockman Foundation.


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