When His Glory Appears. ~ Ganeida

We have talked before about the anointing of the Holy Spirit.  That is not what I want to talk about today but I do want to just refresh your memories so you are clear in your own minds that when I move on to talk about The Glory of God, I am not talking about the same thing.

The anointing is first mentioned in Exodus 25 referring to the spices to be used in the oil of the sanctuary. Note the 2 important things: Oil; Sanctuary. Remember those.

What was the oil used for?  It was used to anoint the head of a person or thing for service.  People would be anointed as kings, or prophets, or priests. If you remember, we said that the anointing was not a little dab; it was a drenching. You read of oil running down into David’s beard & soaking into his clothing for example.  The Hebrew word is māshaḥ.  By extension it means to consecrate.

Now look at Revelation 5:10 - And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth. 

Our anointing comes from the Holy Spirit who seals us unto the day of redemption. Eph 4:30.  Our bodies are a sanctuary for the Holy Spirit. Understand that we are consecrated & set apart by the Holy Spirit unto God but we are also to consecrate ourselves by ensuring we live correctly. We are to keep our temple undefiled.

There is the anointing within ~ the Holy Spirit within us, who leads & guides, helps, reveals Christ; & there is the anointing upon, that sense of the Holy Spirit manifesting when we minister.  Many of us may experience that as heat in our hands when we pray for healing for example. It strengthens us to move with God to perform His work in the world.

We often sense a corporate anointing here when we gather together to worship God as His special people.  We sense His presence manifesting in the worship, in the prayers & in the preaching. We soak in it, sensing God’s deep & abiding love for each & every one of us.  It is a wonderful thing. However we are never to chase the anointing.  We are to seek God & Him first, Him only, & all the rest will be added unto us.

Still with me?  The anointing is not God’s glory.

I am going to give you 2 Hebrew words & the Greek word that get translated as glory.

The first is Hod.  It means majesty, splendour, glory.

The second is kabod.  You will see it spelt various ways but it means literally weight; heaviness. The extended meaning includes honour, majesty, splendour, abundance, importance; nothing hidden, nothing held back. It carries with it the implication of being loaded with power.

The Greek word is doxa from which we get doxology. It means brightness.

So you see, when we sing: Let the weight of His Glory fall, we are being quite scriptural.  Everything that makes God God, all His names, all His characteristics are contained in His Glory. When God manifests His Glory it is a weight that He must bear or we would be crushed by it. Here are two scriptural references to support that contention.

…so that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD filled the house of God.2 Chronicles 5:14

Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.  Exodus 40:35

The cloud of glory is first seen in Exodus 13:21 when Moses leads the people out of Egypt. The LORD went ahead of them. He guided them during the day with a pillar of cloud, and he provided light at night with a pillar of fire. This allowed them to travel by day or by night.

Do you see it?  God has not just sent the cloud.  He is present with His people. John Kilpatrick points out that a whole generation grew up in the desert never knowing what it was to live without the glory of God’s presence manifest. As Nehemiah 9:21 points out For forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out, and their feet did not swell! To say nothing of manna & quail & rocks splitting open to provide water.

The Israelites understood something that we, as New Testament believers, often fail to grasp. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the Living God. Heb 10:31

Did you ever wonder why it was Moses who continually went up the mountain to deal with God?  It was because the people were terrified.

All the people perceived the thunder and the lightning flashes and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood at a distance. And they said to Moses, "You speak to us, and we will listen. But don't let God speak directly to us, or we will die!" Exodus 20:19

Here is the Glory of God covering the mountain as a cloud.  God has specifically invited them to the foot of the mountain to meet with Him, though only Moses & Aaron are invited to climb the mountain, but the people aren’t keen any way.  They are perfectly happy to push Moses out to go talk with God.

We still see something of that attitude in churches today.  People want priests or pastors to go talk to God for them so that they don’t have to deal directly with Him themselves. They want a minister to tell them what to do instead of going directly to the source.  They want a manageable religion in preference to the Living God & this explains the Golden calf just as it explains why people deny the charismatic. How sad.  Paul says quite plainly we have an even better covenant than Israel did but as C.S. Lewis astutely noted: He’s not a tame Lion, you know ~ or as John Piper says: We have exchanged the Glory of God for other things.

Come with me to Exodus 33:18-23 (KJV)

¹⁸ And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory.

¹⁹ And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy.

²⁰ And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.

²¹ And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock:

²² And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by:

²³ And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.

Here is Moses who for a good part of his life is the intermediary between God & the people of Israel. He has seen God in the burning bush.  He has seen Him in the cloud by day & the pillar of fire by night. He has sat on top of a mountain with Him for 40 days until, when he came down off that mountain, he had to veil his face because the radiance of God’s glory was upon him. All that & still he beseeches God to be shown His glory.

The interesting thing is that God doesn’t promise to show Moses His glory.  He promises that all His goodness will pass before Moses. God equates His glory with His goodness.  What is this goodness?

Now some of us have heard Perry Stone’s teaching on this & he can say what he does because of Hebrews 1:3 The Son radiates God's own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command. When he had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honour at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven.

In Jesus all of God’s goodness, all of His character, was made manifest in the flesh, culminating at the cross. Jesus still veiled that glory while on earth but Peter & John got a glimpse of it on the Mount of Transfiguration.

I have not given you all this information for information’s sake.  We have been praying for God to move powerfully on our islands.  We have been praying for an outpouring of His Holy Spirit to touch lives. We have been praying for every single person who lives here. We have been asking for revival.  We have not called it that.  Revival isn’t even a term I like because I think it is an inaccurate term.  Never~the~less we have been praying for revival.

If you pray for revival you are, in essence, asking God to move powerfully. You are not asking for the anointing of the Holy Spirit.  You are asking for the glory of God to be made manifest. You are asking God to be God & to move powerfully & supernaturally to change lives. Change hearts.  Display His awesome majesty because C.S. Lewis is right: God is not a tame God!

But there are some things you need to know.  We do not dictate to God. When God begins to move we get exposed to the Light of His Holiness. There will be repentance as sin gets exposed.  People will not be able to stand under the weight of God’s presence. That is just a fact. If you’ve ever experienced it you will understand ~ & I am NOT talking about what is sometimes called being slain in the Spirit.  That is something else entirely. There will be miraculous healings because to be in the presence of God is to be in the very presence of the source of life itself.  It’s why the Israelites clothes didn’t wear out, why there was no sickness in the camp. One thing is sure.  You don’t get to stay the same.

However there are things that we need to do in preparation.

One: Not sure whose quote to attribute this but it is indisputably true.

Know your Book. Live it. Believe it. Obey it. Hide God’s word in your heart. It will save your soul, quicken your body, illumine your mind.

Two: Pray.  Pray specifically.  Pray repentance.  Pray for personal revival.  Pray for community revival.  Pray for National revival. Study it.  Think it.  Dream it.  Believe it.

Thirdly, There will be grief over sin & a desire to see God glorified.

Richard Riss has written on the revivals of the past several decades.  This is the link to his web page where there is much to consider & ponder.

Here

In closing I want to quote a story John Kilpatrick recounts from the Brownsville revival.  One of the palms on their platform was broken & they got in someone to fix it.  They directed the young woman, a non~believer, into the sanctuary & waited outside. Within 5 minutes the woman staggered out without her tool box, white~faced & shaken.

What on earth is in there? She asked.

See, when the glory of God manifests no~one can deny it.  It is not an empty boast that one day, at the Name of Jesus, every knee shall bow.  When the Glory of God manifests we will be able to do no other.