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The Lord God says,
"Everyone who is called by My name,
I have created for My glory."
ISAIAH 43:7
* Start Part 1 of 3 *
I am soooooooo indebted to Bob Warren for mentoring me in the following revelation of God's glory throughout the whole Bible (refer to Bob's bio in right column). Most of the Scriptures are from a recording of his teaching.
This Rest Stop affirms God's greatest purpose for you and me is for the glory of His Son to shine through us. I am overwhelmed! God bless you as you will be transformed by beholding God's glory in this Rest Stop.
GLORY IN A BUSH
God's glory is the manifestation Him. It is the outshining of His Person. Hebrews 1:3 says that Jesus is the brightness of God's glory, meaning that Jesus is the outshining of God. Jesus is the glory of God!
And the Angel of the Lord who appeared to Moses in a burning bush was the pre-incarnate Christ (Exodus 3:2)!
The bush was not consumed with the fire of God's glory. Otherwise, the flame would have burned out, not really being eternal! And God's glory from this bush has blazed through all of history (and eternity) and into our lives!
GLORY ON MOUNT SINAI
Moses and the people witnessed God's glory as Mount Sinai was engulfed with smoke before and after God revealed the Ten Commandments to Moses (Exodus 19:16-18, 20:18).
GLORY IN A TENT
The presence of God in a pillar of cloud stood at the door of Moses' tent (Exodus 33:7, 9). It was here that God promised His faithful presence (glory) to Moses and His people (Exodus 33:14).
GLORY IN THE TABERNACLE
The cloud covered the tabernacle and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. The cloud of the Lord was above the tabernacle by day and fire was over it by night, throughout all the journeys of the Hebrews in the wilderness (Exodus 40:34-38).
GLORY IN THE TEMPLE
Moses died at the threshold of the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 34:5). Joshua claimed the Promised Land by faith, and then divided the Promised Land (Joshua 1-24). The last judge Samuel anointed Saul from the tribe of Benjamin as king (1 Samuel 10:1). Samuel later anointed David from the tribe of Judah as king (1 Samuel 16:13).
| Because David was from the tribe of Judah, and Jesus was to be a descendant of Judah, God's plan unfolded to ultimately usher in Jesus as "the glory of the only begotten of the Father" (John 1:14)! |
David's son Solomon became king and built the temple in Jerusalem. The glory of God as a cloud filled the temple (2 Chronicles 5:13-14, 7:1-3). Solomon died (2 Chronicles 9:31, 1 Kings 11:43), and the kingdom split into Israel (north) and Judah (south) in 930 BC.
In 740 BC, northern kingdom of Israel was taken captive by Assyria. In 609 BC, Josiah, the last righteous king of southern kingdom of Judah was slain. In 606 BC, the 70-year Babylonian captivity of the southern kingdom of Judah started. Daniel and his three friends were among the first taken into captivity (Jeremiah 25:11, Daniel 1:1-6).
Ezekiel prophesied of the coming destruction of Jerusalem over the next few years if the Hebrews did not repent.
* Start Part 2 of 3 *
GLORY DEPARTED THE TEMPLE
During Ezekiel's prophetic ministry, the glory of the Lord went up from the cherub on the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies, and paused over the threshold of the temple. The temple was filled with the cloud and the court was full of the brightness of the Lord's glory (Ezekiel 10:4).
The glory of the Lord then departed from the threshold of the temple and stood over the cherubim. The cherubim lifted their wings and mounted up from the earth and stood at the door of the East Gate of Jerusalem, and the glory of God was above them (Ezekiel 10:18-19).
And then the glory of the Lord went up and stood on the Mount of Olives on the east side of Jerusalem...and then went up to heaven (Ezekiel 11:23-24).
| The glory would return later to the Mount of Olives in the Person of Jesus Christ! It is on the Mount of Olives that Jesus mounted the donkey to re-enter Jerusalem through the East Gate! (Matthew 21:1-12). |
In 586 BC, after the glory of the Lord had left the temple in Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar burned the temple to the ground and broke down the walls of Jerusalem (2 Kings 25:9-10).
GLORY DID NOT RETURN TO THE RE-BUILT TEMPLE
The Persians defeated the Babylonians, and Persian King Cyrus issued a decree in 538 BC for the Jews to return to Jerusalem and to re-build the temple (Ezra 1:1-4). The new temple was completed in 515 BC (Ezra 6:14-15), but the glory of the Lord is never mentioned to fill this new temple...until Jesus came later!
In 445 BC, Nehemiah led the miraculous re-building of the wall of Jerusalem in only 23 days (Nehemiah 1:1-6:15)!
| The re-building of the East Gate on the Jerusalem wall opened the way for the glory to return to the temple in the Person of Jesus Christ the same way the glory had departed! |
The Jews again rebelled against God. The Old Testament period closed. There were 400 years of silence from God...until...
...UNTIL THE GLORY RETURNED THROUGH THE LORD JESUS!
Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid (Luke 2:8-9)!
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men" (Luke 2:13-14)!
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).
Jesus is indeed the glory of God!
Hebrews 1:3 affirms "The Son is the brightness of God's glory!"
Amazing love, how can it be?!
Amazing glory through all eternity!
Amazing grace through all history!
* Start Part 3 of 3 *
THE GLORY RE-ENTERED THE TEMPLE
At the beginning of Jesus' 33-year earthly life, the Christ Child was brought to the temple to be dedicated to God. The Holy Spirit moved Simeon and Anna to affirm the precious Child as our precious Redeemer (Luke 2:22-38)! Glory, in the face of the Christ child, had re-entered the re-built temple for the first time!
THE DISCIPLES BEHELD HIS GLORY
For three years, the disciples beheld the glory of Christ, "the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14).
THE GLORY RE-ENTERED THE TEMPLE AGAIN
Near the end of those three glorious years, the disciples came to the Mount of Olives with Jesus. It was there that Jesus called for two disciples to retrieve a specific donkey (Matthew 21:1-8).
Jesus entered Jerusalem on the donkey through the East Gate -- the same gate where the glory had departed many years earlier! The multitudes cried out, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest" (Matthew 21:9)!
The first thing Jesus did after this triumphant entry was to enter the temple to drive out the money changers (Matthew 21:12)! Glory Himself again returned to the temple! Sin cannot abide in the presence of God! The glory of God expels sin!
GLORIOUS PRAYER
Luke 22:39 says that Jesus was accustomed to spending time on the Mount of Olives. Near the base of the Mount of Olives is the Garden of Gethsemane, where Glory Himself prayed all alone in darkness the night before His cross (Luke 22:39-44).
GLORY DISPLAYED WHILE BEING BETRAYED
It was in the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives where Jesus was betrayed by Judas (John 18:1-2). Do you suppose the enemy wanted to pervert this special place where God had chosen several times to reveal His glory? However...
...be encouraged by these words of God, "I am the LORD, that is My name, and My glory I will not give to another" (Isaiah 42:8)!
A mob of people with lanterns, torches, and weapons, along with Judas, approached Jesus in the garden on the Mount of Olives (John 18:3). And when Jesus spoke to them "I am He," the glory of God in Him caused the whole mob to draw back and fall to the ground (John 18:5-6)!
Therefore, Jesus in all His glory spiritually arrested the mob before they humanly arrested Him!
GLORY OF THE CROSS
The glory of God is supremely manifested in Jesus Christ through His cross and resurrection. We cannot personally and profoundly know God's love and holiness apart from the cross. I am overwhelmed. Let us worship our Lord.
Listen to our Lord in His prayer for us: "Father, I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was" (John 17:4-5).
In that same prayer, Jesus prayed to His Father that you and me would behold His glory in the most personal way (John 17:24). God has graciously answered that prayer by uniting us with Christ through His death, burial, and resurrection (Romans 6:1-10)!
GLORY ASCENDED TO HEAVEN
Jesus was taken up to heaven as a cloud received Him out of the disciples' sight (Acts 1:9)! Where did this occur? From the Mount of Olives!
GLORY DESCENDED FROM HEAVEN
On the day of Pentecost, there suddenly came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where all of the disciples were together. And there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-4)!
Jesus had previously promised this coming of the Holy Spirit. In John 16:14, Jesus promised, "The Spirit of truth will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you." Wow, what a promise!
HIS GLORY NOW INDWELLS YOU AND ME!
Therefore, the same glory witnessed by Moses in the bush, that filled the temple, that was supremely manifested through the cross and resurrection, and that was poured out at Pentecost, now indwells you and me!
This is an answer to Jesus' prayer to the Father for you and me: "And the glory which You have given Me I have given them, that they be one as We are one. Father, I desire that they may behold My glory which you have given Me" (John 17:22, 24).
God has willed to make known through us the purpose of all of history and the riches of this glory which is:
Christ in you, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27)!
CLOSING
May God bless you and keep you, and make His face shine upon you and through you to give you peace and to transform everyone you touch with your life!
Now we all, with unveiled face,
beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord,
are being transformed
into the same image
from glory to glory,
just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
(2 Corinthians 3:18)
For it is the God
who commanded light to shine out of darkness,
who has shone in our hearts
to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ.
We have this treasure in earthen vessels...
...that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our body.
(2 Corinthians 4:6, 7a, 10b)
PS, This is the message that God has chosen for us, and entrusted to us, to minister true hope to the world! To God be the glory!
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