November 5
Ezek 12:1-14:11 | PS 105:37-45 | Prov 27:3 | Heb 7:1-17
We know that God is in three Persons: Father, Son, and Spirit. As such God's glory has and does manifest on earth. We first read of the glory of God sojourning on earth in Exodus 40:34, " Then the cloud covered the Tabernacle, and the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle." This is where the glory of God resided, until it He moved into the temple that Solomon built, as we read in 2 Chronicles 7:1, "When Solomon finished praying, fire flashed down from heaven and burned up the burnt offerings and sacrifices, and the glorious presence of the Lord filled the Temple." There the glory of God remained until He left and His glory departed as we see in the vision of Ezekiel. We read this in Ezekiel 10:4,18,11:23, "Then the glory of the Lord rose up from above the cherubim and went over to the entrance of the Temple. The Temple was filled with this cloud of glory, and the courtyard glowed brightly with the glory of the Lord... Then the glory of the Lord moved out from the entrance of the Temple and hovered above the cherubim... Then the glory of the Lord went up from the city and stopped above the mountain to the east." What is so sad is that the glory of God left the temple over six hundred years before it was ever destroyed in 70 A.D., but the people failed to realize this. This mountain on the east in 11:23, was the Mount of Olives. Though God would send His Spirit among some of His people during this time, it would not indwell them until after Jesus came and went.
The next time the glory of God sojourned on the earth began in a manger in the little town of Bethlehem in the person of Jesus Christ. The glory of God sojourned throughout Israel during these years, especially during His three year ministry. Interestingly, just as the glory of God departed from the Mount of Olives, Jesus entered Jerusalem from this Mount on Palm Sunday (Matthew 21), which was prophesied in Zechariah 9:9, when He publicly came as their King. It was from this same location that He departed as He ascended onto heaven in Acts 1:9-12. And it will be this same location where He will come again in the battle of Armageddon to establish His kingdom, the Millennial Kingdom, in the future (Zechariah 14:4)
This brings us to the third Person, the Holy Spirit. As we read in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, "Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body." Just as the glory of God sojourned on earth for a season, then departed, the same will happen with the Holy Spirit. This future event is call the Rapture, which is described in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17, along with other places. When the glory of God departs, when the church is removed from the earth, the earth will be ripe for God's wrath in the period of time called the Tribulation which will last for seven years. History is unfolding according to God's timetable. If you have made the decision to repent and accept Jesus' sacrifice then you are a walking manifestation of the glory of God. This is not something which we should take lightly. This is something which we should acknowledge and be those vessels which shine His glory anywhere and everywhere while we are still as His ambassadors on this earth and sojourning. Like the glory of God filling the temple, and the son of God walking the earth, these seasons don't last forever. They often end quickly. So, with this in mind, may we reach out to an unsaved world with the only message of hope while we are still around to reveal His glory to those who remain ignorant to who He is and are ignorant to the only means of their salvation.
Messages from Pastor Lloyd Pulley: