Glory

Apr 30, 2022

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And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Therefore, come out from among them and be separate”, says the Lord. “Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters”, says the LORD Almighty.”

You can’t have a taste for something you’ve never had before.

Adam and Eve were created to reflect the glory of God. You and I were created with a taste for God’s glory and for worship.

You will worship whether you want to or not. You worship whatever you give most of your time, talents, and treasure to. When we worship God, we experience His presence and it awakens a taste in us. There is a longing built into us for the presence and glory of God.

Glory (Hebrew – Kabod):
Weight, Authority, Greatness, Influence. Deserving of Honor, Respect, Reverence.

God’s glory is His manifest attributes. God does not have glory, He is glory.

Revelation 4:8 “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!”

Holy: Set apart.
Lord God Almighty: Owner, Master, Ruler, with all Power
Who Was, Is, & Is to come: Eternal, Omnipresent, and Preeminent. He is everywhere and everywhen, and when all is said and done, He will remain.

When we give God glory, we are exalting Him and granting Him access to our lives. But make no mistake, God is glorious whether or not we give Him glory. God is to glory as fire is to heat or water is to wet. You don’t make fire hot, it is hot. You don’t make water wet, it is wet. In the same way, God does not have varying degrees of glory, He is glorious all by Himself, in Himself without any external influence or support.

We say that athletes have glory, musicians, actors, and even when some remember their better years as the glory days. When people do things exceptionally well, they have a certain amount of glory. But this glory is attributed. Their ability comes from the grace and creative will of God.

Take Michael Jordan or Michael Jackson at the height of their fame and remove all the oxygen from the room… no more glory.

God’s glory is intrinsic, not attributed. He gets His glory from Himself by virtue of being Himself without any outside help or assistance.

We don’t make Him glorious through our worship, we worship because He is glorious.
Adam and Eve were clothed in the glory of God. They were created to reflect God’s glory here on the earth. This is why at the fall they knew they were naked because the glory left.

When Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they lost the knowledge, the revelation, the outshining of God.

Adam and Eve were created with the knowledge and experience of God’s glory. At the fall they lost it. So God had to teach His people about His glory little by little. He reveals His glory in the presence of sin and rebellion, His glory would immediately judge it and the person or persons it was attached to.

Sin makes us dumb, and God had to take the lesson of His glory slow.

The first time we see glory mentioned after the fall
Genesis 31:1 – Jacob: Abundance
Genesis 45:13 – Joseph: Power, Wealth, Influence

After being saved in the Red Sea and God miraculous making bitter water sweet, the people got hangry.

Exodus 16:4,10 I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not… Now it came to pass, as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the children of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.

The glory of God came as a Father providing for His children and giving their faith a chance to grow.

Immaturity Prevents Fruitfulness

Exodus 34:29-35 Now it was so, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai, that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him. 30 So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. 33 And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. 34 But whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with Him, he would take the veil off until he came out; and he would come out and speak to the children of Israel whatever he had been commanded. 35 And whenever the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face shone, then Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with Him.

The glory came as Moses was given God’s word and stood in His presence.
He wasn’t being transformed into something new. He was going from glory to glory in the presence of his God, reflecting the glory of God in the earth just like Adam and Eve before the Fall.

The glory of God is His manifest attributes, and the glory of God manifests when He is revealing Himself to His people. He desired that there be a sacred holy space. A place dedicated for Him where He could meet with His people. So God told Moses to build a giant tent or tabernacle.

Exodus 40:33-35 Moses finished the work. Then the cloud covered the tabernacle of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tabernacle of meeting, because the cloud rested above it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

Our goal should not be blessings, or even freedom from sin and oppression, but Jesus. His presence, His Holy Spirit, a revelation of what His word means, not just what it says.

We see God again display His glory at the dedication of Solomon’s temple.

1 Kings 7:51 So all the work that King Solomon had done for the house of the Lord was finished…

1 Kings 8:4 Then they brought up the ark of the Lord, the tabernacle of meeting, and all the holy furnishings that were in the tabernacle. The priests and the Levites brought them up…

2 Chronicles 5:13-14 The trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord, and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and praised the Lord, saying: “For He is good, for His mercy endures forever,” that the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God.

Solomon’ Temple, built in 957BC
Destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC
Zerubabel’s Temple (the second temple) built in 516 BC
70 years later (time of Babylonian captivity)

The Temple project was difficult, expensive, and time consuming. They faced opposition and enemies every step of the way. Zerubbabel needed encouragement to keep going.

Zechariah 4:6 This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit”

Ezra 6:15 Now the temple was finished…

They dedicated the temple, restored worship and sacrifice, praised God, and then… life continued. The story just keeps going forward. No glory cloud. Ezra was a prophet in those days and he writes

Haggai 2:9 ‘The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former,’ says the LORD of hosts. ‘And in this place I will give peace,’ says the LORD of hosts.”

The glory of the latter temple? The elders wept because it was nothing compared to Solomon’s temple. What’s going on here? The ark of the covenant was a symbol of God’s word and His presence. It was lost during the Babylonian raid so it was never in the second temple. No word, no order, no presence, no glory.

So how could the glory be greater if it wasn’t more beautiful or have the cloud? Let’s look at what he writes just before the verse we read.

Haggai 2:6-9 “For thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘Once more (it is a little while) I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry land; and I will shake all nations, and they shall come to the Desire of All Nations, and I will fill this temple with glory,’ says the LORD of hosts… ‘The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former,’ says the LORD of hosts. ‘And in this place I will give peace,’ says the LORD of hosts.”

Desire of All Nations: Jesus

Glory did come to the second temple, and it did take a while – 500 years later. The word made flesh was not just the presence of God but God Himself. He came to His temple to restore glory for His glory.

He shook up the temple when He cleansed it.
He shook the heavens and the earth at His crucifixion.
He calmed the raging sea and declared that rocks would cry out.
All nations, Israelite, Samaritan, Greek, Roman, etc., all had to figure out where they stood with this Jesus. Those that desired the truth came to Him.

He is the Desire of All Nations. He is the solution to famine and pestilence, to poverty and hate, to war and justice, to hope and purpose. He is the beginning and the end, the Great I Am, The Judge of All Flesh, and the Lover of Our Souls. He is our God, our Redeemer, our Father and our Friend. If you want life hope and purpose, He is what you are truly desiring.

He is the Desire of All Nations, His name is Jesus!
Before glory, there is a shaking and setting things in order according to His word.

What Jesus did in the second temple, He does in us. Not the temple made with human hands, but the temple that He formed Himself from the dust of the ground. His Holy Spirit now comes to inhabit the Temple He always desired. He is the Desire of all Nations, but we are His desire.

1 Corinthians 3:16 Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

1 Peter 2:5 You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Peter sifting / breaking / restoring for glory – Acts 2

The Holy Spirit is working with us to put our temples in order so His glory can come.

Philippians 1:6 He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ

Haggai 2:9 ‘The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former,’ says the LORD of hosts. ‘And in this place I will give peace,’ says the LORD of hosts.”

This is speaking of Jesus being the glory of the second temple being greater than the cloud at the first, but it is prophetic of the church, the first being the early church and the second being the latter or end-time church before Jesus’ return.

Ephesians 5:25-27 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.

We must allow Jesus to come in and shake those things in our life that are killing and distracting us. We must allow Him to break us of our pride and fill us with His word and Holy Spirit. If we want to see His glory, we must seek His presence in the secret place, repent of our sin, and make Him the priority of our lives.

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