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THE GLORY OF THE LORD  

 

The glory of the Lord will be manifest in these last days. And what is that glory? It is the manifesta­tion of God's Presence in the midst of His people. It brings with it the fullness of His power to deliver, to cleanse, to redeem, to transform, to fulfill all His promises to His people. And, it makes them to be what the Lord has pur­posed, and it causes them to go forth in that which He has determined.

 

God's glory will return when a body has been prepared to receive it. At the beginning of this age, a physical body was prepared to receive the glory in the Person of the Lord of Glory, even the very Son of the Father (Heb. 10:5). And those who saw Him beheld the glory of their God (Jn. 1:14). So in this day, the Lord is preparing a spiritual body to receive the glory which He will bring to His people (Eph. 1:22-23). But First that Body must be set in divine order as He has or­dained, and that Body must be complete in all of its parts. It must function at the directive of His Spirit, and be completely subject to His headship. Then, and only then, will He fill that Body with the fullness of His glory.

 

We read of the glory of the Lord that was manifested with the living creatures in Ezekiel's vision (Ezek. 1:4,28). These living creatures are a picture of the reality and perfection of that end-time Body which the Lord will raise up to Him­self. If you will read the account of the departure of the Lord's glory from the sanctuary, as recorded in Ezekiel 8-11, you will notice that the glory cloud was moving with the living crea­tures as they were lifted up from that sanctuary which had become polluted by the ways and traditions of man. God's glory cannot be associated with anything that is not accord­ing to His divine will. For it is written that He was driven off from His sanctuary by the abominations that were committed there (Ezek. 8:6}. He has also been driven away from the churches of this day so that the fullness of His glory is not seen among them. Why? Because they have polluted His sanctuary by their traditions and their man-made ways.

 

Know assuredly that the Lord will not return until He finds a body of people who will be joined together according to His ways. Then He will cause that body to become a glorious temple to Him, and that temple will be filled with His glory. Consider the words spoken to Ezekiel the Prophet in the clos­ing chapters of Ezekiel (40-48), as a vision is given to him of the new Temple which will be built. That which was given to Ezekiel contains many truths which are not to be made known at this time, for it concerns that which will transpire in future ages. But one thing that. Temple, ordered and mea­sured according to God's directive, does represent and typify, is the end-time body or temple which the Lord will raise up to Himself and fill with His glory. Ezekiel saw the glory of God return to this new Temple (43:2-5, 44:4) even as he had seen it depart from the old polluted one (10:18-19). This is a picture of that which the Lord will do. The glory has de­parted from the polluted church systems of this day, but the glory will return to the end-time temple.

 

[Next: SPIRITUAL OPERATION OF THE BODY ]

 

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