"The Glory of the Church"

There is a specific, proper, unique, awesome and wonderful glory of the church assigned to them and them alone that is rarely experienced these days. Those few saints of past days who have experienced it will instantly affirm that this is so, and many, if not most, today's church people either deeply hunger for a repeat of it, or - as in most instances - consider it mere emotionalism, or even fanaticism.

I know that the glory of the church is a fact, and, if I did not know this, or chose not to believe this, I would teach and preach it anyway because Jesus promised it in John 17:22 as He prayed for His church just before leaving them and returning to His Father.


"And the glory which You (the Father) gave Me (Jesus, His Son) I HAVE GIVEN THEM: that they may be one, even as We are one".

The fact is that this glory is so appropriate and desirable that Jesus prayed that His Father would endow His followers with it. There is a strong sense in which we are not the church without it!, and that the church is completely unique on earth because of it. This glory will be experienced by no one else on earth, because He has reserved it for His church. It will be found in and of the church, and nowhere else.

Satan hates the church's glory! and the church has historically been a persecuted body in this world of evil and iniquity. Holy people have been abused, maligned, mistreated, insulted, ill-favored, discriminated against, assaulted, and even killed from the dawn of human history, but they have all had this treasured, peculiar aura of God's glorious presence with them as a unique mark of idenity.

A righteous Abel was killed, but his blood cried up from the ground. An upright Job was woefully abused, but God brought him out better and stronger on the other side of his afflictions. A righteous Joseph was framed, but God was with him in prison and vindicated his honor. A praying Daniel was thrown into the lion's den, but God graced that cavern with His control and glory. Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah were mercilessly thrown into a blazing inferno, but Jesus walked with them there and delivered them. Jeremiah was dropped into a stinking, mouldy, miry, vermin infected pit, but God was there with him (think of it! God in that pit!) and brought him out.

Peter was placed in jail by the Romans, but God's angel was there to bring him out. Stephen was murdered in the cruelest fashion, but God's glory was on his soul, and the shine of His presence on his face. Paul and Silas sat on a cold, damp jail floor in stocks and chains, but God illuminated that dungeon with His presence and glory and gave them enough grace to sing hymns at midnight. And John was surrounded by the glory of God on a lonely Isle of Patmos.

The glory of the church is the presence of heaven's God. It when He draws near to us, and probably one of the most impressive properties of this peculiarly reserved glory is that we can experience it personally even if the various bodies of the church are too pre-occupied and too busy to wait on Him.

What I have experienced and noticed is that God's glory attends those who desire it, and hunger for it, and wait on Him for it.