The Kingdom of God!

 

Chapter 82

 

 

In the last chapter I talked with you about the manifestation of the Sons of God and about the coming of the Lord and I pointed out something that has entirely been overlooked by most Bible students and nearly all preachers and teachers. All the way through the scriptures, from the crossing of the Red Sea by the children of Israel, to the ascension of Christ from the Mount of Olives, God consistently manifested Himself in ONE GLORY CLOUD.  There was always only ONE SINGLE CLOUD! One cloud before the camp of Israel. One cloud over mount Sinai. One cloud resting upon the tabernacle in the wilderness. One cloud shining in the most holy place. One cloud filling Solomon's temple. One cloud overshadowing the virgin of Galilee, implanting the seed of the Christ. One cloud shimmering over the summit of the mount of transfiguration. One cloud in which Christ ascended from the Mount of Olives. Christ ascended in one single cloud of God's glory. The very same cloud in which He had manifested His presence throughout the long ages of time!

        

Why is it then when we come to the return of the Lord that we notice a distinct difference? For suddenly the one single cloud disappears and we are introduced to a great plurality of clouds!  Christ departed this earth in one cloud. He comes again in many clouds!

 

Again, John said in Rev. 1:7,

 

"Behold, He cometh with clouds: and every eye shall see Him"

 

In Daniel 7:13-14 he says,

 

"I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like a Son of man came with the clouds of heaven... and there was given unto Him dominion"

 

Jesus Himself said Matt: 24:30,

 

"And they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds

  of heaven with power and great glory"

 

And again, in Mat. 26:64,

 

 "Hereafter you shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven" 

 

Finally, the apostle Paul relates this dramatic experience in 1 Thes. 4:17,

 

"Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds...and so shall we ever be with the Lord"

 

Notice all these verses say, In the CLOUDS!  More than one cloud. Many clouds. A great company of clouds! Why are there many clouds attending Christ's coming, and what are these clouds? Let's not for one moment forget that we are dealing with the cloud of God's glory, presence, and power. The shekinah glory of our Father!

 

When the firstborn Son of God was in the world John said of Him in Jn. 1:14,

 

  "We beheld His glory" 

 

When did they behold His glory? You may reply that they beheld His glory when He went about doing good, healing the sick, cleansing the lepers, raising the dead, performing miracles and teaching and speaking as never man spoke. I am sure that in all those things they beheld His authority, but the apostle Peter reveals to us what is really meant by their beholding the glory of the Son. In 2 Peter 1:16-18 he says,

 

"For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory (the glory cloud), saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with Him in the holy mount"

        

It is very significant that at the end of Jesus' earthly ministry He said in John 17:20-24

 

"Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that they also shall be one in us... and the glory which Thou gavest me I have given them.. .I in them, and Thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one.. .that they be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory which Thou hast given me"

 

And this is the crux of the whole matter! From the dawn of creation's light until Jesus stepped upon this planet, God was manifested to His creation in a singular way His own glory. He, the one eternal God, exhibited His presence in the form of one glory cloud! But as Jesus approached the cross and the glorious events to unfold thereafter, He disclosed the grand truth that God purposed from eternity to SHARE HIS GLORY WITH A VAST FAMILY OF SONS....that glorious body which is the fullness of Him that fills all in all!

        

Let us see, then, what great encouragement God has given us concerning His glory. Paul said in 1 Thes. 2:14,

 

"For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory."

 

Peter adds to this in 1Peter 5:1 when he says,

 

"I.. also am.. a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed"

 

Paul said in 2 Thes. 2:14,

 

"He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ."

 

And again in Rom. 8:18,

 

"For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us"

 

The writer to the Hebrews adds this significant testimony in Heb. 2:10,

 

"For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings" 

 

As the spirit of revelation and understanding floods our minds, we are left without question as to the meaning of all this. There is to be a mighty and universal revelation of the glory of God, that very same glory, which was revealed in the cloud of old, but now an intensified many-splendored glory in the many clouds of God's sons!

        

Another evidence that the "clouds" with which Christ comes are in fact the sons of God in their glory is contained in the scriptures on this subject. In most places the passages in question speak of Christ coming "with clouds." There is only one other group of plurality of objects of which it is stated that Christ comes "with" them, and that is the SAINTS! Paul says in 1 Thes. 3:13,

 

"To the end that He may establish your hearts.. .at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ WITH ALL HIS SAINTS"

 

Jude says in Jude 14,

 

"See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones."

 

The Amplified is helpful, when it reads,

 

"Behold, the Lord comes WITH MYRIADS OF HOLY ONES; ten thousands of His saints."

 

But the Interlinear reading from the Diaglott translation gives the clearest of all renderings from the Greek text, so we note,

 

"Lo, comes Lord IN HOLY MYRIADS OF HIMSELF."

 

Myriads of Himself! And all of them partakers of His divine nature, conformed to His image, infused with His mind, filled with His life, radiating His glory! Myriads of Himself; of His own kind, born of His seed, reproducing His life, a many brethren company of sons; all His sons.

 

Though there are multiplied testimonies to this truth, I will add just one more: In Zech. 14:5 it says,

 

"And the Lord my God shall come, and ALL THE SAINTS WITH THEE"

 

The beloved John sees this same scene in wonder-filled vision and cries out, "Behold, He cometh WITH CLOUDS; and every eye shall see Him!"

        

When Jesus ascended two thousand years ago, He ascended glorified in that singular glory cloud in which He had dwelt from eternity. He was the one God manifested in all fullness in one Man, the Son. But, blessed be God! As He comes again, "He shall come to be GLORIFIED IN HIS SAINTS, and to be admired IN THEM that believe!" Centuries ago the apostle Paul wrote these words to the saints at Rome,

 

"And if we are children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also GLORIFIED TOGETHER"

 

Christ coming "with clouds" certainly shows that each of these sons, to whom is given that same glory that Jesus had from eternity, shall stand ultimately in his own realm of the glory of the Lord. The glory is shared, so the cloud which represents that glory is shared. Each elect son becomes a manifestation of the glory, of the cloud and of the shekinah! In the light of such truth let us search our hearts and realize that we are the body of Christ. The cloud of old rested upon the tabernacle and filled the temple with the glory of the Lord! We are now His tabernacle and His temple! We are now His ark, His most holy place, and His holy mountain!

 

The glory is now given to us, rests upon us, increasingly fills us, and shall radiate out from this holy habitation of God forevermore! In Old Testament times God dwelt in one single cloud. But now He says, "I will dwell in them, and walk in them... and you shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord" (II Cor. 6:16-18).

        

As the clouds pour out the rain upon our land, so the heavens pour down water upon the earth. When a cloud becomes so heavy with droplets that it can no longer hold them, it spills over, and we have rain.

 

We have heard so much about the latter rain being poured out in our generation, but I want to tell you that all we have seen are light showers.  The main storm is about to be released as the sons of God are revealed to the world. Psalms 104:3, 13 says:

 

"Oh Lord my God, Thou art very great...who lays the beams of His chambers in the waters: who makes the cloud His chariot: He waters the hills from His chambers"

 

The clouds are the chambers of God containing the water of life! A cloud is full of water and water speaks to us of life. Water typifies both the Spirit of God and the Word of God (Eph. 5:26; Jn. 7:37-39). A cloud speaks to us of a vessel which contains water or contains life. God by His Spirit gives living water to refresh and impart life to His creation! It is the nature of a cloud to empty itself   Eccl. 11:3 says,

 

"If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth"

 

When the cloud gets filled up, it rains! That is the nature of the clouds, rain pours out! Now, all that God is being formed in His sons, we are becoming a receptacle, a vehicle for all the fullness of God, filled up with the life-giving properties of our Father! HE IS FILLING THE CLOUDS!

        

The nature of each son will be to pour out that life just as God poured it into Jesus and Jesus is pouring it into us. If the sons, as the clouds of heaven, be full of God, they will pour Him out upon all who dwell in the earth-realm! A true ministry has life to give and is willing to empty themselves in order to give life to a dry and thirsty people. Pour out their lives for others, that is what Jesus did! We shall empty out that same life on a groaning creation and quicken all who are held in the bondage of corruption! The apostles Peter and Jude, both tell us that false ministries are "clouds without water... carried about of winds."

 

A true ministry, then, is a cloud with water. A true ministry has life to give! A true ministry is willing to empty themselves out in order to bring that life to a dry and parched land! Jesus was a bright cloud laden with water, for "the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and give His life..."

 

The one glory has become the multiple glories! The one cloud of His presence has become many clouds of His presence! The Lord is coming to be glorified in a many-membered body, in the clouds of His presence! These are the clouds of His glory into which the triumphant saints of God are being "caught up." Our "catching up" is being brought to that high spiritual sphere where we become one with that whole great "cloud of witnesses," the spirits of just men made perfect! They without us cannot be made perfect, but they with us are the very perfection of God expressed out of the high realm of the heavens of God's Spirit. (Heb. 11:40)

 

What a glorious union of forces when those of our generation on earth, and all those overcoming saints of all former ages who have gone on before us, are joined together, becoming an indestructible force in the full, total, and complete manifestation of God's majesty, power, and glory at the manifestation of the sons of God! Gird up your loins because I hear the sound of an abundance of rain!

        

The resident within the shimmering cloud of glory is just the Lord Himself and He is the source of the dazzling light, for it is He who causes the celestial host to shine forth, thus forming the "cloud" and manifesting His glory thereby. Be not discouraged, for our Lord shall complete all His work and purpose in us, lifting us up into higher realms of His Spirit and completing that union with the whole body of the firstborn. The life of God is taking form! The clouds are coming together! The clouds are gathering rain! The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together! Behold, He comes with clouds, and every eye shall see Him! Paul said in II Cor. 4:7.

 

"We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us."

 

There is a glory even now as we glorify God in these mortal bodies. Christ had and disclosed such a glory when He walked the shores of Galilee. But, blessed be His name, in His resurrection He came forth in new garments, clad in a sin-free and death-free body of incorruption and immortality! Now His wonderful life is swallowing up the sin and death in us bringing to His chosen ones also a change of raiment and in His due time we shall be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, for this corruptible is putting on incorruption and this mortal is putting on immortality. Only as we daily put on the Lord Jesus Christ are we changed!

 

"Putting on" is not a passive thing. We are putting on the Lord Jesus Christ; we are putting on incorruption and immortality and because we are putting on the life, mind, and nature of His resurrection we are being changed! When we are fully changed by the power of His resurrection, we shall be bright clouds out of whom God shall shine and out of whom the voice of God shall speak. We shall be pillars of clouds by day, and pillars of fire by night, to lead and guide all humanity from the bondage of Egypt to the blessing and abundance of the Promised Land!

        

Though His glory has generally been hidden throughout the ages, at certain times and on special occasions that hidden glory has flashed forth into prominence before the eyes of the few whom by the predestined counsel of God were permitted to experience unspeakable things unlawful for a man to utter.

 

We are coming ever nearer when God shall unveil His power and glory before the face of all nations and peoples in a manner far beyond any measure experienced by men of any age! The whole world shall soon see the glory of the Lord in an unprecedented way! From earths teeming millions of all ages there is a people arising in the image of Christ. Those who watch the spiritual heavens shall soon see clouds as they have never seen before! We have seen the clouds of earth's atmosphere, inky black clouds, and clouds of snowy whiteness, clouds brightly tinted and many silver lined, clouds made brilliantly gorgeous by the afterglow of the setting sun. But we never yet have seen clouds made magnificently glorious by the blazing splendor of the Son of God!

 

We have seen clouds charged by flashes of lightning. But we have yet to see clouds charged with the power of omnipotence and flashing with the incorruptible radiance of Christ's life and immortality! Afar off we have seen the morning clouds as they have enwrapped the distant mountain peaks and splendidly capped the hilltops. We have yet to see the clouds which enfold the blazing form of the Mighty One!

 

We have seen clouds driven as chariots to carry rain to the dry and thirsty fields. But clouds are forming in the heavens of God's spirit that will be seen through His people. Hab. 2:14 says,

 

"For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea."

        

What a sight for eyes to behold! How it enraptures the faithful ones who "love His appearing" and have hoped to the end "for the grace that is to be brought unto them" at "the revelation of Jesus Christ." All of a sudden, the blazing light of day will take on a new brightness, above all the glory of the sun, and grow still more light, more bright, and more dazzling, until the eyes of men behold the advancing glory of God's Christ! And with the glory clouds of myriads of like ones unto Himself the all-conquering Christ will appear in all the fullness of Himself in the earth! These brilliant bands will fill the glory-flashing skies from end to end and flood the world with life, light, and love! 

        

No wonder John followed his exclamation concerning the Lord coming with clouds with this significant explanation: ". . . and every eye shall see Him." This beautiful text has often been misused and abused in an attempt to prove the erroneous theory that Jesus will return as a flesh and blood man and be suspended in the sky until every individual throughout the whole earth has had an opportunity to see Him. But this crude interpretation of the prophecy is quite out of harmony with the Bible's use of language and the symbolic scheme of the book of Revelation.

 

Let us note, for example, how scripture uses the function of the eye to symbolize discernment. After Job's long experience of calamity and trial, and the revelation of God's heart to him, he cried out in communion with God, "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: but NOW MINE EYE SEETH THEE!" (Job 42:5). All will concede, I believe, that Job did not see God literally, but he saw Him, nonetheless. Jesus said to His disciples, "Blessed are your eyes, for they see." I doubt that any would contend that Jesus was reminding the disciples to reflect upon how fortunate they were not to be physically blind!

 

To "see" means to know. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall know God." A pure heart is one to which all that is not of God is strange and jarring. A heart that has no desires but for the glory of God, whose affections all center in Him, whose delight is in His perfect will, such an one will truly see and know the Lord! It is better to know God than even to see Him by the eyes of sense. There were many who saw Jesus who did not know Him. They saw the Christ, but they knew not that He was the Christ.  They saw His miracles, but they did not know Him. Some of them even rejected Him and hated Him. You could see Jesus Himself in bodily form today, but unless your heart is quickened, cleansed, and transformed, you could not know Him to be the Christ. It is only purity of heart that gives purity of sight!

        

I don't believe every eye is going to see Him because they are watching TBN, CNN, or reading USA Today. Every eye is going to see Him because there is coming such great grace and mighty power at the revelation of Jesus Christ in His body that it shall produce a supernatural quickening in the lives of all who behold the appearing of the Lord. Their spiritual eyes shall be opened, and they will understand and know what they have never known before! They will not see as they have seen before, but their minds and hearts will be changed and transfigured in the light of His glory. What a hope!

        

A beautiful illustration is found in the gospel of Luke. The aged prophet, Simeon, who had received the promise from God that he should not see death until he had seen the Lord's Christ, came by the Spirit into the temple, when Joseph and Mary brought in the child Jesus. "Then took he Him up in his arms and blessed God, and said, Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, according to Thy word: FOR MINE EYES HAVE SEEN THY SALVATION."

 

What kind of eyesight is this? A little babe in the arms of his mother, and yet Simeon's eyes were opened to see, not just the form of the babe, but THY SALVATION! This certainly was not an uncommon sight; mothers were constantly coming into the temple with their children, to do for them after the custom of the law. And no doubt there was a vast multitude of other people in the temple on that day; they, too, saw the babe in the arms of his mother, but they did not see THY SALVATION, for having eyes, they saw not, "and the world knew Him not."

        

When the scripture said, "The glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together," God is saying the same to the world today. The unveiling of the Sons of God is the revelation of the glory of the Lord! When the glory of the Lord is revealed, which is the salvation of God, it is the fulfillment of the word of the Lord to His elect through Isaiah, "I will give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that THOU MAYEST BE MY SALVATION UNTO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH."

 

When the kingdom of God fills the earth, the earth will be filled with righteousness. WE ARE THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD! When the glory of the Lord is revealed, the earth will be flooded with light. WE ARE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD! The reason the world will know the sons of God to be the salvation of God is because God pours out His Spirit upon all flesh. All humanity, with that quickening of the Spirit, will have their eyes enlightened to see in the body of Christ the salvation of God, to see in the sons of God the glory of God and the righteousness of God. The world will see God's elect as the righteousness of God because we are becoming righteous sons! The world will see God's elect as the light of the world because we are becoming a glorious shining people! The world will see God's elect as the salvation of God because we are becoming a fully saved people!

        

Well, Praise God. He is coming forth in His people. Open your heart and allow Him to shine through you.