Isaiah cried out, "I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!”
To see the Lord high and lifted up! To behold the majesty and the beauty of the Lord! As one popular praise chorus says, "Open the eyes of my heart Lord, Open the eyes of my heart, I want to see you!"
David said, "...One thing I have desired of the Lord, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord...".
How often do I look up into the wondrous majesty of the night sky, and my mind and thoughts inevitably drift to think upon the awesome power, creativity, and majesty of God. Nothing unusual here of course, for King David wrote centuries ago, "The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork." God's majesty and power in creation has often inspired wonder and awe among us mere mortals! In ancient times all they could see of the heavens was with the naked eye. As time progressed telescopes were invented and the heavens became deeper and even more wondrous! Then, man sent super telescopes into space, and the handiwork of the firmament was revealed with even more magnificent glory! And yet! The very creation itself is but a fraction of His glory!
For those who deny the existence of God, there is but one true thing that can be said, "The fool has said, there is no God!" There is an old adage that observes that if there is a watch, then there must be a watchmaker. If there is order and design, there must be a designer! Complexity in harmony does not come out of chaos without an intelligence ordering it! To look upon the perfect and precise design of the universe, fashioned with more complexity, and more intricately designed than a precision watch, and then to deny that there is no watch maker, is the height of willful ignorance and foolishness! "Because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse..." But I will leave that right here for now. As for me, I hunger to see even just a glimpse of HIS glory!
To say that the glory, majesty, and power of Almighty God is incomprehensible to mortal man is to simply state the obvious. We finite creatures fashioned out of dust cannot begin to comprehend the infinite glory and majesty of the eternal God!
Now, let me say something here for clarity's sake. I am talking about the literal omnipotent beauty and terror of the Lord! Yes! The Bible in numerous places calls the glory of God terrifying! In the day when He reveals His glory, "They shall say to the mountains, “Cover us!” And to the hills, “Fall on us!” (Hos.10:8) then; "They shall go into the holes of the rocks, And into the caves of the earth, From the terror of the Lord And the glory of His majesty, When He arises to shake the earth mightily." (Is.2:19)
Human flesh, along with the entire creation of God quakes and trembles in His presence! We see everywhere in the Bible that those who saw God and looked upon Him fell as dead men at His feet! When Moses's asked the Lord, "Show me your glory...”, the Lord replied and said, “I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” But He said, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.” And the Lord said, “Here is a place by Me, and you shall stand on the rock. So it shall be, while My glory passes by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and will cover you with My hand while I pass by. Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen.” And we know that the Lord honored Moses' request: "Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”
God was revealing to Moses, and to all, that, that part of His glory which we could understand and NEEDED, to understand was resident in His moral character. The intrinsic goodness, grace, mercy, and justice of God is inherently an attribute of His Glory! God's character and moral nature is something that we can comprehend and understand because we are created in His image and likeness. However, the part of His glory that is utterly incomprehensible is His Omnipotent power and infinite Majesty! Even the Angels in His presence cover their faces with their wings as they cry out, "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!"
I like to imagine that those angel's every once in a while "sneak a peek" to take a look at the glory of God, and as they do, some new aspect of His glory is revealed to them! And they cover their faces once again in Holy awe! And for all eternity they have been seeing newly revealed aspects of His Glory! Likewise, I think for those who hunger after Him, crying out "show me your glory", every once in a while God gives them a glimpse, and then like Isaiah cry out, "Woe is me, for I am undone!" To be undone in the presence of the gory of the Lord will result in a complete transformation of how you and I see things!
Oh Lord! Show me your glory! Enlarge my heart, increase the capacity of my mind to catch even a small glimpse of Your Majesty, Power, and Glory! For when "I am undone", that is when I know that you've begun to transform me into the image of Your glory!
"But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord."
His Grace Is Still Amazing To Me!
Andy White
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