In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the need for the glory of God to return to our churches and lives. He highlights the simple yet costly price of repentance, prayer, faith, and identification with Christ. The sermon recounts a powerful revival experience where a professor, after seeking academic knowledge, longed for spiritual encounter with God. This encounter led to a movement of revival in Ontario, Canada, with teams going out to share the message of revival in churches. The sermon also mentions the importance of seeking God's guidance and not relying on human methods in doing God's work.

Welcome to from the pulpit and classic sermons each week We bring you a different message from some of history's greatest speakers in the Christian faith and powerful sermons from modern preachers, too This week we have bill mclaughlin with his message the return of God's glory Chapter 3 if you have a Bible with you, we're going to begin at verse 6 The last word of verse 5 and then reading on from there God who also has made us able ministers of the New Testament not of the letter, but of the spirit For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life But if the ministration of death written and engraven in stones was glorious So that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance Which was to be done away? How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glory? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory much more does the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excels For if that which is done away was glorious much more that which remains is glorious Seeing them that we have such hope we use great plainness of speech And not as Moses who put a veil over his face that the children of Israel could not steadfastly Look to the end of that which is abolished But their minds were blinded For until this day the same veil remains untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament Which veil is done away in Christ? But even unto this day when Moses is read the veil is upon their heart nevertheless When it shall turn to the Lord the veil shall be taken away Now the Lord is that spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is Liberty But we all with open face Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the spirit of the Lord 13 times glory or glorious verse 8 How shall not the ministration of the Spirit? be rather glorious And I don't know if you've ever considered this portion of the Word of God or not But what Paul is saying to put it simply is this that the Old Testament system There was glory there the Bible talks about the sight of the glory of God On the top of Mount Sinai being like devouring fire But the Old Testament system has been done away and Paul's argument is that the ministration of the Spirit the New Testament Will be much more glorious Than anything the Old Testament you Boxing well known in India a Great man of God wrote a book Called the return of God's glory. I don't think you can get it in North America He's not a great writer. That's not his gift but I read the book some years ago and was greatly challenged and helped by it as he discussed the problem of the losing of the glory of God in the work of God and Then how we may see The glory of God Returned and that's what I want to talk about this morning I'm borrowing his title Not his book One of the great problems of course here is that we may not even be conscious of the fact that the glory is gone Indeed we may never have known it But perhaps there was a time When God was working powerfully in my life in my church and He is not now, but it happened. So gradually the erosion was so gentle and took so long That I'm not even aware of it Phinehas wife she died in childbirth She had just gotten the news Her husband was killed Her father-in-law had fallen off a seat and his neck broke, and he was dead and her pains came on her and A baby boy was born and she named him Ichabod Saying the glory is departed from Israel because the ark of God Had been captured and taken by the Philistines and the ark of God contained The testimony was called the ark of the testimony it contained the Word of God and the Word of God was gone And she died the glory is Departed she knew that others maybe did not know that And here we might think of King Saul The glory of God left him Sometimes people think well, he never really Got a good start and somehow perhaps God shortchanged him. No God did not Get a glorious start He was filled with the Holy Spirit Samuel told him the Spirit will come on you and you will be changed into another man and it happened and he saw the glory of God and At the beginning it says everywhere he turned himself he vexed and troubled the enemies of God But it didn't stay that way And the glory of God left him and he knew it But he would not repent and he never did and he struggled for years with the problems the problems consequent upon a failure to repent He prayed He sought the Lord He inquired of God But the Bible says he did not inquire of the Lord And the Bible is not contradicting itself. It's just telling us this If we saw him we would say Saul is praying earnestly seeking the Lord but God saw his heart and God said he was not praying at all. The Lord did not answer him in any way. It says And later on it says God flew him Because he did not inquire of the Lord, but he had But the problem is this He that turns away his ear from hearing the law that is the Word of God even his prayer shall be abomination So I may be praying But at the same time I may have turned my heart my ears away from the Word and will of God So my prayer becomes to God an abomination So as far as God is concerned, I am not praying at all They that forsake the law Praise the wicked They that keep the law contend with the wicked He that turns away his ear from hearing the law even his prayer Shall be abomination and Saul is one of the most tragic figures in the whole Bible as God left him God's Spirit left him And an evil spirit Terrified him the Hebrew language says and he died a poor suicide He started it an Amalekite had to finish it That it in itself was probably a judgment of God because he had failed to destroy the Amalekites as God had asked him to do much earlier Then think of Samson He spent this night with his head on the knees of an unconverted evil woman and God only knows what went on in that chamber And when he when she cried and said the Philistines are on you She done this many times before he said well I'll go and shake myself as I've done many times before and it says he never knew that the Lord had left him He didn't know the glory was gone. Oh People the glory had been there He once carried a gate which archaeologists say probably weighed a couple of tons He carried it on his shoulders a distance of 11 miles uphill all the way 3,000 soldiers of Judah had to ask his permission Before he would allow them to bind him with ropes. They knew what would happen when the Spirit of God came on him The glory of God he was probably for 20 years the most talked-about person in the whole country For the job one of an ass he flew a thousand men but then he sinned and The glory left him and he never even knew it Somebody told me not long ago The Spirit of God has left me. I said, how do you know? Oh, she said I could just feel him going I don't really think that's how it is. And I said so to her The spirit may leave you may feel exactly the same as you felt before The glory may depart You may not even know it. Thank God in Samson's case. It was sort of deathbed repentance I suppose you might call it He was blinded Grinding in the prison house Fetters of brass brass is often in Scripture a picture of the judgment of God The Philistines were having a great day a victory celebration because their enemy Samson Had been defeated and was in jail Everybody was there 3,000 people on the roof of this big open temple and probably many thousands more down below And they were worshiping their God and praising their God Dagan the fish God and Somebody had the happy idea. Let's bring Samson up and let him make sport for us and to humiliate him They had a boy Lead him by the hand And he asked the boy where the pillars were. He knew the temple. He'd seen it before He knew its structure. He asked the boy where the pillars were and the boy told him And he laid hold of the pillars and called on God With all his soul and the glory came back and He slew more by dying that he did by living Which is the Old Testament way of saying Galatians 2 20? Delilah died too She was there the Lord got them all The man of God perished the man of God perished in the doing But he was restored and God's glory returned The glory left King David And for perhaps a year we don't know the exact time we know the child was born the exact time after his sin with Bathsheba But the glory left him Day and night God's hand was heavy upon him. His moisture was turned into the drought of summer And somehow he didn't seem to connect This awful spiritual experience he was having with his sin So God sent Nathan the prophet and you remember that dramatic story in the Bible Thou art the man and Then thank God his instant repentance. I Have sinned It was very costly the whole thing Which store unto me he cried the joy of My salvation it was gone No fellowship with God nothing, but the frown of God And he'd known such sweetness before And no doubt he tried many times to get back to that again and he couldn't somehow Not until he repented Not until he saw his sin Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation Then will I teach Transgressors thy ways and sinners Sinners shall be converted unto me. Oh God deliver me. He said from blood guilt in us Many of us need to pray that too because we're not witnessing Christians And the blood of the lost is on our hands We're praying for the power of the Holy Spirit and it does not and cannot come Because we want the power of the Spirit for wrong reasons Not in order to share Christ with others Not in order to live a godly Self-sacrificing life But in order to be looked at and admired And maybe to get out of my present bad feelings and so my motives are wrong Has the glory departed from your heart? from your church Are you aware of it or has the erosion as I said before being so gentle Over such a long period of time that you don't even know it. What is the glory of God To put it as simply as I can the glory of God is Jesus and His work in the Old Testament. God said I will set glory In the land of the living it was a prophecy. I am sure of the Lord Jesus Christ Isaiah Look upon Zion And we need to remember that in Hebrews chapter 12. It is a spiritual sign You are come the writer says to Christians to Mount Zion To the city of the Living God the heavenly Jerusalem Look upon Zion the city of our solemnities Thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation Not one of the stakes are off shall ever be removed Neither shall any of the cords are off be broken, but there the glorious Lord Shall be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams Wherein shall go no galley with oars neither shall gallant ship pass thereby our glorious Lord Jesus Christ listen to sinning on Lord now let your servant depart in peace for my eyes have seen your salvation Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel he said all of that about the Lord Jesus Christ It is written of Jesus That he manifested forth his glory We beheld his glory John said the glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth and Of John 17 Jesus Christ said something and we need to lay hold of this He said to his heavenly Father and the glory that you gave me I have given them We too should have the glory Greater works and they shall he do because I go on to my father The glory of God It's the person of Jesus remember Moses prayer in Exodus 33 Show me thy glory. I Think what he expected to see was thunder and lightning Some great fantastic glorious majestic display of the power of God that would shake the universe That's not what he saw it says the Lord passed by and declared the name of the Lord Which speaks for the faithfulness of God and the entire person of God? It's goodness. It says his mercy his forgiveness the glory of God Passed by and that's what it was So we have the Lord Jesus Christ saying the wicked sinners go in peace go and sin no more He manifested forth his glory Dear people he wants to do that again He's doing it in some places He wants to do it in your life and in mine and in our churches, too. How do we get the glory back? We get it back by asking for it we've indicated already Repentance is absolutely essential. I must repent remember therefore from whence you are fallen and repent and Do the first works? That's what God says the way back ask God restore unto me the joy Of my salvation And uphold me with thy free spirit That's where it all begins When I get to the place where I can't live without the glory of God Without seeing something of the manifesting of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ It's a glorious gospel Paul said because it speaks of a glorious person The people rejoiced because of all the glorious things that were done by him Some of us saw some of those things back in 71 72 and to some extent even after those days And to some of you some of these things will not be new to others perhaps They will We were asked to go to Toronto and seven of us went Toronto Baptist Seminary wanted a team to come Because the chaplain of the seminar had come to Saskatoon I well remember him sitting in my office and saying don't expect me to get involved. I've come here to pick up some information I've been asked to write some articles in the Canadian Revival. I just smiled because I knew it would happen. It was happening to everybody and And one night he and I were standing against the wall of the Third Avenue United Church where the meetings were being held 1,400 people probably there that night at the invitation the whole front of the church was crowded with people kneeling Crying to God and he and I were standing against the wall and he said Don't ask me to go down there and counsel I wouldn't have any idea what to say to those people, but I know how to lead a sinner to Christ He no sooner said that than out of nowhere a man came laid hold of his arm and said sir Could you play it pray with me, please? And I just walked away and left him. I thought he might as well learn Well, he went back to the seminary and the next morning He was walking across the campus and a student told us later on what happened They passed on the campus and they said good morning and the student said I saw Jesus in a chaplains face and he turned and ran back into his room and fell on his knees and prayed for two hours and met God and The glory of God returned to his life. So they asked us to come with a team and there was Art Birch another Baptist preacher myself and five Alliance people including Walter Bolt's son Wayne was now pastoring Successfully in Meadowlake Saskatchewan. He was then about 18 or so cowboy cowboy boots and all we flew to Toronto As long as I live I can't forget the glory of God in that meeting in the seminary It went on for 14 hours. It was the longest meeting I was ever in The team all shared they asked one of the ladies to share her Testimony the second time and she did the same testimony the second time. I spoke about 10 minutes And then sat down no invitation was given and You know if God isn't in town, it's quite embarrassing a student jumped to his feet and said what's going on here Is this of God? If it is I want it Can somebody tell me? What is this? And he came forward and we had a chair here and our team came and knelt and prayed with him and the rest were all listening And he got to his feet. His face was shining like a June morning He went back to his seat and then it started and they started coming one after the other And people left the meeting get on the telephone and phone friends and crowd began to grow and grow and it went on and on The professor after some hours got to sleep with a loud cry like Esau And he started down the aisle. He was tripping over his feet. The tears were spreading out of his eyes He fell over the chair and he said oh my god all these years I've sought and taught the academic and today. I want the spiritual my god has mercy on me Though he met God And then from that school Teams went all over Ontario into churches sharing the message of revival and I was preaching himself in here to a gathering of the Mark Plummer Church Which has a tradition that Thomas the Apostle started them and I think the tradition is well supported by the facts It was their annual conference with several thousand people there and I spoke and I mentioned this happening in the Toronto Seminary It just flashed into my mind. So I shared it and the next speaker when he got up He was from Canada a team missionary And he said I want to say something about the Toronto Baptist Seminary because he said I was a backslidden missionary I've made up my mind. I was not going back to India again And a team came from the Toronto Seminary to our church and they shared in the glory of God returned to my soul And I'm back here now because of that I Prayed with a pastor one time. He'd been guilty of Doing things for the funds in the church. He should not have and he'd been indiscreet with some women in the church I don't think it had gone to him to adultery But he but he was in trouble and he wouldn't admit anything and he and I were kneeling praying and was a big pillar Right beside his chair and we were praying and he was hard and cold and suddenly he gave a shout And he threw his arms around the pillar And he began to cry at the top of his lungs to God not to kill him. Oh God He said don't kill me. Don't kill me. Please don't kill me He told me after as the hand of God came around his body and squeezed him. He thought he was dying in the spot The glory of God touched his life. I Was in another meeting before the meeting began in the Maritimes There were only about 25 or so at the most Christian workers there before the meeting. I was introduced to a pastor I found out he was the most successful pastor in the whole area in terms of evangelism and missions He was talking and telling me all about all that God was doing and in my heart I had a dead feeling as if there was something wrong with this dear brother. So I was praying for him He was sitting in the meeting And Howard Gardner my song leader he didn't share it and let in a song or two and I was talking very low-key For five minutes when some of this man began to weep. He put his head between his knees He began to weep and he wept so loud finally We just we couldn't we couldn't preach anymore and Howard went over and took him off into another room in the church and to all these Walls where you'd hear him crying at the top of his lungs to God to have mercy on his soul The glory of God had touched his life He came back in and a half an hour or 40 minutes and we asked him to give his testimony And he wept he said brethren. It's never happened to me before in my life When I was sitting there he said Jesus came and He demanded That I give him my all Oh Brethren, I've never been confronted this way before The glory of God used to steal God do it a thousand times Accelerate this whole thing the people may know your power and who you are the glory of God Howard and I once spoke to a gathering of 40 pastors Was the strangest thing? every now and then it was just as if the hand of God touched the crowd from this side and moved to that side and Then went back and the heads would all go down like this and come back up again and go down like this Just in a row across like that and back again and back again and back again And Howard said after did you ever see anything like that? I said no God was there It was different than anything we'd ever seen before We're not just thinking in terms of the spectacular But more in terms of the dynamic of what the spirit was doing in the hearts of people a pastor came we were holding meetings in Winnipeg and Brother Ralph here could tell hundreds of stories like this. I'm sure to In this pastor. I was glad to see him because we had things between us that needed to be straightened out I hadn't seen it for many years. He was pastoring in the States then And he come all the way to Winnipeg because he said I heard about the revival. I need it now and I want it We never even chaplain Winnipeg and we prayed we got to see that I never felt a thing I never felt a thing But when I knelt at that chair, I know what I did. I gave God everything. I'm not going to take it back Then he went back to his church Began preaching this message and a revival came They had to continue with special meetings every night for 11 weeks He did all the preaching they prayed with about 3,000 people they have to establish a revival center They sent teams to the whole state of Oregon The glory of God just touched the life The glory of God can so easily depart. How do we get it back by praying? by repenting of our sins God said how weak is your heart seeing you do these things? the work of an imperious whorish woman He was talking about Israel married to God but committing adultery With those that were no gods committing adultery. It says with stocks and stones with their idols And with other nations and we sometimes understand because the new idolatry remember is covetousness Covetousness is idolatry. The covetous man is an idolater a Man's life does not consist in the abundance of the things which he possesses Contrary to what most New Testament Christians in North America seem to believe How can my beloved brethren has not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom Which is promised to them that love him, but you have despised the poor it says Yes, and in many cases we have We wouldn't give them the time of day because they might make some financial or other demands on us We just don't have the time to do that. The glory is departed, but thank God it can return It returns to faith. I had fainted Unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living Psalm 27 What did Christ say in John 11 to Martha and Mary he said Didn't I say unto you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God? Did you ever stop to think of this that the raising of Lazarus from the dead had something to do with the faith of Martha and Mary He said if you believe you'll see the glory of God, which means that they didn't believe they would not see the glory of God It was not just the power of Christ It was only the power of Christ in one sense, but in another sense it had to do with the faith of the people Back in the early 1800s. There were many revivals in the United States of America And a man called Reverend Calvin Colton wrote a wrote a book which was republished a year or two ago I discovered in the eastern states, but the price is a little too high for such a small book. I think $17 anyway It's a very interesting book. I have an old copy printed in 1832 in my library and There's one element or teaching in the book. That was a great interest to me. It was this He talked about the glory of those movements of God He said we were never satisfied with what they call insulated conversions We would use the phrase isolated conversions one here one there a family and so on He said we were never satisfied with that that was not revival We kept praying and fasting and believing God until the Holy Spirit came He said and took the work out of our hands and made whole communities aware of the glory and power of God And thousands would be converted And he said this This kind of revival never came to a church that did not believe it would come This kind of revival never failed to come to a church that believed it would come Do you suppose God works in different ways today That God doesn't honor faith today or that God doesn't turn away from unbelief today. No, I don't think things are any different today There has to be faith repentance prayer say Identification with Christ Peter said if you be reproached for the name of Christ Happy are you for the spirit of glory and of God is resting on you You want the spirit of glory to rest on you We have to be willing to be reproached for the name of Christ The doctrine of identification with Christ is a sweet doctrine to those that understand it But it's not sweet perhaps to be reproached for the name of Christ, but that's the outworking of complete identification with the Savior Think of Hebrews chapter 13 where the Word of God puts it this way It says wherefore Jesus also that he might sanctify the people of his own blood suffered without the camp outside the gate and Then comes the appeal let us go forth therefore unto him outside the camp bearing his reproach For here we have no continuing city. We seek one to come bearing his reproach Outside the camp Why that's where they took the blasphemers and killed them. That's where they took the murderers and killed them That's where they took all the refuse and buried it. That's where the human dung was buried outside the camp That's where the rebels were taken and stoned to death outside the camp and Christ died for the ungodly so he was identified with the ungodly outside the camp There was one clean place outside the camp and that's where the cross stood But it was surrounded with a stench of burning garbage the sins of the world Jesus died there if you be reproached for the name of Christ Happy are you for the spirit of glory and of God is resting on? You what a boxing say He tells how you know in the early days he worked with American missionaries for years They call him the Billy Graham of India, and he was greatly used many people found the Lord over the years But after a while he became disillusioned with a kind of work. They were doing Because it was not really meeting the need as he saw it in India So he broke with the missionaries amicably some of them haven't forgiven him yet And it began working in what he thought was a more biblical way Today I think he has about 600 assemblies that have been started through their work. They have annual conferences with 20,000 people Some of their assemblies have a thousand or two thousand people in fellowship. The center is Hyderabad in India George Verwer who spoke at this conference several years ago as a personal friend of boxing's they often get together They pray together. They're concerned about the lost in India They have about 400 workers or operation mobilization have in India trying to meet the enormous need of that great country 700 million people or more Jammed into an area the size of Western, Canada but he said We lost the glory of God When we started doing God's work in human ways He said we used to send teams out to the marketplace and they would give out a hundred thousand tracks in a day And nothing happened almost nothing seemed to happen So we send them to another marketplace to another village and nothing seemed to happen so then They began to pray for answers from God Lord. What's wrong? What are we doing wrong? No answer so they fasted and prayed they were getting a little more biblical now and then God showed them You never asked me what marketplace or what village to go to? All So then they began praying and they would not go out anywhere until God indicated where they should go And when that was clear, it was also usually made clear how large the team should be and how many who should be on the team And they started doing it this way and still there was no real blessing So they fast and prayed some more and God said when you got to the marketplaces, you didn't wait for my guidance You just rushed ahead and did your thing And so he said through fasting and prayer the early apostles it says in Acts They said we will give ourselves continually to prayer And to the ministry of the word the ministry of the word rises out of the prayer you see God indicates what where and when? when we fast and pray and wait on his name and They made this discovery and he said when we started doing God's work in God's way the glory of God returned And he described some of those meetings Where people couldn't even walk to the front there under such tremendous conviction of sin They sometimes just lay on the floor prostrate where they've been sitting they couldn't walk We saw that happen to I remember a preacher He signaled us and preachers in the Winnipeg meetings. He wanted to get the altar. He couldn't walk There was no strength left in him because he'd seen the holiness of God Preachers came and carried him to the altar put him on his knees And he met God the glory of God touched his life Was a thrilling little story the return of God's glory Supposing Peter on the day of Pentecost had gotten up in front of that great crowd in Jerusalem and simply Exuded a quiet confidence in God and said nothing What would have happened? Well, supposing he got up and invited those people in the crowds To come down to this certain camp where they were having a conference where the meals would all be free Well, supposing he did something else such as we do today Didn't preach the gospel All people say you have to build a bridge before you can preach the gospel to a person You must build a bridge to them. I'm not saying that that's always wrong, but it certainly isn't always right Peter didn't build a bridge to those people. He didn't know most of them. They did not know him They did not know whether he was genuine or hypocritical. They knew nothing at all about him But that day 3,000 people were converted just the same Supposing the Apostles had said well now this fasting business You know, it's pretty demanding and spending hours a day in prayer that takes up a lot of time that we could use in better ways What would have happened? To the work of God The glory would slowly be withdrawn and then We'd be like a windmill beating the air Getting nothing done Seeing very few converted seeing little very little of the power of God Because God has withdrawn because his spirit has been green So We're told Ephesians 430 do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God Whereby you was sealed unto the day of redemption don't grieve God's Spirit he's the source of the power and glory the dynamic of Christianity is the spirit of the Lord and when he's gone and There's nothing can happen. We heard something about Korea Brazil 25% in the nation of Brazil I read or was it 20% are probably born again now fantastic some of the things happening there Chile Tomoko and southern Chile a city about the size of Saskatoon. They told me that 40% were evangelical 40% I've seen churches in Chile seating 3,000 5,000 15,000 The glory of God Is it work? Wherever he can find people whose heart is right who do things in God's way biblical ways And not turn their ear away from the law of God How is it in your heart? Have you ever known anything of the glory of God? the working of the Spirit Through you a pastor in one of our Crusades was making the announcements And a man sitting down in a congregation Saw the glory of God in the face of that pastor and went to the prayer room and met God. I don't know what he saw He said he saw the glory of God in the face of the pastor Gordon Bailey, and I were in a meeting in Clarny Manitoba one time Not many years ago a woman sang and the glory of God Came over the place while she sang the ministry of the Spirit, which is now It's supposed to be much more glorious than anything. They knew in Old Testament days And I'm not really arguing for a lot of you know outstanding miracles per se You know that's not what I'm thinking. Oh, I'm really thinking of the Spirit of God working in the hearts of men and women and young people Christians first of all And then the unconverted Just a couple of weeks ago Gordon Bailey saw the power of God in some meetings in Calgary and a few months ago he and I were down Mount Vernon, Washington an afterglow meeting and God came and The meeting went for over four hours 80 people there right at the start a man got up and Confessed his sin to the whole crowd And said please pray for me So he knelt at the chair and some of us prayed to them ten men in a row all of them leaders in the church a good-sized church Came and knelt at the chair, and then it went on for four hours Petra and I saw this just a few weeks ago in British Columbia an Afterglow meeting maybe 70 80 people there it went on for four and a half hours As people were meeting God Dear people are you concerned that the glory of God should return to our churches? Return to our lives our hearts personally. I wonder are we willing to pay the simple price? costly but simple Repentance prayer faith Identification with Christ Willing to suffer for his sake Hereby we perceive the love of God because he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives For the brethren We are called to that To lay our lives down for the people of God Therefore my beloved brethren be you steadfast unmovable Always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord a man singing in one of our meetings one time do the Alliance in Edmonton a Pastor not the pastor of the church, but a visiting pastor He'd met God the night before Now he was singing. Oh Happy day that fixed my choice on thee my Savior and my God it was another one of those times When the glory of God returned God said I will set glory in the land He said I will be the glory And people it's just Christ In hearts that are surrendered and open to him It's Jesus manifesting his presence and his power Coming to people's hearts and speaking directly to us and then through us to other people Restore unto me Habakkuk chapter 3 Oh Lord. I've heard your speech, and I was afraid Oh Lord Revive thy work in the midst of the years In the midst of the years make known in wrath remember mercy and what's the next statement God came And his glory covered the heavens and the earth was filled with his praise God came Revival is God coming and his glory is seen Psalm 85 will thou not revive us again that thy people may rejoice in thee I Will hear what God the Lord will speak for he will speak peace to his people and to his saints But let them not turn again to folly and then a verse or two further he talks about glory dwelling in our land Glory in our churches in our homes in our hearts Would you deal with sin? What's holding it back? What are we doing a screaming God? Fleshly methods of doing God's work every kind of a program and plan you can think of and I know we have to plan But when our dependence is on our plans and not on God Sometimes we do like God said about Israel. She was like a silly dove without heart Looking to Egypt looking to Syria looking here looking there looking for another plan that'll work for a while But not looking for God Not looking for the glory of God In closing I would say and the words of Jesus said I not unto you that if you would believe You would see the glory of God My dear friend would you deal with sin? Would you get down before God and say Lord search my heart I Want the glory to return to me restore unto me the joy of my salvation I'm sure there are many here today who feel empty and cold and maybe somewhat critical Even what's being said right now? Your life is fruitless But you want to change you can God thank you for this time of blessing Thank you for the presence of your spirit father forgive us that sometimes You're gone, and we don't even know it the glory is not there so we We try to whip it up. We're trying to sail father with yesterday's wind and we can't We can't glorify you because of this Father even Jesus said glorify thou me that I may glorify you And how can we glorify you father? We're much less than Jesus Unless you glorify us and that glory father must return Will God give us repentance hearts? Broken hearts humble hearts that we might see your face Christ You've been listening to from the pulpit and classic sermon series this week You heard Bill McCloud with his message the return of God's glory Tune in next week to hear George Burwer talk about this one part one on from the pulpit and classic sermons