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Ex 34:29-30 Now it was so, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the Testimony were in Moses’ hand when he came down from the mountain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him. 30 So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. (NKJV)
Moses just spent days up on the mountain in God’s Presence, soaking in the Glory realms. But when he came down the mountain, the people were afraid because of the glory he manifested. So afraid that they didn’t want to come near him. If anybody has ever called you weird or crazy because of the unfading glory you manifest from spending time in the Presence of God, you’re not the first one. Also since the New Covenant Glory is ever-increasing, people will be ever-increasingly freaked out when it is manifested. Especially if the Glory is manifested WITHOUT the Gospel. The two were never meant to be presented separately. The Glory was also never intended to bring people into the Gospel. The Gospel was intended to bring people into the Glory. For all have sinned and fall short of the GLORY, meaning the Gospel is the doorway back into the Glory of God because it removes sin. But some groups out there get so focused on the Glory that they forget about the Gospel. These groups are the ones who scare people away, especially unbelievers. You cannot present a holy righteous God in all His Glory to people without showing them there is a way into this Glory. Their guilt and shame scares them away. That is why there is no condemnation in Christ, because then the Glory doesn’t scare you away, but draws you closer in.
How can you present the Glory apart from the Gospel? In my own humble opinion, it is when we try and use the physical manifestations we experience in the Glory to try and prove to people that God is real, and that is just not the Gospel. The goodness of God draws men unto repentance (Rom 2:4), not the shakings and fallings of gibberish speaking drunks. When the 120 disciples were accused of being crazy and drunk after the Holy Spirit was given in Acts 2, Peter got up, stopped being drunk and spoke to the unbelievers in their own language, presenting the Gospel as the doorway into the Glory. 3000 people took the step over that threshold that day. The same 3000 that were laughing at them 5 minutes earlier. You don’t see Peter saying: ‘Let them think what they want, we will press in and not be ashamed of the manifestations.’ No, he was Gospel-before-Glory minded, not Glory-before-Gospel minded. If he didn’t stop to preach the Gospel, those 3000 would not have entered into the same Glory. Likewise Paul also told the Corinthians that when unbelievers are in their meetings, they should not freak them out with speaking in tongues, or other such manifestation I would assume. (1 Cor 14:23-26) We need to be mindful of how and what we present to people around us. I am a shaking falling gibberish speaking drunk when I am in the Presence of Almighty God, but if I have to represent Him to somebody and I only show them the Glory, I would more than likely scare them off. That is why people run out of churches when believers start flopping over or speaking in tongues. Now I have nothing against any of those manifestations, but it breaks my heart to see people running away from God because we neglected to present the Gospel. If we would just show them Jesus, they would run into the Glory themselves.
2 Cor 5:13 For if we are beside ourselves [mad, as some say], it is for God and concerns Him; if we are in our right mind, it is for your benefit, (AMP)
You can shake rattle-‘n-roll until you fill pillows with feathers, but is it worth the cost? Is half an hour of shaking worth not seeing a few souls saved? If you take 10 minutes to actually share and demonstrate the Gospel first, you can shake and rattle with the joy that you just got another person saved, and they will rejoice with you, instead of running away from you. That is worth celebrating with New wine! Don’t wear the Glory as a badge that judges those who don’t also wear it. All of heaven rejoices when a soul is saved. If that makes heaven rejoice, why is it seemingly so low on our agendas?
Yours in Grace,
Cornel Marais
