By Tom Shanklin

“Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.” Isaiah 60:1, 2, KJV.

We certainly are living in a time of great darkness in the earth. Men love the darkness more than the light because their deeds are evil. There seems to be little regard for life, either of the born or the unborn. And God’s standard of right and wrong have little importance in many people’s lives.

Violence predominates in our cities, and yet the entertainment industry continues to feed an insatiable appetite for more and more grotesque portrayals of hideous violent themes. Sexual immorality is not only accepted but promoted by the media and political leaders, and then they wonder why there is such a lack of respect for women and so many social problems in our nation. Not only that, but America seems bent on exporting this flood of filth to the four corners of the earth…all for the sake of the almighty dollar. As Isaiah said, “behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people…”

But behold! God does not leave us in a pit of despair in such a time as this. He gives us measures to find relief and an answer to the dark problems of this world. He says, “… the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.”

The glory of the Lord is His brightness, His abundance, His honor, His splendor, His magnificence, and His kingly majesty. The glory of God is the manifestation of His presence which was seen in the temple when the people united in praise. It is the flaming fire on the day of Pentecost and the substance of Peter’s shadow which healed the sick in the streets of Jerusalem. God’s glory brings illumination, healing, and change. God intends that the world would see these things upon the Church of Jesus Christ.

But all too often there is a lack of regard for His glory in the Church. There is a dishonoring of God in many houses of worship. Therefore the glory of the Lord has departed. In the days of Eli the priest, whose sons made themselves vile with immoral acts and disrespect in the tabernacle of the Lord, God judged Eli’s house for the sins of his sons because he failed to restrain them, but rather allowed them to continue to sin in the priest’s office. In one day, Eli’s sons died at the hands of the Philistines, the ark of God’s presence was taken, and Eli fell off his seat and broke his neck. When the wife of Phinehas, one of Eli’s sons, heard what had taken place, she began to travail in birth and brought forth a son, and called his name Ichabod, meaning “no glory” because “the glory of the Lord is departed from Israel.”

Likewise, the glory of the Lord is departed from many of our churches because of irreverence for God, gross immorality, and a false spirituality based on man’s ideas rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The only way to get the glory back into the Church is to repent and turn back to God with all our hearts and to exalt Jesus Christ and His shed blood as the solution for sin. It’s time to put Jesus back on the throne again, and to stop allowing the world to tell us how to think, speak, and operate our churches. We need (like Samuel of old) to call God’s people to return unto Him and repent.  Then God’s glory and presence can be restored to its rightful place in our lives and in our houses of worship.

As Susan and I intercede for our nation, we are praying for the politicians to repent, for the media to repent, for the entertainment industry to repent. But more than anything we are praying for the church to repent! Because once the church repents, the light will begin to shine once again in America and around the world. When the church starts reflecting Jesus, the world will see the light of the glorious Gospel in the face of Jesus Christ. Then the veil of darkness will come off of many eyes and we will begin to see the kind of miracles that will astound even the most hardened atheists.

We tend to think that there is no hope because the world is so dark. We have the idea that the devil is taking over and we just need to hide our heads. But I believe that the Church will once again arise, and take her place as the light of the Lord. As Paul says in the ending of his prayer for the church in Ephesus, “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.” Ephesians 3:20, 21, KJV.

Where will God’s glory be found? In the Church…both now and forevermore!