Let this article by Brother Copeland stir you to pray for the outpouring of the Spirit: “Some years ago, the Lord showed me a vision of the glory that was destined to be released on the earth before Jesus’ return. It was vast and very heavy, and it was being held back by what looked like a thin elastic sheet of some kind.
As I looked at it, I was reminded of a balloon filled with water. Have you ever seen one? The water will put pressure against the balloon and stretch it so thin that you know by looking at it, it’s about to burst.
That’s what the coming glory looked like to me. It was hanging right over the earth and it had a big swag in it. When I saw it, I said, “What is that, Lord?”
That membrane is filled with My glory, He said. In it are more signs and wonders, an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit and more souls to be won than the human race has ever seen. All that will have to happen is for that membrane to get one little hole in it, and it won’t be able to hold back the glory anymore. So, continue to pray. Keep poking at that spiritual membrane with prayer and with faith until it breaks and spills the glory all over the earth.
In the year since, the “pray-ers” of Kenneth Copeland Ministries have prayed about that glory. Many others have too. In fact, most of the ministries I know that hear and obey God have prayed about it.
Then, a couple of years ago something happened. Carnal-minded people didn’t know it because there was no natural phenomenon that marked the event. But it happened nonetheless—that thing burst in the Spirit. Since it occurred, there have been spiritual breakthroughs on every hand. People who had preached on the streets for years suddenly saw more people saved than they’d ever seen in all their lives. Sinners whose hearts had been hardened toward God began to turn to Him in staggering numbers.
There was a surge in the response to our prison ministry here at Kenneth Copeland Ministries, for example, that, naturally-speaking, is almost unbelievable. In 1994, our office received approximately 3600 letters from prison inmates around the world. The number reflected the growth achieved over a period of 28 years of ministry. One year later, in 1995, we received 276,000 pieces of mail from prisons.
In light of the vision God gave me, I believe only one thing can account for such a supernatural increase. The membrane that held back the glory now has burst! A powerful change has taken place in the realm of the Spirit. The storm of God’s glory has been released in the earth. The earth is now filling up with that glory.
“Ask of the Lord rain in the time of the latter or spring rain. It is the Lord Who makes lightnings, which usher in the rain and give men showers of it, to every one in the field” (Zechariah 10:1, The Amplified Bible, Classic Edition).
We’re only on the edge of it right now. If you’re alert to spiritual things, I’m sure you’ve already spotted a few lightning bolts of God’s power dancing on the horizon. You’ve already felt the wind of the Holy Spirit picking up force.
I felt that wind myself several months ago during our Believers’ Convention in Great Britain. On one particular night, I stepped onto the platform, welcomed the people, prayed and opened the service as I normally do. Brother Jesse Duplantis was scheduled to speak, so I turned to invite him to join me on the platform. Suddenly, the wind of God hit me on my left side, blew through me and out the right side. I knew it was a spiritual wind, but I recognized it in my physical body. Oh my! It was so strong.
I had never experienced that particular manifestation before, but I knew what it was. So I said, “The glory is here.”
I’m telling you, the power of God hit the service that evening in a way I have never seen before. Jesse moved in the Holy Ghost in ways he never has moved before. We saw miracles like we’ve never seen before—and Gloria and I have been around awhile!
It was thrilling. It was wonderful. And it was just a small sample of the spiritual storm that is beginning to sweep this entire planet!
My friend, it is time for the glory. We’ve reached the last of the last days. We’ve come to the time the prophet Zechariah prophesied about when he wrote, “Ask of the Lord rain in the time of the latter or spring rain. It is the Lord Who makes lightnings, which usher in the rain and give men showers of it, to every one in the field” (Zechariah 10:1, The Amplified Bible, Classic Edition).
Zechariah wasn’t just referring to natural rain. He wasn’t just talking about natural lightnings. He was referring to that bright, shining cloud of God’s glory that would usher in the outpouring of the Spirit and open the way for the end-time harvest of souls. He was pointing to the same day James referred to in the New Testament when he wrote, “Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain” (James 5:7).
Both Zechariah and James were looking ahead to the time immediately preceding the return of Jesus. That’s our day! We’ve reached that time. The glory is beginning to flash around us and the rain has started to fall.
Tracking the Glory
It is awe-inspiring to think that God has chosen us—this generation of believers—to be alive at this moment. He has chosen us to help usher in the glory. What a great privilege!
But with great privilege comes great responsibility. Because of the time in which we live, we cannot afford to just sit around and play church. We cannot afford to wave our hands and flippantly say as some have done in years past, “Oh, glory!” without giving any thought to what the glory actually is.
No, it is our responsibility to follow the example of the Apostle Paul and make it our determined purpose to know Him, the Anointed One and His anointing, to know His burden-removing, yoke-destroying power, and to know the power of His resurrection, which, according to Romans 6:5 is the glory of God (Philippians 3:10). It’s our responsibility to press on into Jesus until we come to know and understand the glory! (2 Corinthians 4:6).
Some people shy away from that responsibility. They say, “Well, I’m not seeking the glory, I’m just content to seek the Lord.”
But you can’t separate the two. You can’t separate Jesus, the Anointed One and His anointing, from the glory. You can’t separate the Holy Spirit from the glory. You can’t separate the Father from the glory. They are all One, and They are all glorious! Seek the Lord and the knowledge of His glory.
The fact is, in the coming days, if we are to participate fully in God’s plan, we must come to know more about the glory. We must realize it is not just a little wave of spiritual emotion. It’s something very real and very powerful.
As real as it is, however, the glory is so great and vast that it is practically impossible to give a simple definition of it in the English language. I believe the best way we even begin to comprehend it is by tracking the glory through the Bible and studying the images the Word of God provides us. By meditating on those images, we can grasp what the glory truly is.
So that’s what I want to do. I want to take a look at the glory.
Of course, I can only include a fraction of the scriptures about the glory in this article (I urge you to use a concordance and do a full study on your own) so before I begin, let me tell you this. As I’ve researched the glory, I’ve found that it is manifested in various ways throughout the Bible. It is manifested as fire. It is manifested as wind, rain and lightning. It is manifested as a bright, glowing cloud, brighter than the noonday sun, and it is manifested as light.
So as we hunt for the glory of God through the following scriptures watch for references to fire and light. They’ll serve as signs to let us know we’re on the right track.
With that in mind, we’ll start tracking in the book of Habakkuk:
God came from Teman, and the Holy One from mount Paran. Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise (Habakkuk 3:3, King James Version).
And His brightness was like the sunlight; rays streamed from, His hand, and there [in the sun-like splendor] was the hiding place of His power (Habakkuk 3:4, The Amplified Bible, Classic Edition).
Consider for a moment those bright, sun-like rays streaming from God’s hands. Let that image of the glory sink into your heart. Then add to it what the prophet Ezekiel wrote:
…I Ezekiel] was in the midst of captivity beside the river Chebar [in Babylonia], the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God…As I looked, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, and a great cloud with a fire enveloping it and flashing continually, a brightness was about it and out of the midst of it as it seemed glowed amber metal, out of the midst of the fire. And out of the midst of it came the likeness of four living creatures…And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like a sapphire stone; and seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness with the appearance of a Man. From what had the appearance of His waist upward, I saw a lustre as it were glowing metal, with the appearance of fire enclosed round about within it, and from the appearance of His waist downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness [of a halo] round about Him. Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord… (Ezekiel 1:1, 4-5, 26-28, The Amplified Bible, Classic Edition).
Now we’re beginning to build a description here. The Word of God is helping us to form a picture of the glory that emanates from God. We’ve seen that it appears as bright rays of sun-like light. We’ve seen that it manifests like wind, and we’ve also seen that it appears like fire surrounded and flashing in magnificent colors of the rainbow.
Have you ever sat by a campfire and watched it burn? The flames have a kind of amber color to them, don’t they? And if you look down into that fire to the coals in the center, they’re a darker, burnt-amber color, because it’s hotter in the center where the flames are originating
That’s what Ezekiel was describing. That’s what he saw when he looked at the Lord in His glory.
It’s our time to walk in God’s glory. It’s our time to walk in that brighter-than-sunlight, radiating, fiery power that is so pure and full of the presence of God that the devil can’t withstand it.
Keeping that in mind, let’s follow this glory trail over into the book of Malachi. This was the last book written before the birth of Jesus and the prophet Malachi wrote it in preparation for that day. We know that’s true because he says, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord” (Malachi 4:5). Since Jesus said that John the Baptist was as Elijah, we can be certain the prophet Malachi was actually prophesying about New Testament days. So let’s look at what he wrote:
For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble, and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth and grow up as calves of the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts (Malachi 4:1-3)
Traditionally, we’ve read those verses just as a foretelling of the birth of Jesus. We’ve read it as though it said, “unto you…shall the Son of righteousness arise.” But look at that scripture again. It doesn’t say Son, S-O-N. It says Sun, S-U-N.
This verse is talking about the coming of a sun-like brightness, of a blazing power so great that it burns up wickedness on contact. And when it says healing is in His wings, it’s not talking about bird wings that go flap, flap, flap.
Forget about flap, flap, flap! This verse is talking about wings (or we would call them tongues) of fire. It’s talking about those wing-like flames that radiate out from the blazing presence of God. It’s talking about the glory.
Malachi is telling us that the glory is coming!
He’s letting us know that a time is coming when that glory won’t just radiate out from God, it will radiate from us. It will burn within us and upon us with such power that the devil and all his hordes will be like ashes under the soles of our feet!
Glory in the Upper Room
The minds of most Christians stagger at such a thought. It’s almost unthinkable to them that such glory and power could reside in and flow through the flesh-and-blood bodies of men and women. Yet, the Bible tells us that’s what’s going to happen.
What’s more, we’ve already seen the beginning of that day. Acts 2 tells us about it:
And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them (verses 1-3).
To get the impact of what happened on the Day of Pentecost, you have to forget the Sunday school pictures you’ve seen depicting tiny flames hovering over the heads of the disciples. Get those images out of your mind, and start thinking Habakkuk, Ezekiel and Malachi!
Go back through the tracks we’ve discovered and think about that blazing fire of God’s glory. Think about what Ezekiel wrote about God being a fire from the loins up and a fire from the loins down, and you will realize what actually happened that day in the upper room.
God Himself came in!
The disciples were just sitting there praising God and worshiping when all of a sudden—voom!—everything was shaken with such a great sound of wind that it sounded like a freight train coming through a tunnel. It was the glory! It roared in and filled the whole room. Then a blazing fire appeared, and He sat on or enveloped each disciple one by one!
God Himself walked into that room in all His glory. For thousands of years, ever since the Fall of Man, it had been necessary for God to hide Himself from men because the undefeated sin nature made it impossible for them to withstand His glory. When Moses was in God’s presence, He had to be protected with a cloud. When the priests of Israel ministered to Him, again, He had to cover Himself with a cloud.
Jesus said at the tomb of Lazarus, “…if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God.” To see the fullness of glory, we must lift our faith to meet it.
But on the Day of Pentecost, God was able at last to embrace His people. There wasn’t any danger anymore. They’d been washed in the blood of Jesus. Sin had been defeated at Calvary. They’d been reborn and made righteous with God’s own righteousness. So He could come to them without any cloud, without any covering of any kind. He could come to them as His own glorious Self!
He came on them and into them with such glory that when Peter walked the streets, the people his shadow touched were healed. Religion has taught that Peter’s shadow actually did the healing because he was some kind of superapostle. But that’s not so!
It wasn’t Peter’s shadow that healed people. The shadow was just a point of reference for distance. Those who came within shadow’s distance of him were inside the force field of the glory of God that was coming out of him. And when they hit that glory, it wiped out the sickness and disease!
Our Day Now!
Someone might say, “Yes, amen. But that was in Peter’s day,” Well, it’s our day now! It’s our time to walk in God’s glory. It’s our time to walk in that brighter-than-sunlight, radiating, fiery power that is so pure and full of the presence of God that the devil can’t withstand it.
The Apostle John wrote about walking in that kind of glory in 1 John 1:5-7, but for years we’ve missed the impact of what he said because we haven’t understood the connection between the light and the glory. Read that passage with that connection in mind, and you’ll see it in a whole new way:
This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
It’s God’s plan for us to walk in the light as He is in the light, to walk in the glory as He is in the glory. It’s His plan for us to be “blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15).
The glory is here and it is time for us to shine! God doesn’t intend for us to wait until we get to heaven to shine. He’s equipped us to do it here and now in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation.
Skeptics might say, “Well, I’ll believe that when I see it.” But those folks are missing out. They’re not going to be a part of this amazing, glorious time—except maybe as bystanders and onlookers.
Jesus said at the tomb of Lazarus, “…if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God.” That means if you and I are going to see the fullness of glory, we must lift our faith to meet it. We must raise our expectations high—higher than our own thoughts and imaginations—and set them upon the glory that is promised in the Word of God.
So stretch your capacity to conceive and to believe. Study what the Word says about the glory. Be like the Apostle Paul and make it your determined purpose to know Jesus and to know the power of His resurrection. Make it your aim to walk in the light as God is in the light.
Believe…and you shall surely see the glory of God.
~ by Kenneth Copeland, Believers’ Voice of Victory January 1997 article
