Whether or not the glory was ever there or it was my own deceived sense of such a perception I am still unsure. In view of what we all now know, I am afraid I am shut up, no matter how reluctantly, to the latter conclusion. I would really appreciate hearing your thinking on this i.e. if the glory was ever truly present and why you think so...
Verne
I'd like to chime in here:
When you have sincere people, reading the Word with the sole intent to draw near to God, out of sincere faith and love for Him, God is going to visit such people. He visited Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego in a furnace, surely He can visit members of an Assembly.
Indeed this fact is clearly born out over the years as illustrated by the many "quality" people who left the ministry, in order to find freedom and rest in Christ. They heard The Good Shepherd's voice, and followed Him.
Only God knows for sure who are the sheep and the goats, but here is how I look at it presently:
George was rotten before he raised up his ministry.
All of the leader's started out sincere and at some point either left for conscience sake, or embraced corruption. Case in point, Mike Zach, Jim Hayman and at least one more were present when John Malone showed them Lang's book, made them listen to George's message in which he shamefully plagiarized straight from the book, and gave them other proof of further plagiarism. There is no refuting it, it was plain for all to see.
At that moment, these men, regardless of what they were up to that time, embraced a lie, compromised their testimony and put away, out of their midst a man who was telling the truth, and sounding the alarm. Regardless of whether John did it in a nice way, had his warning been heeded, the ministry would have been stopped and repentance would have taken place. Only God knows what would have happened after that. However, we know what did happen, and it ain't pretty.
Another case in point, all the people who knew about David and Judy, and called those who told the truth liars....serious problem here.
What about those who knew that the money was never accounted for?
The brothers who agreed to slander Steve Irons and his family, when they knew it was not true? Totally compromised. Woe to those who call good evil, and evil good!!
And on and on and on.
So, the Glory was there, at certain times and for certain people. However, the Spirit was also quenched and grieved, and the last visitation of that group by God's Spirit was in January of 2003.
That is my opinion, which is subject to change and probably does not fully reflect God's opinion. I promise to adopt His views as I become aware of them.
Brent
