The BBI Underbelly

We are being inundated with the BBI narrative to the point that we are being stopped from thinking about anything else.

I want to look at it negatively as a minister, expecting enough insults. And I will start with a verse all of us know.

For the transgression of a land many are the princes thereof: but by a man of understanding and knowledge the state thereof shall be prolonged. (Proverbs 28:2)

Let me use another translation

In rebellion, a land has many rulers, but order is maintained by a man of understanding and knowledge.

Why must we change the constitution to create more positions, increase representation and devolve more resources?

The basic reason is that our leaders do not trust themselves to do the right thing. They know they cannot be trusted with the money citizenry give as taxes because they will steal it all.

BBI is therefore a scream from their side that they are thieves and Kenyans must be protected from them at all cost.

In short we must protect ourselves from our thieving leaders by entrenching very simple basic rights in the constitution, things that would take a simple act of parliament to pass. In fact we may not even need the parliament but just a leader in tune with the needs of the citizenry who wants to better their lot.

We created devolution because the president is a thief who cannot be trusted to follow on his oath of office, especially concerning resources. We therefore made sure money is devolved to a few other leaders.

But we also do not trust them and therefore must create a fund for parliamentarians to also get in the name of CDF.

But they are also thieves so we must bring the money even closer to us by entrenching stealing to the ward in the name of Ward Development whatever.

Why use a referendum to create constituencies when we have a constitutional commission with officers earning very fat perks unless we know that they are like us leaders, plain thieves who will use their offices to create some for themselves and their cronies like the leaders do nominating their concubines and relatives to office.

This of course tells us something else.

These leaders are not creating BBI for us common Kenyans. It is a scam, a system that will create even more avenues for them to steal from us.

They are simply sugar coating the document to hoodwink us into believing that a thief can all of a sudden become anyone’s guardian angel.

What will stop a thieving governor, who could not keep his hands off 15% allocation from doing worse with 35%?

Why talk about empowering the youth when you are calling them thieves when questioned about employing ‘youth’ in their 90s? Will a constitutional change alter your mindset?

Yet the worst part of it is not about thieving leaders. It is the burden we will be paying for those changes.

We are already swimming in debt almost to the point of drowning.

What will expanding all those governments cost us?

We already have a shortfall of 20% due to the money that will go to the counties immediately the amendment passes.

But maybe the leaders want to buy us off this land we call ours since some of those loans we are taking end up in their pockets, at least indirectly. We therefore will be paying loans that they are already in possession of.

But let me remind them of this simple truth, they are not God.

Mobutu was probably richer than Zaire. But he died like a pauper and was buried like a tramp. Abacha was super rich but he died miserably. Amin was the emperor of the British Empire but he died in exile.

And it is not only those who were deposed.

Bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel. (Proverbs 20:17)

There is more to life than things. But things are so deceptive in that they convince us that they are the only reality, causing us to neglect things that are of immeasurable worth like family and health.

How much pain does a parent have over their wayward or drug addicted child? How much of that is caused by the busyness of looking for that extra coin or property that the child is overly left to themselves and the toys you have given them in exchange of your presence?

What about a body that is weighted with worry and exertion that it breaks down because you can’t take a break or your wealth will disappear?

Let me leave us with a verse as my final word.

For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up. (Hosea 8:7)

And it is the same whether we will pass or reject the BBI.

There will be a reckoning.

The Latent Power of Sin

Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. (Proverbs 9:17)

Sin gets its controlling power from its concealment. That is how the devil is able to run hordes of people who otherwise should be belonging to Christ.

Before I get to examples let us look at the life of David.

That he was anointed and sold out to God is not in question.

Like I always say, It is possible Bathsheba set him up for that fling.

That however does not mean I excuse or absolve him. Even God did not confront Bathsheba since David was the man in charge of the drama irrespective of the underlying circumstances.

Now suppose with me that he had immediately allowed remorse to lead him to repentance. What could have happened?

He could have called Uriah and confessed the sin. Or probably called a priest and confessed so that the priest could then wisely ‘handle’ Uriah. Then he would have compensated him for interfering with his marriage long before the pregnancy complicates things.

Uriah would then have two options. He could divorce his wife or forgive her.

But imagine how ‘shameful’ humbling himself before his junior soldier would appear! I believe that is what the devil suggested with glee to David.

That is why he tried a cover up. Uriah must be made to have sex with his wife to cover up for the fact that she became pregnant in his absence. Remember he even made him drunk when he became stubborn?

But God in His grace does not allow for that cover up. He still wants David to repent.

But repentance is shameful and the devil continues whispering since he was given an ear.

That is why the person who could feel guilty for cutting the edge of Saul’s cloak could plan the cold blooded murder of a loyal soldier to conceal his sin.

But that was not enough.

My observation over the years is that those random flings produce exact copies of the fathers.

That is why he decides that after murdering her husband he must then take her as his wife to cover up the initial sin. Then if the child resembles him few people would reason beyond the appearance.

But he ultimately has to face God. Like Adam before him he must face up to the fact that he had sinned against God.

But at what cost?

When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah. (Psalm 32: 3, 4)

Imagine the collateral damage on him and everybody else that was the product of concealing that single sin!

And David is not the only one.

Imagine what could have happened had Adam admitted to sinning instead of hiding and looking for excuses?

Again look at Achan in Joshua 7.

He took what was forbidden.

But he didn’t use it. In fact he hid it; actually buried it.

Of what use were those items in concealment?

Only to add power to the sin.

You see, it is in fearing the shame our sin releases that we empower it even more. We actually give it wings to soar to greater heights. Sadly it is to our detriment since sin has only one purpose; to destroy us.

Our fear of the shame that sinning threatens to bring opens us to an avalanche of concealment tactics that will continue increasing the power of the hold of sin in our lives.

Yet we will eventually have to face it. And we know that however hard we try to convince our self otherwise.

I am thinking of this recent case of a famed apologist whose sins ‘found him out’ after he died.

Apparently a couple had accused him when he was alive but everybody who knew him defended him so vehemently that the couple was completely demonized for attempting to defame the man of God’s name.

Now the board that had badly maligned a woman for claiming to have been sexually abused has to reach out in humility to her for forgiveness.

And I have been in such a situation when I trashed an accusation of a brother who later proved his accusers right, long after the damage had been done. I also remember being unable to see a full term pregnancy in a sister because my mind couldn’t wrap itself around the fact that she could become pregnant, especially because she ought to have at least told me since we were in fellowship. I do not know her circumstances since she died shortly after childbirth.

Secrecy is the power sin holds over us.

I suspect this sister died thinking that I dismissed her visible pregnancy when I didn’t see it. She probably died thinking that I dismissed her testimony when I had no idea she had had sex, whether she was raped or whatever. She may have expected an explosion of righteous indignation from me, her friend, and was broken when I didn’t confront her because I didn’t see.

Incidentally, the friend I had asked to accompany me to see her wondered whether I was blind not to have seen the pregnancy. It is thus possible that this girl thought things about me that were incorrect just because she assumed I saw her pregnancy.

I therefore understand those board members defending the apologist because I have been there more than once. I suppose I am now wiser from the instances I have burnt my fingers.

Incidentally that is where spiritual abuse operates.

I have written about it under ‘Hibernating Ministers’ where a ministry leader completely destroys a brother’s life or testimony and the whole congregation sees no need of verifying the facts because the leader is a god of sorts and so simply can’t falsely accuse anybody.

I was given some church board meeting minutes discussing me and some presenting completely false facts about me for no reason. And the same people are very respectable spiritual leaders.

No wonder God told me to let them be instead of challenging them since doing so would have accomplished nothing and going to court is scripturally wrong. In any case it was a clear case of someone choosing to openly lie and so was aware that he was sinning.

Again I have met people who have been destroyed by spiritual leaders so badly with no opening for seeking redress for the same reason.

Anyway, we were looking at sin and the concealment of the same. I have diverted to let us appreciate the fact that the board members are like us. They trusted that minister so much that they could not imagine him doing what he was being accused of. They could not imagine he could hide a sin so grievous from them. I believe it must have been the same with David. Chances are that even Nathan must have struggled handling that truth due to knowing the king for so long.

Such kind of trust is the reason spiritual abuse and exploitation is so rife. It is human to take advantage when people place unquestionable trust in your person whether it is in the ministry or the way we see with popular politicians.

But did sin disqualify David’s past dealings with God? Did the sin trash his former psalms?

That the sin was a blot on his testimony is not in doubt. In fact that is what makes his past more valid, only that it is in his repentance that it finds glory.

Sin does not make a minister a fraud. It just makes him human who has let go of God, the same God who had made him what he was and the same God with the capacity to restore him to what He had made him, and even better.

Too many words, it appears. But it is important to realize that sin does not nullify the work of God in a person who was at one time sold out to Him.

But sin weakens the delivery of a minister, something those in fellowship with him and God can ‘feel’.

I have read some believers say that they sensed something amiss in the delivery of the apologist though I do not know whether it can be related with his sin.

I also remember wondering why a very popular preacher (I won’t say who) would teach very solid stuff and why such stuff was ‘impotent’ to effect change. Until much later when I found out that he headed a pyramid scheme of sorts. Then I understood.

I also remember a friend whose sermons changed almost as if from the flip of a switch that I later came to know was caused by a gift.

Incidentally, even from a point of compromise or sin God is still able to use them to deliver His message.

Remember Balaam? His greed led him into going against God and His revelation to the point that he became lead counselor at bringing down Israel. Yet do you realize how accurate his prophecies were? And we know he was killed with God’s enemies in rebellion without repenting.

I have written about that in a post ‘Useful Rejects’ on the blog. But the truth of the fact is that God uses us because we are available. And that is why it is important to internalize Philippians 1: 15 – 18.

The apologist was serving God irrespective of his spiritual condition. His delivery was, and I believe, is as potent as it was before we knew of his sin.

Again suppose God lifts a veil over our thoughts and exposes them to others? I do not want to go into actions because God starts His judgment in the heart. Who would gladly allow us to be an example to them? Who would swear to the fact that we could never do something we are accused of?

Yet God does not disqualify us from ministering to Him.

Other ministries and partners have started to trash, disown and deregister him from their forums. And the guy is dead and so has no way of knowing or feeling the impact of your actions.

Why do we not use the standard we would love to be applied on us? And why throw kicks at a dead horse?

I am not excusing his sin. Those who know me know that I am unflinching when it comes to judging sin.

But sin does not negate grace. We should therefore be thinking restoration as we deal with sin in leadership; and everywhere else for that matter. We should be thinking healing.

He has left a family that is devastated by the revelation. How could the family know what the board never suspected? They therefore need our love and prayers and a lot of support.

But the thrust of this post is that concealing sin is the most dangerous thing a believer, and more so a leader can do because not only does it give the devil an upper hand in killing our spiritual lives, it gives him the time to build on a narrative as the accuser of the brethren to trash our confession and Christian life.

It therefore means that the earlier we confess our sins, the faster we can be forgiven and restored and of course receive back our testimony.

We would appear more wounded than those who conceal but we will be better because no contrary narrative exists against us. We also are not scared of the shame of discovery because we revealed our sin ourselves.

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. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1John 1: 7 – 10)

Let us allow God’s grace to override our search for self-esteem through wanting to appear as without sin. Sin will kill us in more ways than physical.

Jeroboam; Dynamic and Judgment

And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David: If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah. Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. (1Kings 12: 26 – 28)

God had promised Jeroboam the kingdom after Solomon ‘backslid’ through ‘loves’. And He kept His promise and made him the king of Israel.

But like most people, he became insecure. And why?

The God who promised did not see it fit to shift the centre of Israeli worship. It still remained in the territory of David’s seed.

He therefore sought an insurance policy by ensuring that he diverts that worship into his territory. His insecurity led him to doubt that the God who had promised him the kingdom while Solomon was reigning and gave him without his fighting for the same was able to keep that kingdom secure in his hands. Like Saul, he who had received the gift by grace sought to maintain it by works (his effort).

But his was even worse than Saul’s in that it went as far as shifting worship.

Yet you realize that his promise was even surer than Saul’s.

And it shall be, if thou wilt hearken unto all that I command thee, and wilt walk in my ways, and do that is right in my sight, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did; that I will be with thee, and build thee a sure house, as I built for David, and will give Israel unto thee. (1Kings 11:38)

How could he doubt that? Where did his insecurity stem from with such a promise?

Yet it visited Jeroboam.

Then what happens? God not only decides that the promise was annulled, but He went much farther.

He decided to do away with everything related with Jeroboam and his name. In short He declared that just as He did with Canaan and Amalek He will wipe out Jeroboam from the face of the earth.

Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone. (1Kings 14:10)

His search of security destroyed his posterity and obliterated his name.

Why was God that drastic?

His sin was foundational. He had introduced an irremovable virus to Israel. To the end of the kingdom no king was able to demolish the idolatry he had introduced or even acknowledge it as such. It is possible that they viewed it as proper worship.

The only one who did something was Josiah who was from David, the kingdom whose fear led Jeroboam to introduce it.

Is this post about history or current affairs?

I believe it is more current than historical. It is instructional and more current than tomorrow’s headline as any intake of the Bible is.

But it is his sentence that I want us to look at. Simply speaking God declared that the name Jeroboam will disappear. God promised to take it upon Himself to wipe out Jeroboam from existence.

Why was God that drastic? You may wonder.

Jeroboam introduced an error that became institutionalized into the life of Israel. The definition of Israel changed to idolatry because of that error. Its destiny was changed by that self-protecting move he introduced. God’s revelation was blocked by that move.

That is why God took Jeroboam’s case seriously and finished him drastically.

Give us a context, I know someone is screaming inside.

What happens when someone uses his position, power or influence to benefit?

Most times the vulnerable will get more disenfranchised as they have no way of fighting back against power.

Let me give examples.

A person in power sees a huge tract of land whose owners are not able to maximize on its usage. He sees how much better he can use that huge chunk of ‘idle’ land.

The owners are not as enlightened or moneyed as he is to maximize the usage of that land.

He therefore ‘wisely’ sends emissaries to convince the poor landowners that it is in their best interests to take a much smaller piece of ‘prime’ land in exchange with that ‘wasteland’, knowing very clearly that he is defrauding them. Others will simply use the system to take that land like that. And the owners will have no redress because the system will be weighted heavily against them.

Or something I have seen all too often.

Someone in the government knows that a huge government project is on the way. It may be a road, a factory or any other project that makes the prices of land to skyrocket.

He therefore calls on a few of his friends who go to the location in question looking for land to buy at throw away prices since nobody knows about the project. They therefore are able to buy huge chunks of land strategically located around the project.

A few months or years and the project begins and they have a gold mine in their hands, either from compensation or resale.

Let me not talk about this virus as it is simply annoying.

How many pastors realize that their wish is normally the congregation’s command?

Of course we know of procurement managers who arrange tenders in such a way that only companies associated with them can get any serious tender or contract and then amplifying the amounts being paid out even to a hundred times their market value. And of course in disposing of assets doing the same and then diminishing their values to less than 10% of their value.

That ring-fencing (which is what I hear it being called) blocks anybody else from accessing those contracts or assets. Of course they will then sell the same assets at their market value because like it is said they know where the kitchen is.

All these will block genuine needs from being met honestly, meaning that poverty is expanded needlessly.

How do you think God feels when He sees someone using their position or influence to block someone else from genuinely and honestly meeting their needs?

That is why I believe the Jeroboam dynamic is on its way. What this means is that a few years from today there are names that are so prominent that will become completely forgotten. Like Jeroboam was told God will wipe them as we do with faeces.

That God loves justice is the reason He will do it.

Do you occupy a position of influence?

Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? (Micah 6: 7, 8)

Otherwise

 

Of Gifts and Maturity

For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. (Romans 11:29)

I feel pressed to help us make a distinction between gifts/ talents and maturity.

This is because many believers are stricken by amazement and shock when a gifted minister falls into a foolish sin or series of sins.

Maturity is unrelated to gifts and talents. Each is in its realm/ domain.

The most immature believers I have encountered over my years in ministry are very gifted.

Look for patience in them and you will dig for miles in depth and never encounter it. Look for spiritual fruit and you will be disappointed, especially from close range.

And it becomes worse when the gift/ talent was exposed early because character (which is what maturity produces) had not gotten the space to grow.

Maturity is the product of a close walk with God. It is a growing sense of who we are in Christ and that only. It is what is developed by a constant intake and obedience to the word of God.

In short, maturity is what is produced in the secret place away from anybody and everybody.

Gifts, on the other side, are visible. They are given for the purposes of visibility.

A miracle worker can never be hidden the way someone praying in the closet is. A prophetic gift must be visible for the same reason.

And it is true with all the other gifts and talents.

The sad reality is that many believers equate gifts and talents with spirituality or even worse, maturity.

Discipleship is what connects them in a healthy way. In my experience I have seen discipleship as the best forum to expose spiritual gifts. And gifts thus exposed thrive without endangering the ones possessing them.

Just like Jesus did.

He spent three (and a half) years growing (discipling) the twelve before releasing them after Pentecost to make use of the gifts they had even as they were being discipled.

It is very sad to see pastors picking on a child (not only spiritual) and lifting them to prominence because they have a great voice or mastery of an instrument.

They do not have any spiritual muscle to handle that publicity and will die like many others from overexposure to the frost of that peak.

Let us please divorce gifts from maturity.

Our generation and especially the media has perfected the art of overlooking maturity for the gift, even in what is called Christian media.

Imagine a youngster entrusted with the responsibility of marital counseling on air just because she has a broadcast quality voice! Imagine a youth giving guidance to his grandparents’ age mates because he is media qualified!

A degree, even ten of them cannot make anyone mature. The first qualification of an elder is age just as a deacon is a man.

We overlook those clear definitions at our own risk.

Maturity is what the Bible asks us to look for in leaders and not gifts. And maturity does not gloat about it. Chances are that he is not satisfied with his level of maturity, meaning he is still growing.

But the gifted rarely realize that they need growth, except the growth in the excellence of their performance, whether it is on the pulpit or otherwise.

They will rarely immerse themselves in the scriptures that will enable them to grow. And they will run away from people who challenge their spiritual childishness.

They will then surround themselves with the enablers of their immaturity, people who do not even know what spiritual growth is and who are wowed by their gift.

Maturity produces and raises children whereas performance (gifts/ talents) yields a product or products.

The next generation is therefore dependent on maturity even as we are focusing all our efforts on maximizing on the products.

In effect we are building factories instead of raising parents since that is what maximizing on the gift above maturity means.

Will we revert to what Christ ordered us in the Great Commission?

New Birth Excitement

Let me repeat a story many of us have heard or read.

One day train passengers were astounded that a teenager was behaving like a toddler on its first day out and his father did not seem to mind.

The youth was pointing at things he saw, even exclaiming that trees far from the train were running with them and many other stupid observations.

They were finally unable to bottle the kind of revulsion they felt and rudely asked the father why he could not keep his grown boy quiet.

What he told them made them ashamed.

He said that his son had been blind all his life and that they were from the person who was able to make the boy see. It thus was the first day he could see.

I see many believers behaving like those passengers when a new child is born into the kingdom of God.

We forget the awe we felt when we understood forgiveness for the first time. We forget the excitement we felt when we understood basic Biblical truths the first time. We forget how excited we were when the Bible sprung alive in our spirits. We forget righteous anger and response to people who were not towing the Biblical line. We forget how narrow-minded we were to people with different views to ours. In short we forget that one time we were spiritual babes. We forget that someone who comes to Christ is translated from darkness to light, from death to life.

It is a new life whether they are in their childhood or old age.

Like that father on the train we should get excited because we know what has happened.

And we know that a child can also be messy since they must learn everything from sitting to feeding themselves. And they are also noisy as they must learn to communicate.

We are therefore in error if we do not give spiritual babes the space they need to grow.

But we are not only supposed to allow them to be childlike, we must also create the space for them to grow.

Many believers who appear to understand spiritual children do not place any expectation for them to grow, and grow up. They are content to have a whole congregation of toddlers so that they convert pastoring to running a breastfeeding centre.

Seeing a year old unable to talk or walk is not a major concern (though I have had to calm parents who panic at that). But having a five year old unable to do so is a clear indicator of a developmental problem needing specialized attention.

Spoon feeding a one year old child is okay. Doing it to a teenager is clear indication of a crisis.

Sadly, many spiritual leaders, especially those who love being called spiritual parents do not have a problem with a child who should be taking care of his own grandchildren asking for the milk bottle from papa or mum.

‘Do not judge’ is the maxim of believers who do not mind fifty year old toddlers. In fact that papa idiocy is an indicator that the papa himself is a toddler.

(Let me say that there are people who like calling me papa, but it is not a title I enjoy in the least). Christ Himself said we call nobody on earth father because we have a father in heaven.

As ministers, we do not feed the people God brings our way all their lives. We are supposed to feed them until they are able to feed themselves.

If a believer must sit under your teaching for years without asking you to send them out to minister, please know that you are not feeding Christ’s flock. Look at these verses we love quoting everywhere.

And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: (Ephesians 4: 11 – 15)

Our ministry as ministers is to raise believers to be ministers.

But we must start by first appreciating their birth and those toddler years with the mind of making them not only independent but also able to take care of their generation.

That is what discipleship is. Or have we forgotten Matthew 28: 18 – 20?

Glory is not Display

But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD. (Numbers 14:21)

What comes to your mind when you hear the words ‘the glory of God’?

Do you feel nice or get scared?

Well, I am here to tell you that there is more to be scared of than excited about.

And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake: (Hebrews 12:21)

If that glory scared Moses that he literally shook, what makes you think it is all fun and games when the same appears amongst us.

That is the reason I have chosen the verse above.

What was its context?

Spies have gone for a 40 day survey they had requested. Incidentally you realize they were leaders.

But they came with a rotten report saying that Egypt was a better destination despite the land being everything God had promised.

Caleb speaks God’s language and is almost stoned. In fact God had to intervene.

That is when God spoke those words.

His glory meant that close to a million people would die for spiting the promise. It meant that a simple crossing would take forty years and also meant that the ten spies that brought that report would die immediately.

God’s glory is not therefore something to gloat around. It is the visible presence of the consuming fire God, a holy God who is separate from sin. It is the presence of God who does not overlook sin.

That glory was the reason Aaron’s sons died. The reason Uzzah died. The reason Miriam became leprous. And the reason Moses could not cross over despite his forty year faithful service.

Before some accuse me of overly dwelling on the Old Testament, let me also give some New Testament examples.

That glory was the reason Ananias and his wife perished. The reason Elymas became blind. The reason Judas committed suicide.

Have you ever wondered at some verses in the Bible? Like this

When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken: (Luke 5: 8, 9)

Or this

And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid. And they that saw it told them how it befell to him that was possessed with the devil, and also concerning the swine. And they began to pray him to depart out of their coasts. (Mark 5: 15 – 17)

It is the same thing that happened to the prophet in Isaiah 6.

God’s glory is the closest we can get to Him. You can compare it with the glow that the sun gives behind clouds that gives us a glimpse of the kind of light the sun has.

That is the reason anyone who came close enough to that glory first saw how desperate his situation was, especially concerning his sin. And they knew it was impossible for them to stay with that glory in close proximity without getting burned.

Just as the sun exposes and disperses darkness, God’s glory exposes sin with great clarity. It also paints its condition most accurately.

God’s glory is also the clearest evidence of the presence of God’s power and judgment. That is why everybody who came across it fell prostrate.

It is therefore interesting that we talk about God’s glory when we have not cleaned our spiritual houses. This can only mean that it is a counterfeit glory, or the glory of a fake god.

Look anywhere in the Bible that God’s glory appears and you will notice the consumption of sin or sinners. That in fact is the reason Adam and Eve hid when God came around.

Is that your experience with God’s glory?