When Isaiah saw the Lord on the throne, high and lifted up, surrounded by the seraphim, he heard those beings crying one to another, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory." (Isaiah 6:3)
These words were spoken hundreds of years ago. Are they true now, and is the earth now full of the glory of the Lord? Most certainly; all the while the word has been, "Arise, shine; for your light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you." (Isaiah 60:1)
The whole earth is full of the glory of God. He has revealed it in every blade of grass, and every flower, and everything that He has made. "His glory covers the heavens, and the earth is full of His praise." (Habakkuk 3:3)
The plant springing up and yielding its fruit, is showing forth the glory of God; for when in Cana of Galilee Christ accelerated the process, and, instead of waiting six months for the rain to come down and be taken up into the vine and converted into the juice of the grape, changed the water into wine by the power of the same word which sends the rain and is the life of the plant, it was written that this beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, "and manifested forth His glory." (John 2:11)
Power and Glory
The power of God is the glory of God. He showed His mighty power in the resurrection of Christ from the dead; but: "Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father." (Romans 6:4)
The power of God is also shown in the things that He has made, and the Gospel, which is this power manifested unto salvation, is "the glorious Gospel of God." (1 Timothy 1:11)
The Gospel is glory; it is also power. And the whole earth is full of it. The earth preaches no set sermons. It does not begin with firstly, secondly, thirdly, and deliver an artistic address. What does the earth do? It receives the light from God, and manifests it forth. It simply receives the gifts that God sends upon it, and glorifies God in returning the fruits of the life. That is the Gospel. "The Gospel...is the power of God unto salvation, to everyone that believes, For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith." (Romans 1:16-17)
Why All Do Not Glorify God
Someone may ask, "Then why am I not as much to the praise of God as the heavens?"
Simply because you do not desire to be. We are all exactly what we wish to be. It is a fact that: "[God] satisfies the desire of every living thing." (Psalm 145:16)
The trouble with some is that they do not want to be satisfied. If you really want to know the Lord, nothing in the world can hinder; because the Lord wants you to know Him. There is no use in standing off, and saying, "We want to know the Lord, and want to serve Him," when for many years He has been seeking for us, and knocking for us to open the door and let Him in, and has been speaking to us in every way He could. He has spoken to eyes, and ears, into every sense we have; for there is not a thing in heaven or earth that does not proclaim the power and the glory of God.
Therefore as soon as we are willing to believe that the Lord is better than we are, that He is more at peace and rest than we are, we shall have Him; for we shall then be willing to give up our ways, and our poverty, and our unrest and disquietude, and have the peace and rest of God, and the riches and righteousness which He has given to us.
But this is a giving up of all there is of self. To give up our ways means to confess that we do not know as much as we thought we did, and that is hard. It is a difficult thing to say that we are mistaken, and that we have no wisdom, or might, or anything that is good and worth having. This hurts; but it is only saying that the Lord is greater than we are, and that we are willing that His life in us shall manifest forth His glory, that we also may be "To the praise of the glory of His grace." (Ephesians 1:6)--Present Truth, March 1, 1894--Isaiah 6:3
E.J. Waggoner