Bill Johnson - Hungry for the Glory
I’ll never forget the Sunday sitting right down there where Brian, my son, happened to be leading in worship. That Sunday, he may have played two chords; I’ve always said it was one. But something happened on that second chord where he filled the room, and we didn’t get to our first song for 40 minutes in the manifest presence of the King of Glory. Suddenly, there’s only one thing on your mind—it’s what I was born for. I was born for this seamless interaction between the King of Glory, who has made me qualified because I could never qualify myself. I have been strangely apprehended again for something that’s way bigger than us. I love us, but this one’s bigger than us. I remember that one Sunday morning when Brian hit—I think it was the second chord—and he just… I don’t know how to describe it. You know, afterwards in the moment, you don’t know what to do. You look back and think, «Man, he just walked into the room.» That was that kind of moment. I’ll never forget that. We’ve only had that happen on that level one time in 25 years.
But I remember a Sunday night when the worship team was playing, and there was another one of those moments when the glory just came in, and everybody up here just stopped, and everybody out here just stopped. It was almost like we were suspended in time. You know how people get nervous when nothing’s happening? Like, especially in Pentecostal circles, someone needs to pray in tongues or prophesy or laugh or get up and dance or do something. It’s like we get nervous with blank spaces. There was no nervousness with that blank space because He filled it. He just came into that blank space, and all of a sudden, you didn’t have to tell people to turn their affection to Him; there was just silence.
I don’t remember ever hearing silence for that long in a crowd that likes to make noise. It was like the ultimate offering was just to be quiet, but yet nobody said or suggested it. It’s just what you do when He enters the room. You find that everything you could think of to say is completely meaningless, and I’m hungry for that again. I’ve had tastes in the last 10 days or so at levels and measures that I’ve not had for a while, and it tells me that we’re being set up—and it’s going to be good. But it won’t be about you, and it won’t be about me. He has set something in motion, and He wants us to see that He was absolutely serious when He said the glory of the latter house would be greater than the former.
The context was that there were people who saw the temple before it was destroyed and then rebuilt, and they remembered both. The first one—Solomon’s—was just incredibly glorious, and the second one wasn’t nearly as beautiful. You had two groups of people there; some were laughing for joy because, look, the temple’s built, and others were weeping, «Man, it’s nothing like it used to be.» So that prophecy was very, very specific. In other words, this thing that you see over here—that’s not it; I’m going to do something in the earth that is going to be way more glorious than even Solomon’s temple, which silenced and stunned the leaders of nations. God will do it again in this house—that’s you and that’s me.
I feel like there’s an invitation. I wasn’t sure how to label this talk, this conversation with you today, but to me, I can’t talk about it without feeling invited, without feeling compelled. Dissatisfaction is a holy gift. See, sometimes our satisfaction in the absence of revival is what prohibits revival; I’m actually okay without it. Sometimes the absence of the manifest presence of the King of Glory, sometimes my satisfaction in those moments, may be the very thing that propels that glory.
So here’s an invitation: I’d like for everybody watching to join me in this very, very simple prayer—God, I can’t make myself suitable, but I can surrender. There are people right now watching who don’t even have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, and this is the most unusual message ever to invite you into the family, but I’m going to do it anyway. In this moment, you have this sense. Some of you in your homes are going to have this sense of presence you’ve never seen before, you’ve never felt before, you’ve never realized before, but it’s happening now. I had that sense early this morning that there would be these encounters with the Lord Himself in your home.
I love the corporate gathering, but see, it was in my one-on-one stuff that helped me to realize the corporate stuff. So wherever you’re at, some of you have never surrendered to Jesus. I want you just to simply pray this prayer and, in the online chat room, tell somebody what you’ve done. Just pray this prayer: «God, I give you my entire life that You would be glorified. Do in me whatever pleases You, that Your name would be exalted. Do in my family and in my home that which delights Your heart.»
See, the Scripture says the Lord speaks at one point, He says, «For I’m not ashamed to be called their God.» I would like everybody watching this to have the Lord shout over your actual home—the physical home that you live in. I would love to see the Lord of Glory stand over your household and shout to everything that exists, «I am not ashamed to be called their God.» There’s something about to be released in the earth, and it’s through surrendered people.
So, Father, we pray right now. I ask that You would use this overwhelming sense of presence, and that You’d disciple us this way. You teach us this way that we would never be satisfied with anything less than You again. Like Moses, we want to say, «If You’re not taking us, we don’t want to go up from here. We don’t want to go just blessed; we don’t want to go just with favor and open doors. If You’re not going, if Your presence isn’t that which makes us different than everyone else, then we don’t want to go anywhere.» So I’m praying that. I’m praying that for us, this tribe, this family, the Bethel family all over the world, mark us with the glory. God, I invite You to interrupt our dream time, teach us what You like, open up new pathways of discernment and perception in our physical body, our hearts, our minds, that we just expand our ability to recognize You—the Glorious One—and that somehow that would be the contagious factor—not a pandemic, not a virus, but a contagious factor called the glory of God. The glory of God has become known in the earth; that’s what we want. So I invite You to do that with us as a family, and I give You thanks. Amen.