The Clouds Show The Glory Series

After years of separation, sanctions, and restrictions on travel to different countries for South Africans, apartheid came to an end in the early 1990s, culminating with the formation of a democratic South African government in 1994. Giving us the freedom to travel to countries that restricted us from visiting there in the former years

On The evening of 9 November 1989, The Berlin Wall came down. In 1991 the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union collapsed. The Iron Curtain had come down. The government adopted a new law on religious freedom that did away with the old Soviet restrictions. The early 1990s marked the beginning of a revival in religion in Russia. Many new evangelical churches opened.

In 1995 I visited Russia for the first time. We began to train local Russian Christians to plant Churches in the country. On a subsequent visit to Russia, I heard that there was a Jesus March in Moscow. We had landed early that morning in the city of Moscow from South Africa. I immediately took the underground to the park where the Jesus March was ending. I got to the park just in time to see the Orthodox church people in their garments, high hats, and banners march into the park. At the same time, the new evangelical churches came marching in from the opposite end of the park. The two groups united together in front of a large platform and the worship team was singing the song, “Now is the Time to Worship” in the Russian Language. When I experienced this moment, I cried with tears spurting out of my eyes realizing nothing no persecution or restriction can stop the growth of God’s church. The Church is not an institution or a building or a denomination. The church is the people of God in any country who believe in Jesus Christ and live to show God’s Glory.

Daniel 7:13 “I was watching in the night visions, And behold, One like the Son of Man, Coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, And they brought Him near before Him.

Whenever we read the Old Testament, we are looking for the intent of God. The Old Testament points to the spiritual reality fulfilled in the New Testament.

The first time a cloud is mentioned in any significance is when God gives Noah the covenant that He will never destroy the earth with water again. God puts a rainbow in a cloud. The rainbow in the cloud is a reminder of the covenant of mercy that God promised in preparation for the redemption of the whole world.

Genesis 9:12-14 And God said: “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: 13 I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. 14 It shall be when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud;

In Exodus 13:17-18 we read how God led His people of Israel with a cloud. "And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them in the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light, to go by day and night: He took not away the pillar of cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people"

The cloud was a definite sign that God was with His people to lead them and protect them. The presence and glory of God were with them day and night.

God spoke to Moses and Joshua in the tent of meeting in a cloud.

Exodus 33:7-11 Moses took his tent and pitched it outside the camp, far from the camp, and called it the Tabernacle of Meeting. And it came to pass that everyone who sought the Lord went out to the tabernacle of meeting which was outside the camp. 8 So it was, whenever Moses went out to the tabernacle, that all the people rose, and each man stood at his tent door and watched Moses until he had gone into the tabernacle. 9 And it came to pass, when Moses entered the tabernacle, that the pillar of cloud descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses. 10 All the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the tabernacle door, and all the people rose and worshiped, each man in his tent door. 11 So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the Tabernacle.