The Lord of Hosts

It is hard for me to articulate just what I experienced tonight. Tonight I had one of the most profound spiritual experiences of my life. There was a point tonight where I felt as if I almost literally connected with eternity, or rather eternity connected with me as God manifested His presence and spoke through His Word. The Word was brought tonight by an intern, an unassuming type of guy who had a talent for understatement so this experience was certainly not through some demagogical manipulation. No God spoke through His Word - His God breathed, Spirit inspired Word. That is the power of revelation where the boundaries of human comprehension end and God illuminates.

"A son honours his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honour? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name." Malachi 1:6


Malachi was communicating God's dissatisfaction at the priests of Israel who were offering blemished sacrifices in the Temple. A blemished animal was no sacrifice at all as it had no value. To offer such an animal to God was an insult to Him as it would not have been fit to give to human authorities let alone the Creator of the universe and the personal deliverer and salvation of Israel. I was convicted of the times when I have been half-hearted in my devotion to God, when I have failed to truly grasp the magnitude and majesty of the holiness of God. Tonight I felt swallowed up by the granduer of God, completely and totally inconsequential compared to the enormity of God. The reality became so grave as I sat there listening to the sermon it blew my mind in the fullest sense of the term. We often misuse words and expressions until they become meaningless but tonight I was in awe of the Lord of Hosts. 


The worship songs afterwards were well chosen and conducive to the praise due God's holy name and I joined in full voice with the choruses of "Hallelujah", very seldom had that word carried with it its fullest connotation before but now that word seemed the only appropriate response to the knowledge and revelation of God tonight, at least as far as human language goes. As I sang the words and reflected on the message from Malachi it was as if time stood still, as if in that moment I was before the throne of God not that I could see it with my eyes, just feel it in my spirit. The words from Isaiah chapter 6 came to my mind and the power of Isaiah's vision became so vivid to me:


"In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”

And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!" 

I don't expect people to fully understand my experience tonight, some may dismiss it but I hope that maybe even if only in a small way you may meet with God and fall before His throne giving Him the reverence due His name of the Lord of Hosts.