DWELLING IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD – PART ONE

I bring you greetings again, in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Friends, today, I want us to look at ‘Dwelling in the Presence of God’, with the subtitle: ‘The Only Way to Live’. And our text is taken from Exodus 33

Exodus 33:1-4; 12-16

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Depart and go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your descendants I will give it.’ ² And I will send My Angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanite and the Amorite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. ³ Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; for I will not go up in your midst, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.”

⁴ And when the people heard this bad news, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments.

¹² Then Moses said to the Lord, “See, You say to me, ‘Bring up this people.’ But You have not let me know whom You will send with me. Yet You have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found grace in My sight.’ ¹³ Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight. And consider that this nation is Your people.”

¹⁴ And He said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

¹⁵ Then he [Moses] said to Him [God], “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here. ¹⁶ For how then will it be known that Your people and I have found grace in Your sight, except You go with us? So we shall be separate, Your people and I, from all the people who are upon the face of the earth.”

PRAYER:

Break now, O Lord, the bread of life to all in radioland, by the power of Your Spirit, in Jesus. Name. Amen!

Dwelling in the Presence of God.

This topic is not only timely; it is timeless. It is timely given the scary things we see in Christianity today in this nation and beyond, when many preachers and their followers do whatever seems right in their own eyes, all in the name of new revelation. Don’t forget in Judges 17:6; 21:25 that was the state in Israel: a terrible time when everybody did what was right in his own eyes.

Please, take this counsel. I got it from somebody; and I cherish it. This is in the context of the new revelations that people come up with these days. This is the counsel: If it is new, it is not the truth; if it is the truth, it is not new.

The truth of God is not new. When anybody brings anything that is new: new truth – it is not the truth. These preachers of new revelation have made their followers dependent on them rather than on the Lord God. They have made their followers dwell in their presence all the time rather than dwelling in the presence of God.

I want us to consider our topic along the following lines or thoughts:

1. The promise of His presence,
2. Preparation for His presence

• Practice of His presence

1. Promise of His presence

The greatest promise the Lord has made to His people is to be present with them. Those who do not appreciate this great promise are to be pitied. Such people seek the things that God gives rather than God’s presence.

God promised Israel His presence in the pillar of cloud and of fire. When He threatened to withdraw His presence (as we read in Exodus 3), Israel regarded it as bad news. ⁴ And when the people heard this bad news, they mourned, because they knew what the presence of God meant.

Moses turned down angelic presence as a substitute. God offered to give them the presence of His angel. Moses said: no. And this is something that many Christians today will grab with both hands and will rejoice and be satisfied. But Moses and Israel refused because the presence of an angel was not a good substitute for the presence of God.

Listen to the words of Moses, in Exodus 33:15: “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here. In order words, if we don’t have Your presence, Lord God, please, forget it – let us stay where we are.

God promised His presence to the people the bible calls the Israel of God, that is, believers – Christians.

Matthew 28:19-20, what we call the Great Commission, the Lord Jesus, just before He went back to heaven says:

¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations [not converts: disciples], baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you…

This is what you are supposed to teach, not new revelation: what He has taught us. And He said this is now the promise: the great promise.

Matthew 28:20b

“…and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

And He says: Amen. In other words, ‘so be it’.

This presence of God, what is it?

When we know that God is omnipresent don’t we know that God is present equally in all places at the same time? That’s what we mean by the omnipresence of God. But we are talking about the presence of God. But He is omnipresent; and only God has this nature. So why talk of His presence when we know that He is present all the time. Friend, it is one thing to know that God is present all the time; it is another thing to be conscious or aware of His presence. They are two different things.

But when we talk of the presence of God it is not in the sense that one Christian musician, Byron Cage, sees it. He says: The presence of the Lord is here; I feel it in the air.

No: it is much more than that. The presence of God we are talking about is the awareness or the consciousness of His presence. In other words, that I will consciously reckon with, ‘count on the fact’, that God is present. And of course that awareness brings a number of great blessings.

So we have seen the promise of His presence.

Let’s look at:

2. The preparation of His presence.

First, we realize that God is ever present with you. Realize that God is ever present with you. Not like Jacob in Genesis 28:16 who said after God revealed Himself to him in a vision in the night…he woke up: as he was running away from His brother Esau, he woke up in the morning and he said, the Lord is in this place and I did not know it. Many of us…that is where we are. He is present but we are not aware of it. We do not know it. You have to come to that realization that He is here. He is where you are, friend.

Then, secondly, you desire His presence above all else. You have to desire His presence above all else.

In Psalms 42:1-2

¹As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So pants my soul for You, O God.
² My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?

You have to desire; you have to pant; you have to thirst for His presence.

Psalms 73:25

¹Whom have I in heaven but You?
And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You

Did you hear that, friend? There is none and there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You. You have to desire the presence of God. You have to thirst after His holiness. Do you know that some people may believe that God exists yet behave as if He does not exist? Such people, we call them: practical atheists. Demons belong to this group of practical atheists; for they believe that God exists, but their behavior is different. But in their own case they even tremble. But some people who claim they believe that God exists don’t even tremble at His Word.

So by the same token you may believe that God is ever present yet you behave as if He is ever absent.

Living a holy life is an eloquent testimony that one is well aware of the presence of God. How can you indulge in sinful behavior when you know that God is there with you and sees and knows everything you do? It is not possible. It is because you are not conscious of His presence.

We will continue from here next time.

PRAYER:

Friend, I want to advise you to go to God even after this broadcast. Seek His face and ask Him: I want Your presence, Lord. He will reveal Himself to you.

Father, thank You, thank You for Your precious Word. As my friends come to you in prayer, call upon You, may You answer them, O God; and reveal Yourself to them, in Jesus Name. Amen!