Enjoying The Manifest Conscious Presence Of God
But Christ being come a high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building.
Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
Enjoying The Manifest Presence Of God
For if the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh.
Read and Learn More Bible Verses about the Presence of God
How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Hebrews 9:11-14
We are fulfilling the tenets of our salvation. The purpose of our redemption is to bring us into the right relationship with God so that He might bring us into a conscious relationship with Himself.
Presence Of God Bible Verse
Man, unlike any other of God’s creation, is uniquely created to experience God. Not to know God and His intimacy is to deny our fundamental purpose.
Bible Verses About God’s Conscious Presence
Back in the Garden of Eden, before man’s fall, God did not come down in the cool of the evening to fellowship with the birds and the deer and the flowers. He came to have fellowship with Adam and Eve.
I must point out that in the Scriptures there are certain basic truths upon which other truths are built. If we do not understand these basic truths, other truths simply become caricatures and lose their significance in our lives.
No truth stands by itself, but always in relationship with other truths of God’s Word. This is where heresy begins to develop when men separate one truth from another truth.
Once we get a grasp of the basic, fundamental truth of God’s Word, then we can begin to understand the rest of what the Bible teaches.
Experiencing God’s Manifest Presence Daily
This that I am talking about now is one of those basic truths, that God made us for Himself so that we might know Him, live with Him, and enjoy Him forever.
Despite this, the human race has been guilty of revolt. Men have broken with God, and the Bible teaches that we are all alienated from Him.
That is, we-the human race—are strangers to Him. We have ceased to love Him, ceased to trust Him, and ceased to enjoy His presence.
Man’s revolt has in no way changed this basic truth of God’s Word. From Genesis to Revelation we have the unfolding of redemption.
Some have correctly pointed out that this “red thread” winds its way all through Scripture from beginning to end.
Presence Of God Bible Verse
In the book of Revelation, this is explained to us, “And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him.
Whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8).
We need to ponder this great truth that before man was created before he revolted against God, redemption was established.
Redemption simply brings us back into intimate fellowship with God. This fellowship bears with it certain fruit.
Biblical Intimacy With God’s Presence
Because I am a personality, and God is a personality, I believe that we can have a personal interaction with God—the interaction between one personality and another in love and faith and conversation, to speak and to be answered.
There is no proof that we have great faith if we solemnly, glumly, grimly, and coldly live our lives, saying, “I believe,” and never have God give any response to our faith. There ought to be a response.
I know there are times when we walk by faith and not by sight. We never walk by sight, but we walk by faith sometimes when God, for His goodness, has hidden His face from us for a moment.
But He said, “In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee” (Isa. 54:8).
We must have again that presence. We must learn to live again in that presence—the manifest, conscious presence of God.
Conscious Relationship with God
The difference between revival and every other state that is spiritual is that the church may know the manifest presence of God.
It may be difficult to grasp that God is with the worst church in the city. By that, I mean, God is present there. “Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
if I make my bed in hell . .. thou art there” (Ps. 139:7-8). The difference has to do with God’s manifestation.
The worse the church is, the less evident will be God’s manifestation.
Presence Of God Bible Verse
And the better the church, the more evident His manifestation. Our goal is to experience His glorious manifestation as we assemble to worship God.
Every church is going to have some sort of ambiance when you walk in. In some churches, you will have the stained glass windows, the beauty of the music, and even the sonorous tones of the minister.
All of this adds up to a certain sense of presence. You may feel this presence, but you are not necessarily conscious of the presence of God. Much of this ambiance keeps a person from experiencing God’s true presence.
How many people on Sunday morning go to church, expose themselves to the ambiance, and come out of that church feeling pretty good about themselves and yet have never encountered the manifest presence of God?
Dwelling In God’s Presence
Liberal churches are always talking about how nice it is to turn and say, “Hello!” to our heavenly Father and then sing about the fact that this is our Father’s world.
And all the stars sing about Him and the little buttercups talk about Him. It all sounds wonderful and uplifting.
But the simple fact is, that man and God are enemies until there has been reconciliation by a sacrifice that satisfies God.
As I have been pointing out, the most natural thing for a man is a relationship with God—a relationship that is vital and intimate in every aspect.
The thing that is destroying this is man’s revolt against God. How does God rectify this? To begin with, He did a work we call “redemption.”
The primary purpose of this work is to effect a reconciliation with Him; to bring us back to the place that we belong—the place that we have been created for.
Take Cain and Abel as an illustration of this. It was not that Cain was a bad man and Abel was a good man. They were both bad men.
Fellowship With God’s Manifest Presence
Abel knew he was bad, but Cain denied that truth and acted like he was a good man. He would have fit very well into most of the liberal churches today.
He had a flippant attitude toward his relationship with God. Whereas, Abel came in humility and brought a sacrifice, looked up, and said, “O God, I’m not worthy.”
Abel pleased God, not because he was a good man, for he was not. But Abel took a bad man’s place in the presence of a holy God. On the other hand.
Cain did not please God, not because he was worse than Abel—they were both sinners born of the same parents—but because he assumed that he was all right when he was all wrong.
He assumed there was nothing that came between him and God, but Abel knew there was. That is the difference.
The whole purpose in God’s bringing us into a right relationship with Him is so that we might come into a conscious relationship with Him so that we might be conscious of God and He of us.
God’s Plan To Meet With Us
I think that if the apostle Paul were alive today, he would get chased out of every town he preached in. Paul’s message was simply to tell people that they are sinners.
They are without hope and God in the world, and the spirit of disobedience works in them.
This is not the message people want to hear today. And yet, until people come to this point of view, they will never enter into God’s plan to meet with them.
Until people are converted to Jesus Christ, they remain outside of God’s plan for fellowship. They are without hope, sinners outside the wall.
Presence Of God Bible Verse
They acquire, spend, marry, and give in marriage; build, plant, sow, harvest, tear down, and build up; beget others like themselves and then finally die.
They can live their whole lives without being too concerned about God, except when making political speeches or when it is convenient to use God for their purposes.
God has a plan in place to override this to bring us into fellowship with Him. To understand this, we must go back to the Old Testament again.
In the Old Testament, we have a beautiful picture of God’s plan to meet with us. The problem pointed out over and over again is that because of who God is, and who we are, there can be no meeting.
But God takes the initiative to prepare the way so that He can meet with us and we can meet with Him and enjoy Him forever.
Abiding In The Conscious Presence Of God
The picture of this is the Old Testament tabernacle. It is a beautiful illustration of how God wants to penetrate our world so that we can penetrate His world.
The tabernacle was an oblong affair with wooden walls made of acacia with a roof over it, and part of it made of the skins of animals.
In this Old Testament tabernacle, we can see how meticulously God’s plans were developed to accomplish His goal: fellowship with us.
Let me break down some of the aspects of the Old Testament Tabernacle that illustrate this marvelous truth.
The Lower Court
As we look at the Old Testament tabernacle, the first thing that catches our attention is the lower court. Geographically, this was outside the tabernacle proper. It was often called the court of the Gentiles.
This refers to people interested in religion, but they keep their distance from God. They want to be associated with religion for its benefits, but they certainly do not want to be inconvenienced by religion.
In the court of the Gentiles, the people came so far but they would not do what it took to allow them to get inside where the presence of God was manifested.
Many are like that today. The only time they get to church is when a baby is born when somebody gets married or when somebody dies.
Abiding In The Conscious Presence Of God
Presence Of God Bible Verse
Someone rather cynically pointed out that people go to church three times in their lives. The first time, they throw water on them.
The second time they throw rice on them and the third time they throw dirt on them. This seems to apply to the majority of people these days.
And so the outer court represents people who merely want to be casually associated with religion but they do not want to go all the way.
The Inner Court
Then there is the inner court. The inner court consisted of two stations—an altar and a laver. The altar was a great brazen altar, not a pretty thing at all.
It was a kind of topless furnace with a grate underneath. Beasts would be placed on that altar, with a fire underneath, and the beast would go up in an ugly smoke.
That was the altar. There the lambs were offered, the beasts, the red heifer, and the creatures that were brought to sacrifice.
I do not think that part of the Tabernacle was a pleasant place to be, and I do not think a priest’s job was pleasant.
Some people want to depict religion as a very beautiful, lovey-dovey, flowery affair. They get very creative in their artistic expressions of religion.
There are stained-glass windows, beautiful paintings, and poetry by the truckload—all to paint religion as something beautiful and artistic.
These same people accuse Christianity of being a “slaughterhouse religion.” The altar in the Tabernacle was not a picturesque sight but rather an awful sight with blood and flies all around it.
And the stench was almost overwhelming. It must have been a very unpleasant and terrible thing. These artsy people repudiate all of this gory mess found at the altar.
To them, religion has to be pretty, beautiful, uplifting, and positive without any sacrifice at all.
And this is where the rub comes in. They believe in a religion without sacrifice. The religion without sacrifice leaves men in their sins, separating them from any fellowship with God.
Many are now embracing a cross-less Christianity, which is, in fact, not Christianity at all.
As unpleasant and terrible as the altar might have been, there is one place that I feel is more terrible than that. That place is hell.
The Scriptures teach us that if a man is not redeemed by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, which was the only acceptable sacrifice to God.
Presence Of God Bible Verse
He certainly will spend his eternity in hell. When people sugarcoat Christianity, arrange it all very nicely and neatly, and take away the slaughterhouse element from it, they have, in effect, taken away the cross.
The crucifixion of a man on a cross outside of the hills of Jerusalem must have been a repulsive thing. There just is no way to glamorize the”crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
Just like the altar ‘in the Old Testament Tabernacle was a gory and unpleasant mess, so the cross of Jesus Christ was unpleasant in just about every aspect of it.
But the altar in the Old Testament Tabernacle foreshadowed the cross of Jesus Christ and pointed to the only acceptable sacrifice for God.
Abiding In The Conscious Presence Of God
To take away the reproach of the cross is to undo God’s remedy for man’s revolt. Not only was the altar in the inner court, but also the laver.
If you came into the inner court, the first thing you met was the altar. There the sacrifice was offered and the lamb died. Once you got past the altar with its stench and blood, you came to the laver.
The laver was filled with water, and everything could be washed there. I might respectfully suggest that laver looks like a huge punch bowl filled with water.
And there they washed, as though God were saying, “You first have to come by the cross and by the blood, by the altar and by the laver, by the lamb that died and by the washing of water by the Word.”
I submit that the inner court at first glance is not a very pretty sight. But then, this sin and rebellion in man’s heart necessitating the sacrifice of the Son of God is not a very pretty sight either.
As awful as man’s revolt and sin is, so wonderful is the all-sufficient remedy, the sacrifice of the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.
Inside The Holy Place
Once a person went through the inner court, he came to another room. This was as far as anybody could come. A veil shut this off, and nobody could enter except the priest.
Worshipers could come in where the altar and the laver were, and after they had come by the cross and by the cleansing, they would come into “the holy place.
Except a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Except he repents, he cannot see the kingdom of God—that holy place. This was the privilege they now enjoyed.
And there were three pieces of furniture in that holy place. One was the little light—the candlesticks. There were seven of them burning there.
The other was the shewbread, the little table with bread on it. And the other was an altar of incense.
The Light Of The World
It is not difficult to know what all this means. I think the Church universally agrees that that light was the light of the Holy Ghost that lights every man that comes into the world.
“I am the light of the world; and when you have come by the cross and been cleansed, then you’re enlightened,” says the Holy Ghost.
In giving us this little object lesson, He says you can be enlightened. The light of the world is Jesus, and the light of the Holy Ghost shining there, the Sevenfold Spirit shining, made it light.
The Bread Of Life
There was bread there, called “shewbread.” O the bread of the presence! Wonderful, I think. Jesus was there unseen, but feeding His people the bread of the presence.
The sixth chapter of John tells all about that. They said, “Our fathers ate bread.” Jesus said, “Yes, but the bread your fathers ate was only temporary bread.
I have come that you might have bread and if you eat of it, you shall never die.” And they said, “Give us that bread!” And He said, “I am the bread of life.”
Enjoying The Manifest Presence Of God
Many turned and went away. They could not take that. It was too doctrinal, too strong.
Presence Of God Bible Verse
If that had been a preacher preaching like that, they would have said, “We love our brother, but let’s get rid of him. We think it is too strong to say that Jesus is bread.”
That is what it says, nevertheless, in figures and type in the Old Testament. It says it in blunt language in the New Testament.
And the Church has agreed to it, at least nominally, down the centuries, for we have our Communion service and we eat of the shewbread while the light of the Holy Ghost shines around about us.
The Altar Of Incense
Then there is the altar of incense. What was that? Sweetsmelling incense was laid on that altar and burned, filling that little room with the sweet fragrance—a symbol of prayer. Isn’t that a beautiful picture?
For me, this is what the local church ought to be—a place lighted by the light of the Word shed forth by the sevenfold Holy Spirit.
And where we gather to eat the bread of life— not only on Communion Sunday, which points it up but all the time, every Sunday.
It’s the place where the altar of incense sends up its sweet spirals of fragrant perfume, sweet to God and pleasant in His nostril, and the sound of prayer pleasant in His ear.
It is the sight of an enlightened people gathered together that is pleasant to His eyes. This is the only kind of church I am interested in.
Muted Light Stale Bread Odorless Incense
Right here I want to say something that will no doubt land me on the wrong side of popular Christian opinion. But I will say it anyway. I do not believe the church is the place for entertainment. With that said, let me explain what I mean.
We have churches today, in desperate need of attendance, advertising in newspapers for the world to come and enjoy “clean entertainment.”
We have, so the boast goes, what the world has, only ours is much cleaner and, to add insult to injury, in my opinion, it is family-friendly.
I am not totally against entertainment; I am just totally against entertainment in the church and entertainment used by the church to try to win the world. How can we battle the world if we have locked arms with the world?
From my reading of the Holy Scriptures, church history, and Christian biography.
I find that there is nothing in the church that appeals to the world and nothing in the world that appeals to the true Church of Jesus Christ.
Every revival in church history has occurred when the Church stood in stark contrast to the world around them.
Our worship services should be so holy and so filled with a sense of God’s presence that unholy men will be very uncomfortable. Now we have done it the other way around.
The most unholy person in town can come into the church and feel quite comfortable.
People should come to a church worship service not anticipating entertainment but expecting the high and holy manifestation of God’s presence. When this begins to take place, several things will happen.
First, all the carnal and pseudo-Christians will let out a yell and head for the nearest exit. Attendance will plummet and the offerings will all but disappear.
Many churches are not willing to pay this price. But then the next thing that happens is the church begins to draw in people with an insatiable hunger and desire for God.
Tired of the trite entertainment style of the world they long, as the deer pants after the water brooks, for a real experience with God.
I believe, and I could be wrong here but I do not think I am, that God’s people are hungry for real spiritual food. They have had it with artificial light and hard, stale bread and odorless incense.
They have had it with the cheap imitations imported from the world; they long for the reality of God’s presence among them.
A little further explanation might be that here is the Church and the Kingdom. The traveler finds light the child finds food and the priest can pray.
You are a traveler on your way home, but you have light. Without some kind of light, even a little bit of light, the night can be horribly, frightfully dark.
And Jesus said, “The night cometh, when no man can work” (John 9:4). The New Testament talks about the moral and spiritual state of the world as that of being a night. We travelers desperately need light.
Enjoying The Manifest Presence Of God
That is the Church, and for that Church, I will give everything that I have. If I knew that that kind of Church could be in the world now.
Again—that is, the churches could become that kind of Church—I would not hesitate to give the blood out of my veins. I do not boast about it.
But I think I could say that I would gladly do it. I know I have many other thousands of friends who would too.
That we could have the Church again—purified and cleansed so that when we walk in, we know we are walking in where the light shines.
Where there is bread to eat and where there is prayer to be made that goes to the ear of God with acceptance. That is the Church.
I love the Church, for this is what the Church is: a company of people committed to this faith, to this kind of belief, enjoying the manifest, conscious presence of God.
I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord Timothy Dwight (1752-1817)
I love thy kingdom, Lord,
The house of thine abode,
The church our blest Redeemer saved
With his precious blood.
I love thy church, O God;
Her walls before thee stand,
Dear as the apple of thine eye,
And graven on thy hand.
For her my tears shall fall;
For her my prayers ascend;
To her, my cares and toils be given,
Till toils and cares shall end.
Beyond my highest joy
I prize her heavenly ways,
Her sweet communion, solemn vows,
Her hymns of love and praise.
Sure as thy truth shall last,
To Zion shall be given
The brightest glories earth can yield
And brighter bliss of heaven.