Man, the title of my sermon tonight is The Presence of the Lord, The Presence of the
Lord.
When it comes to this term and really this idea of God's presence, we need to understand
that when the Bible talks about the presence of the Lord, it's not always talking about
the same thing.
Some people get confused about this because they know that God is omnipresent, meaning
that God is everywhere.
But then the Bible also talks about God being in specific locations or not being in specific
locations.
And so I want to preach about this subject tonight, The Presence of the Lord, and give
you three different types of God's presence or three different aspects of God's presence
that are very different.
And the first thing I want to talk about tonight is the aspect of God's omnipresence, the fact
that the Bible does teach that God is everywhere at the same time.
That prefix, omni, just means all, all present.
You've probably heard the word a lot, omnipotent.
It's in Revelation, the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.
It means all powerful, all potent.
And so omni presence is the same idea.
Look down, if you would, at Psalm 139 verse 7, 139 verse 7, the Bible reads, Whither shall
I go from my spirit?
Whither means to where?
To where whither shall I go from my spirit?
Or whither shall I flee from my presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there.
If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there
shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about me.
Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee, but the night shineth as the day.
The darkness and the light are both alike to thee.
So what we see here is that it's impossible to escape God's presence.
It doesn't matter how high you go, how low you go, and the Bible's using these extreme
examples of, you know, ascending into heaven, making my bed in hell, just going way out
on the ocean to the most distant parts of this planet, or going into total darkness.
God has night vision and can see you even in the darkness.
The darkness and the light are alike unto Him.
He can see just as well.
And so it is impossible to escape from the presence of God.
God's presence exists everywhere.
And that's what the Bible is talking about here, and that's what we mean by this term
omni-presence.
Now if you would flip over to Acts chapter 17 in the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke,
John, Acts.
While you're turning to Acts, I'll read you a few other scriptures.
Proverbs chapter 15 verse 3 says, the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding
the evil and the good.
God sees everything in every place that's going on.
He's omni-present.
Jeremiah 23, 24, can any hide himself in secret places?
That I shall not see him, saith the Lord.
Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord.
He's saying, I fill heaven and earth, I'm everywhere.
So this is very clearly taught in scripture.
Look at Acts chapter 17 verse 26, And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to
dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and
the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel
after him and find him, though he be not far from every one of us.
So what the Bible is talking about here is that people in this world are in darkness,
and he's talking about someone with their eyes closed or maybe they're blindfolded or
in the dark and they're kind of looking for something, right?
Like let's say you're looking for the light switch and you don't really know where it
is.
He's talking about people kind of groping in the darkness trying to find the Lord, trying
to find God.
And what the Bible is saying here is that if they seek him, they'll find him.
He's not far from every one of us.
So if you do a little groping in the dark, you're going to find him.
The Bible says, ask and it shall be given to you.
Seek and you shall find.
Knock and it shall be opened unto you.
For everyone that asketh receiveth, and everyone that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh
it shall be opened.
And so the Bible is saying that he's not far from every one of us.
He's everywhere.
And then it says in verse 28, for in him we live and move and have our being as certain
also of you, excuse me, as certain also of your poets have said, for we also are his
offspring.
Now notice that he's talking to unsaved people.
If you get the context, this is the Apostle Paul on Mars Hill talking to the philosophers
that have kind of dragged him down there.
The Epicureans and the Stoics have compelled him to be there.
They said, we want to hear what this guy has to say because these people are just so into
hearing every new thing.
They're into philosophy and a lot of navel, navel gazing.
And so they just want to hear about any possible other angle or new religion or whatever that
they can hear about.
And so these people are clearly unsaved people.
In fact, some of them are going to mock at the message of the Gospel in a moment.
But yet Paul even says to these unsaved people, in him we live and move and have our being.
He's not talking about spiritually because obviously people that are unsaved are not
in tune with God and living by God like that.
You know, I believe this is even just talking about physical life itself, that our physical
life is powered by God in a sense, that in him we live and move and have our being.
And that's why, by the way, science has no theory for what life is.
Forget them trying to figure out the origin of life.
They don't even have a theory for what life even is.
They don't even have a hypothesis.
They've got nothing.
They don't know.
Now, they have all these things that they say, well, you know, it has to be able to
reproduce.
It has to move.
It has to, you know, take in fuel and put out waste and, you know, all these different
things.
But, you know, you could find holes in all those definitions.
And none of them really tell you what life is.
They're just kind of describing, okay, stuff that's alive moves around.
Stuff that's alive reproduces.
You know, stuff that's alive, you know, burns some kind of an energy source or whatever.
But none of that tells you what does it even mean to be alive.
Nobody knows.
Science can't do it.
But here's the thing.
It's because of the fact that it's God that is the author of life and God is the one who
originally created the first living beings.
And they cannot come about on their own.
That's why searching for life on other planets, it's a fool's errand.
You're not going to find it.
Okay.
It isn't there because it was created by a divine act.
Just like hiding from God is a fool's errand because of the fact that you cannot flee from
God's presence, it's impossible as we saw.
So God is omnipresent.
God is present even for the unbeliever.
Think about this.
It's important to understand the distinction in these different types of God's presence.
Even the unbeliever in God lives and moves and has his being.
But that's talking about physically, not spiritually.
Okay.
The Lord sustains the universe in a sense.
So if you would, flip over to Genesis chapter 3.
Let me just finish up this first point and then we'll get to Genesis chapter 3.
But of course there's a famous scripture in the book of Jonah where Jonah wants to
flee from the presence of God.
And he rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
But of course this is impossible.
You can't flee from the presence of the Lord.
And Jonah should have known this because Psalm 139 had already been written a long time ago.
He probably sang it a few times and since he's this prophet who is really a major servant
of God at the time and being greatly used by God at the time, I'm certain that he probably
had heard Psalm 139 and yet foolishly tries to hide from the presence of the Lord.
Amos chapter 9 verse 2 says, Though they dig into hell, thence shall my hand take them.
Though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down.
And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out
thence.
And be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent
and he shall bite them.
That is such a great verse.
You know, people are trying to escape from God.
He says, you know what, I can get you wherever you go.
You go to a really high mountain, I'm going to get you.
Climb into heaven, I'll get you.
Go down into hell, I'm going to get you.
And if you finally get to the one place where I can't reach you in the bottom of the ocean,
I'll just tell a serpent to bite you down there and then that'll be my way of getting
to you anyway.
So it's a very funny verse.
Oh, you're hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea?
Well, you know what?
I got some creatures down there that can do some stuff to you, all right, so you're not
going to escape.
You know, it reminds me of the other passage about, you know, fleeing from the Lord and,
you know, you run into the house and shut the door and you're safe from the bear or
whatever it was, what was it?
Who knows the Bible super well?
You know, there's some beast out there to get you and then you walk in, you lean your
hand on the door and then boom, something bites you.
You can always count on the fact that God will catch up to you and find you.
You can't escape.
So that's God's omnipresence.
I think everybody's pretty familiar with that and we just saw a lot of scripture just to
prove that in case anybody wondered about that or had doubt about that.
We know that God is everywhere.
There's plenty of evidence for that.
But aside from just God's omnipresence, there's also God's physical presence where God actually
physically shows up somewhere and that's different, isn't it?
It's one thing for God to just be everywhere and then it's another thing for God to actually
make a physical appearance at a certain place at a certain time.
That's another type of presence of God.
It's not the same.
Look at Genesis chapter 3 verse 8.
This is talking about Adam and Eve and it says and they heard the voice of the Lord
God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
So here is the Lord physically present in the garden of Eden walking in the cool of
the day.
And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees
of the garden.
Flip over to chapter 4 verse 16.
These are actually the two first mentions of the word presence in the Bible.
We see God's literal physical presence in Genesis 3.8, in Genesis 4.16, and Cain went
out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden.
Now obviously we know that in the land of Nod on the east of Eden, God's omnipresence
still applies.
So God is present in the sense that God can see what Cain's doing over there.
God knows what Cain's doing over there and Cain in God has his life and moving and being
and so forth.
But yet he has left the place where God is physically communing with man and he's gone
away from the presence of the Lord talking about a more physical literal presence.
When we get to the New Testament, if you would flip over to John chapter 1, John chapter
1.
We get to the New Testament.
We have Matthew 1 23.
Behold, a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son and they shall call his
name Immanuel, which being interpreted is God with us.
Now you say, well, God was already with us.
God's always with us.
He's omnipresent.
He's everywhere.
Yeah, but it's a little different when God's with us.
You know, when he actually bodily, physically is with us.
Jesus Christ was God in the flesh.
He lived and dwelt among us.
The Bible says in John chapter 1 verse 1 there, in the beginning was the word and the word
was with God and the word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made.
Verse 14, and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory.
The glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
Now flip over to 1 John chapter 1.
So that's the very famous beginning of the Gospel of John.
In the beginning was the word.
Well, John's epistle, 1 John, actually starts out in a really similar way.
It kind of ties in with John chapter 1.
John chapter 1 and 1 John chapter 1 kind of go together and they start off the same way.
Obviously John is referencing Genesis when he says in the beginning was the word.
That's a play off of in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
In the beginning was the word.
But look how he continues this theme in 1 John chapter 1 verse 1.
That which was from the beginning which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes,
which we have looked upon, and this is the key right here, and our hands have handled
of the word of life.
So there's the same word from John chapter 1, right?
Jesus being called the word.
Now in 1 John 1, he says the word of life, our hands handled the word of life.
We saw him.
We heard him.
We literally reached out our hands and touched him and even after he rose from the dead,
they actually touched him to make sure that he was actually physically there because they
could hardly believe that he was standing there in their midst.
And they actually checked out the prints of the nails in his hands and the hole in his
side from where he'd been stabbed with the spear.
And so their hands truly handled him.
Verse 2, for the life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and show unto
you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us.
So this is a physical presence of God with us.
The word made flesh.
You could reach out and touch him.
He was here bodily.
Jesus Christ came in the flesh as an actual, literal human being that lived and dwelled
among men.
Luke chapter 1 verse 19, you don't have to turn there, but it says, and the angel answering
said unto him, I am Gabriel that stand in the presence of God and am sent to speak unto
thee and to show thee these glad tidings.
Now here, when Gabriel says, I stand in the presence of God, well duh, everybody's in
the presence of God.
He's on my presence.
He's talking about up in heaven, God the Father is on the throne and he stands in the presence
of God, the literal throne room.
So that's a little different, isn't it?
A bodily presence.
So we see there's a physical, literal presence for Jesus.
There's a physical, literal presence for the Father up in heaven where Gabriel could show
up and stand before the Lord and then there are times when God the Father has even come
to the earth, not in a bodily form, you know, walking as a man.
Obviously that's the Son of God.
That's Jesus Christ that does that where we see, uh, you know, God walking as a human
being, Jesus, that's different than God the Father.
But if you remember, God the Father showed up and spoke to Moses out of the cloudy pillar
and Moses could not look upon him.
You know, we could look upon Jesus, no problem, but no man can see the face of God the Father
and live.
The Bible says no man has seen God at any time.
The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he had declared him.
So we could see the Son, but we can't see the Father.
But God the Father actually literally showed up in the Old Testament and was present because
he shows up and talks to Moses out of the cloudy pillar and when he does, Moses wants
to behold his glory and he's told no man shall see my face and live.
And he puts him in the cleft of the rock and he puts his hand over him and he passes by
and he removes his hand so that Moses could just catch a glimpse of the hinder parts of
God the Father and then when he comes down from the mountain, his face is glowing so
brightly that they have to put a veil over his face so that he doesn't blind everyone
that tries to talk to him and they can't even interact with him.
So let me just read for you a bunch of verses about the presence of God, talking about a
literal physical presence.
You don't have to turn to these, but 1 Chronicles 16, 33, then shall the trees of the woods
sing out at the presence of the Lord because he cometh to judge the earth.
Job 1, 12, and the Lord said unto Satan, behold, all that he hath is in thy power only upon
himself put not forth thine hand.
So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord.
Job 2, 7, so went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord.
Psalm 97, 5, the hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence
of the Lord of the whole earth.
Psalm 114, 7, tremble thou earth at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of
Jacob.
Jeremiah 4, 26, I beheld and lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness and all the cities
thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord and by his fierce anger.
So this is beyond omnipresence.
This is God actually showing up and whether it's Jesus Christ or whether it's God the
Father, there's a physical presence.
Even the Holy Spirit shows up and is actually literally present in the book of Acts when
the day of Pentecost has fully come and there's a mighty rushing wind and they're baptized
in the Spirit and so forth.
So that's different than his omnipresence.
So we've got the omnipresence, he's everywhere, but then we've got actually him physically
showing up.
Jesus Christ, the best example of that, but there are other examples of that as well.
But then the third thing is his spiritual presence.
Now if you would go to Exodus chapter 33 for this one.
Exodus chapter 33, what do I mean by his spiritual presence?
Basically this is a presence that isn't really literal.
It's not like Jesus Christ is actually standing in front of us and we're looking at him, but
yet the Bible says in Matthew 18, 20, for where two or three are gathered together in
my name, there am I in the midst of them.
Now is that omnipresence?
No way because it's like, hey, where two or three are gathered together in my name, there
I am in the midst of them and I'm in the midst of everybody else too.
It's like, oh, well, wow, big, big whoop.
Oh, you're in the midst of us.
You're in the midst of everything, everywhere at all times.
That's not omnipresence, right?
But it's also not a literal physical presence, is it?
I mean, it's not like we show up and we have a prayer meeting and two or three of us gather
together and we start praying and all of a sudden, you know, there's a hand on our shoulder
and there's a fourth guy praying with us.
Like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, we got the fourth man in the fire.
He shows up and you know, hey, we knew you'd show up.
You always do.
You know, every time we pray, you're always here.
He doesn't actually physically literally show up and it's not omnipresence.
So there's a third type of God's presence that I'm going to call, he's present with
us in spirit, okay, his spiritual presence.
Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
Also Matthew 28, 18, and Jesus came and spake unto them saying, all power is given unto
me in heaven and in earth.
Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I've commanded
you and lo, I am with you always.
What kind of presence is that?
I am with you always, even unto the end of the world, amen.
So if we go out to fulfill the great commission, we go out to preach the gospel, we go out
to baptize converts and teach them to observe all things, Christ goes with us.
We're not doing it alone.
Even if you go soul winning by yourself without a soul winning partner, you know what, you've
always got a soul winning partner because Jesus is your all time soul winning partner
because he says that when you go out to fulfill the great commission, I'm with you always.
I am always with you even unto the end of the world.
He's always going to be with us.
That's not just omnipresence.
You know, it's not like, oh yeah, well he's with me if I don't go soul winning.
He's with me if I go to the bar or the casino or something.
No, he's not.
Because in that sense, I would say the Lord's not with you.
This is like when the children of Israel are going to go into the promised land after God
told them no.
And he says, don't do it, don't do it.
Why not?
Because the Lord's not with you.
The Lord's not with you.
That's not just talking about a physical presence.
That's not talking about an omnipresence.
He's saying he's not with you as in he's not on your team.
He's not with you in spirit.
He's not there.
David said, I've set the Lord always before me because he's at my right hand.
I shall not be moved.
That's not physical.
And that's not omnipresence.
That is his spiritual presence where he's on David's side and he's there with him spiritually,
supporting him, backing him up.
If I go out soul winning, Jesus is backing me up.
If I get together with one or two other people and we pray together, Jesus is right there
backing up what we're doing and helping us and strengthening us and delivering the message
for us and so forth.
So we're soul winning or praying or reading the word of God.
We've got Christ with us.
Also of course, the Bible says Christ in you, the hope of glory.
That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that you being wounded and grounded in love
may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and
height to know the love of God which passes knowledge that you might be filled with all
the fullness of God.
So we've got verses about Christ in your heart.
Christ is in you.
Now obviously Jesus Christ is not physically located there, but is Christ in our hearts?
Absolutely.
Well, he's everywhere.
Yeah, but you would never say he's in an unsaved person's heart.
That would be a false statement, okay?
Well he's everywhere.
You know, I remember a while back when the whole blow up happened about Pastor Jimenez,
about him preaching hard on the homos after that Pulse nightclub shooting and Brother
Jimenez was ripping on the homos, I was ripping on the homos.
There's an idiot down at Infowars named David Knight and he made this super blasphemous
statement because he was ripping on me personally and ripping on our church because I'd been
on their show a couple times as a guest.
But this guy David Knight said, Jesus would have been at that gay bar.
How can they be so hateful toward these gays?
Jesus would have been at that gay bar.
That is a blasphemous, wicked, evil thing to say.
That our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ would have been at a gay bar?
But it's an idiotic view that says, oh well Jesus, you know, he just partied with the
sinners.
He partied with prostitutes and publicans and sinners.
That is a lie.
And by the way, we never see Jesus just hanging out with, you know, it's always funny when
people say, I always say, okay, can you show me a chapter and verse on that?
It's like this popular myth, this popular legend that Jesus hung out with and part of,
that is not true.
Here's what happened.
They came to him to get the word of God from him, to get preaching from him, to get salvation
from him, to learn from them, and he went to seek them out so that he could seek and
save the lost, okay?
He was not one who partied with unbelievers.
And tell me this.
If Jesus is one that just hangs out at a gay bar, the filthiest, dirtiest, most disgusting
place imaginable, if he's one that just hangs out at a gay bar, then why did he tell us
to come out from among them and be separate and touch not the unclean thing, saith the
Lord?
Why did he tell us that we should set no wicked thing before our eyes?
How could you go to a gay bar without seeing everything wicked in all directions 360 degrees?
There's no way you could look that you wouldn't see something wicked.
Why did the Bible say mine eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land and I'll set no wicked
thing before my eyes and the people that hate the Lord are an abomination and all this stuff,
but we're supposed to believe that Jesus just partied and hung out with the worst scum.
It's a lie.
It's garbage.
It's false.
You know what?
Jesus Christ did what we do.
He went out and up and down in the highways and hedges, he went through the towns and
the villages and up and down the streets and you know what?
He approached people and he preached them the word of God.
He gave people the gospel.
He didn't go sit down at the bar with them and go gambling at the casino with them and
go to the strip club with them and let me tell you something, a gay bar is worse than
a strip club.
Anyway, they're both filthy and abominable, but you say, well, of course he wouldn't go
to a strip club.
You know, what about everything you'd have to see in there?
What's he going to see in a gay bar, you idiot?
It's disgusting.
It's an abomination.
It's against nature and that's why I say when you go into that casino, Jesus isn't with
you.
Now you say, well, yes he is because he's omnipresent.
Yes he is because I'm saved so he's in my heart.
Yeah, but he's not with you in the sense of he's not backing you.
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
He's not supporting you.
He's not going to fellowship with you in that activity.
Okay.
You know, when Jesus says he that is not with me is against me, that's the kind of with
us we're talking about here.
Okay.
David Knight's a complete idiot and a blasphemous jerk to get up and say, oh, Jesus would have
been at that gay bar.
You're an idiot, David Knight.
It's garbage.
You've got to be ashamed of yourself.
You think I'm ashamed of my hard sermon against the homos?
Nope.
I'll upload it to as many platforms as I can until Jesus comes.
We ought to be ashamed of guys like that who make blasphemous, wicked statements about
our Lord and Savior.
He would have been at that gay bar.
What kind of theology is that?
It's an abomination is what it is.
Okay.
Here's the thing.
Jesus Christ, yes, he received sinners.
Yes, he was willing to condescend to men of low estate.
Yes, he was willing to break bread at the house of Matthew the publican when Matthew
got saved and a bunch of Matthew's friends came over.
You know what he did?
He had a meal with Matthew and his friends.
Why?
When he was confronted about it, he explained why.
He said, they that behold need not a physician but they that are sick.
I'm not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.
But let me ask you this.
Is there anybody who hangs out at a strip club 24 hours a day?
Is there any person on this planet who hangs out in the bar or the casino or the strip
club 24 hours a day?
I don't think so.
You know what?
They all go home at some point and that's where we're going to talk to them.
They all go to the grocery store at some point.
They all go home at some point.
They all go to work at some point.
That's where we're going to talk to them.
We're not going to go to a filthy, horrible, abominable, wicked, sinful place to go talk
to them when the Bible told us, come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord
and touch not the unclean thing.
And last time I checked, the Bible said, ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that
the friendship of the world is enmity with God, whosoever therefore will be a friend
of the world is the enemy of God.
Oh no, Jesus' best friend was a faggot.
Really?
Because the Bible says whosoever will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
So who am I supposed to believe?
The Bible tells us over and over and over again who we should be friends with and who
we shouldn't.
Show me where, oh, Jesus was good buddies with some horrible sinner.
No, no, no.
He's reaching people.
He's reaching out to people.
He's showing them love.
He's being kind to them, great.
But he's not best buddies, hey, let's go hang out and party.
That's a false doctrine.
It's extremely blasphemous.
If you don't think that's blasphemous about Jesus going to a gay bar, you know what?
You're a complete idiot.
Just never come back to this church because this is not a loony bin.
This is not an insane asylum, okay?
I can help you find help.
You know, stop, get some help, okay?
I mean seriously, like are you really that stupid?
Or maybe you're just wicked.
Either way, hit the road, Jack, and don't you come back no more because let me tell
you something, if you actually would say something or think something so blasphemous about Jesus,
you know absolutely nothing and I don't even think you can even benefit from my sermons
because you're just too dumb, okay?
You need to go to children's church or something down the road because even a five-year-old
should be able to understand what's wrong with that wicked statement.
And if you're like, I don't think it's that bad, well then you know what?
You're probably just totally brainwashed by the homo agenda and all the TV and everything
to where you're just so used to it.
Any normal person, if they heard somebody say that about Jesus, would be like, ah!
They'd be horrified.
Like what?
But the fact that anybody, here's the thing, I guarantee you that there are a whole bunch
of people though watching David and I say that and just kind of like, yeah, he would
have, yeah, yeah.
Look, you just listened to me rant about it for the last 10 minutes.
If you still don't get it, there's nothing I can do to help you.
You need to find help somewhere else.
You need to get a prescription for something because I can't give you the drugs that you
need because they're hard drugs.
It's not over-the-counter stuff that you need.
You're going to need something a lot stronger.
Where am I in these notes?
Exodus 33.
Dearly beloved, in the second book of Moses called Exodus, chapter 33, verse 12, and Moses
said unto the Lord, see, thou sayest unto me, bring up this people and thou hast not
let me know whom thou wilt send with me.
Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name and thou hast also found grace in my sight.
Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way that
I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight and consider that this nation is
thy people.
And he said, this is God answering him, my presence shall go with thee.
Because he says, look, I want to know who is it exactly that's going to go with us.
And he said, well, my presence shall go with thee and I will give thee rest.
And he said unto him, if thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.
I love that statement.
Isn't that a beautiful statement from Moses?
He says, look, if God's not going with me, then I don't want to go.
Now why did Moses say, if God's not going, I ain't going?
Because of the fact that if God's not with you, it's a jungle out there.
Man, I wouldn't want to go through life without God with me.
That'd be hard.
It'd be scary.
Who knows what's going to happen?
Going to work and God's not with you.
Going to school and God's not with you.
Going into marriage and God's not with you.
Going into child rearing and God's not with you.
I mean, who knows what's going to happen?
But you know what?
When God's with you, you fear nothing.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou
art with me.
Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
You know why the rod and staff comfort him?
Hey, it's not because it's fun getting hit by the rod or getting a whipping from the
staff.
I want to tell you why it's comforting because you know what?
I'd rather be chastened by God than for God to just not even be with me.
At least if God's chastening me, at least I know he's with me.
You know, sometimes when you see a brother or a sister in Christ go astray and then you
see God begin to chasten them, even though you don't want them to go through that, even
though you don't like to see them getting chastened, sometimes it's kind of comforting
where you think like, well hey, at least that person's saved and at least that person is
being chastened by God.
At least God still cares because God's trying to get their attention and that's better than
nothing.
But God not being with you, who wants to deal with that?
I mean, look, life's hard enough when God is with you.
You want to go through life without God with you?
I don't because at least if God's with me, when bad things happen, I'm like that meme
of the little dog with everything's on fire and he's just like, this is fine.
Who knows what I'm talking about?
Virtually every single person.
Finally we found a common language here, memes.
You know, that's me.
I'm that little doggy saying, hey, this is fine.
Everything's on fire.
The whole world's coming down around me.
I'm not kidding.
If the whole world started coming down around me, if America were panicking and cities are
on fire, buildings are crashing down, you know, meteors are striking the earth or whatever,
you know what, I'll just be like, so, uh, honey, what's for dinner?
Do you have a dinner plan or what?
You know why?
Because God's with me.
God's with me.
So I'm not worried about it.
This is a blessing to have God with you.
Not just in the sense that he's omnipresent.
He sees the stupid things you're doing at the casino.
He sees the dumb stuff that you're, no, God's with you.
He's supporting you.
He's backing you up.
He's with you.
There's no substitute for that, is there?
Here's a great verse, Jeremiah chapter 20, and if you would flip over to Isaiah chapter
8.
Go to Isaiah 8.
I'm going to read for you a great scripture from Jeremiah 20 verse 10.
For I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side, report say they and we will report
it.
All my familiars watched for my halting saying, peradventure he'll be enticed and we shall
prevail against him and we shall take our revenge on him.
You know, people are just scheming and conniving against Jeremiah.
He says in verse 11, but the Lord is with me as a mighty, terrible one.
Therefore my persecutors shall stumble and they shall not prevail.
They shall be greatly ashamed for they shall not prosper.
Their everlasting confusion shall never be forgotten.
Boy, do you want to have God with you or what?
That's protection.
Romans 8.31 is the famous verse.
What shall we say then to these things?
If God be for us, who can be against us?
Isaiah chapter 8 verse 10, Isaiah 8.10, take counsel together and it shall come to naught.
Go ahead and make your plans, scheme, connive, plan the downfall of God's people.
Take counsel together, it shall come to nothing, it shall come to naught.
Speak the word and it shall not stand for one reason and for one reason alone.
For God is with us.
That's the presence of God, my friend.
So there are three levels of God's presence, right?
We've got number one, God's omni presence.
No matter where we go, no matter what we do, God's watching all the time.
God's there.
He'll never leave us or forsake us.
If we're saved, God is present in our hearts, even if we do go into that, you know, house
of ill repute.
You know, the Bible even talks about in Corinthians, he says, you know, shall I take the members
of Christ and make them the members of Harlan?
I mean, you know, my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
I don't want to unite Christ with that.
So yeah, we do have God's presence with us in the sense of omni presence or we have his
presence with us in the sense that we're saved.
Some people had his presence in the sense that he was actually physically with them.
Like, you know, James and John and Peter, they could reach out and touch him.
He was right there.
But then there's God's presence as in God's with us, God's going with us.
And that's the type of presence in Matthew when he says, you know, when we go out to
preach the Gospel and teach all nations, he's with us always.
Where two or three are gathered together in Christ's name, there is he in the midst.
That's the presence that we want to have in our lives.
We want to make sure that God is with us, that he's for us, that he's backing us up,
that we're, and you say, well, I want that presence.
How do I, how do I get this presence?
Well, first of all, we got to pray to the Lord, ask him to be with us, invite him to
be with us.
And I'm telling you, if you go to these wicked places, he's not going in there with you.
Not in the sense that we're talking about here, but you know what, if you go to church
and you acknowledge him, he's with you.
You get together for the prayer meeting, acknowledge him, he's with you.
You read the word of God, you pray for guidance, he's with you.
He's reading it with you.
He's helping you.
You go out soul winning, you know, and sometimes people get nervous about soul winning.
They get nervous about the rez dogs.
They get nervous about, you know, knocking on someone's door or being, and obviously
we should use safety in the sense that, you know, we don't want to send people by themselves
into a dangerous area.
We're going to use common sense.
Obviously God protects us, but that doesn't mean that we just, you know, run across the
freeway.
God's going to protect me, you know, use the crosswalk.
Don't tempt the Lord thy God, okay?
But if we take normal precautions and use our brains and we're going out and doing the
work of the Lord, there's no reason to worry.
There's no reason to fear because God's with us no matter what God's with us.
And I'm telling you, even on your worst day as a Christian, you're better off than the
unsaved guy who doesn't have God with him.
Even on the worst day as a Christian when everything's going bad, because even when
things go bad in my life, even when it's bad, it's still kind of good.
Because all things work together for good to them that love God and to them who are
the called according to His purpose.
So when everything goes bad for me, instead of just thinking this is just bad on bad,
bad, it's all bad, what a big waste.
You know what I think to myself when something bad happens?
I think to myself, well, I wonder how God's going to work this together for good.
This is pretty bad, but you know what?
He's going to.
I don't know how He's going to do it, but I know He's going to do it.
And that's comforting.
And you know what?
As I look back over my life, I can think of anything.
I can think of anything and I can always typically, even with my own limited human understanding,
I can typically figure out that's why that had to happen.
Like things that I hated at the time, things that were a disaster at the time, things that
were just keeping me up at night, can't sleep, you know, worried and just nightmares that
I went through in my life.
Every time I look back, I can typically always figure it out, like, oh, well, if that hadn't
happened then this wouldn't have happened.
That had to happen because I learned this and then I used that and boy, what if that
hadn't happened, I'd actually be in a worse place.
You know, things came out better because that did happen.
And I could go on and on with examples of that, but I'm telling you that looking back
when you're living for God, you see how even the bad things were good.
They worked out for good.
Or, even if they were just bad on bad, once you start serving God and living for God,
sometimes God can take those bad things and even be really creative and turn them into
something good and use them for good somehow.
You know, think about Joseph's brethren and what did he tell them?
You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.
God can turn things around and use them.
So it's all about God's presence.
You know, I want to have God's presence in my life.
I want to go through life feeling like God's with me and God's working through circumstances
and I can see God opening doors and closing doors and just leading me down the path.
But you know why I feel that way?
Is because of the fact that I acknowledge him.
You know, in all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths.
Yeah, you go days and days without even thinking about him, not even reading the Bible, not
even praying, and it's like, oh yeah, God exists.
It's been three days since I've thought about him.
You know, is God really with you?
The same way as if you're acknowledging him and praying to him and asking him to be with
you.
We want God to be present in our lives.
And then even when bad things happen, we can see how God will turn it around and use
it for good.
The reason I feel that way is because it's true.
Because of the fact that God is with me and I hope God's with you.
And if he's not, then, you know, first of all, number one, get saved.
And if you're already saved and you're backslidden, you know what?
It's never too late to jump in, start reading the Bible again, start praying again.
And just, why don't you just start your day every day saying, God, be with me.
Be with me today, Lord.
Be with us as we go soul wedding.
Be with us in our church service tonight.
Be with us as we read our Bibles.
Be with me as I go to work.
Be with me as I go to school.
Be with me no matter what I do.
And you know what?
He's going to.
And that is the most valuable thing you can have is God with you at all times.
The presence of God.
It's not worth going into these institutions if you have to check Jesus at the door.
Right?
If you had to leave, if you could see with spiritual glasses where you're walking with
Jesus, walking with Jesus, and then you start to go through the door and Jesus is like,
I'm going to wait outside.
And especially you're stupid enough to go to a casino like that.
Jesus is not going to be in there blowing on the dice or something, making things turn
out the way, oh, please, Lord, help me win.
Not happening.
I could see God just making you lose.
He's going to make you lose because he loves you because you know what?
The worst thing to happen to somebody when they go to a casino is for them to win.
Because when they win, then they gamble even more and they end up losing it all and losing
even more.
The best thing that could happen to you, you know, I talked to somebody, not going to name
any names, but he told me, he said, you know, the first time I went to a casino, he lost
like 20 bucks and he's just like, this is stupid.
I'm never going back.
And he's like, that was 20 years ago and I've never gambled.
But what if he would have gone in with that 20 bucks and come out with a thousand?
Oh, great.
So cool.
No, because guess what?
Then he'd probably keep doing it and pretty soon he'd lose his 10,000, loses 100,000,
loses everything.
But worst is that God's not going to bless that.
God's not with him as he does these activities.
So God's presence has various levels.
Yeah, he's omnipresent.
He physically shows up at times, but there's also a spiritual presence and there's also
a presence of backing us and we want all of the above in our lives, you know, except the
physical presence because, you know, it ain't happening until the second coming.
But you know what?
We want that too because we're looking forward to the second coming.
Even so come Lord Jesus.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, thank you so much for being with us and guiding us and directing us.
Lord, thank you for being with our church.
And Lord, we have felt your presence over the last 15 years at our church.
We know that without you we could do nothing and that anything our church has achieved
over the last 15 years has been a direct result of your presence.
And Lord, please help this to be a priority in every single person who's here in their
life.
Lord, help every person who's in the auditorium tonight to decide right now, I want God to
be very present.
Not just present, very present.
Lord, please let it be so.
Be very present in our church and in my life personally and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.