The Presence of the Lord #1

[00:00:00] If you will turn to psalm 1611 psalm 1611 thou wilt show me the path of life. [00:00:16] In thy presence is fullness of joy. [00:00:20] In thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore. [00:00:26] And the phrase I want particularly to underline is, in thy presence is fulness of joy. [00:00:33] In thy presence is fullness of joy. [00:00:38] You turn over to psalm 21, psalm 21, verses five and six. Speaking of the believer, it says, his glory is great in thy salvation, honour and majesty dost thou lay upon him for thou makest him most blessed forever. Thou makest him glad with joy in thy presence. Thou makest him glad with joy in thy presence. [00:01:18] I want just to speak very simply this morning about the presence of the Lord. [00:01:23] The presence of the Lord, which maketh rich and to which no sorrow is added. [00:01:33] Sorrows we might have, tribulations, we might have. But there's one thing we can say about the presence of the Lord. There's no sorrow in his presence. [00:01:43] When we are in sorrow and the Lord comes in, we have peace which passes understanding and sometimes we know a joy unspeakable and full of glory. In the midst of our affliction. [00:01:55] There's no sorrow comes with his presence. [00:02:00] We may have to know much tribulation in entering into the kingdom. We may have to know quite a lot of rejection and suffering if we are to know the glory one day the Lord. But the wonderful thing is that in his presence there is fullness of joy. Now this gospel we preach is not just a matter of some technical salvation, some kind of technique or method by which legally we have been justified. Thank God, we are legally justified in such a way that no accusation can ever be brought against us, no charge can ever stand. But thank God, our gospel goes much, much farther than something technical or legal. The wonderful thing about being a Christian is that we have the presence of the Lord. [00:02:57] We can say with the prophets of old the Lord before whom I stand, such a consciousness of the Lord's presence. [00:03:09] In thy presence is fullness of joy. [00:03:16] Thou wilt show me the path of life in thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore. [00:03:26] As I thought about this matter of the presence of the Lord, it seems to me that this is the matter which determines everything. [00:03:34] When the Lord was present amongst his people, there was victory, there was power, there was salvation, there was advance, there was progress. When the presence of the Lord departed from his people, there was defeat and failure and darkness and limitation. Sin came in all the way through the old Testament. It seems that it's the presence of the Lord that determines everything. [00:03:59] Why you may have the people of God there. You may have even a certain amount of knowledge. You may have all the ceremony and the ritual. You may even have the tabernacle or the temple. But when the presence of the Lord has departed, then everything goes into limitation and defeat and bondage again and again. It was the very presence of the Lord that did something. [00:04:24] It was the presence of the Lord that made a way through the Red Sea. It was the presence of the Lord that led his people through the wilderness. It was the presence of the Lord that divided Jordan and took them over. It was the presence of the Lord that caused the walls of Jericho to fall down. It was the presence of the Lord that went before them and drove out the inhabitants of the land, enabling them to come in and to possess. And so we could go on. And we could go on. So it is with us. We sum it up, of course, in the New Testament, in revelation. It summed up in those first chapters in what we call the lampstand, all of gold. It is really essentially the presence of the Lord. It is the testimony of Jesus, the presence of the Lord in the midst of his own. The presence of the Lord in the church. The Lord said to the church, one church, if you don't repent, I will remove the lampstand from its place. The thing will go on. The meetings will go on. They'll have their Bible studies. They'll even have their prayer meetings. They'll have their Sunday meetings. But the presence of the Lord is gone. [00:05:38] The presence of the Lord. I just thought we could look one or two phrases that we find in the word of God which sum up this matter. In thy presence there is fullness of joy. First of all, we find this wonderful little phrase, the angel of his presence. [00:06:03] Isaiah, chapter 61, 63, nine. Isaiah, chapter 63 and verse nine. [00:06:13] In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and in his pity, he redeemed them and he bare them and carried them all the days of old. [00:06:34] The angel of his presence saved them. I suppose most biblical scholarship is agreed that the angel of his presence is really a term for the presence of the Lord. [00:06:53] Many would say it is the Lord Jesus himself in one of those old Testament manifestations. [00:07:05] What we do know is this, that the angel of his presence just simply means the messenger of his presence. [00:07:14] And you know, if you turn back to Exodus and chapter 23 and verse 20, we read these words, behold, I send an angel before thee to keep thee by the way and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Take ye heed before him and hearken unto his voice. Provoke him not, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him. [00:07:42] But if thou shalt indeed hearken unto his voice, and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies and an adversary unto thine adversaries. For mine angel shall go before thee and bring thee in unto the amorite and the hittite and the perizzite and the Canaanite, the Hivite and the Jebusites. And I will cut them off. [00:08:03] The angel of his presence. Oh, how every Christian needs to know this. The angel of his presence. One of the things the Lord has covenanted with us is to be with us. [00:08:17] The last great commission he gave to us was, all power and authority is given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and make disciples of 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 which I have commanded you. And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age. [00:08:47] The angel of his presence. Do you know the angel of his presence? [00:08:56] It says in Isaiah 63 nine, he bare them and carried them all the days of old. How wonderful it is to know the presence of the Lord. [00:09:11] Moses said in Exodus 33, if thy presence go not with us, carry us not up hence. [00:09:21] But the Lord had said, my presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. [00:09:32] Now, the one thing about the christian life, the one thing that ought to characterize the christian life is rest. [00:09:40] That doesn't mean no activity. [00:09:43] It means that inward rest of our hearts, we're not in stress and strain all the time. You know, like having to buy goods worth a pound and you've only got 75 pence. Then you're in stress and strain the whole time because you're rushing around thinking, how can I do it? How can I do it? [00:10:06] You've got to go here, you've got to go there. You've got to try and work it out. But how are you going to get one pound's worth of goods for 75 pence? [00:10:14] You're in stress and strain. But if you've got five pounds to spend and you need one pound's worth of good, you've no stress or strain. [00:10:27] You have got resources. [00:10:31] Now, our resources are in Christ. [00:10:35] They are all in Christ. And it is the Holy Spirit that makes available to us the resources which God has given us in our Lord Jesus Christ. Unsearchable riches, inexhaustible resources. [00:10:53] We have the word of the Lord. My God shall supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory. In Christ Jesus. [00:11:01] We have the word of the Lord. [00:11:04] It's in Christ. [00:11:07] My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. [00:11:13] His presence is not a feeling. [00:11:18] His presence is a fact. Sometimes we dont even feel that the Lord is with us. Its only afterwards that we find out hes been very much with us. [00:11:26] Have you ever had that experience when youve. I dont think the Lord is with me. I dont feel a thing. Then youve taken a step in faith and gone forward and said, somehow I believe the Lord is with me. [00:11:37] You've gone forward and afterwards you've looked back and said, I don't know how I did it. It's the Lord. He came in in the most amazing way. But how did he come in in the most amazing way? Did you feel yourself carried off the ground? [00:11:52] Did you suddenly feel some tremendous throbbing power coursing through you? Very rarely. [00:11:59] Very rarely. It's just sometimes, but very rarely. But what you knew was this, that the presence of the Lord was there and he touched the whole situation. [00:12:08] You were enabled, you were empowered, you were given what you should do and you did it. And afterwards you gave all the glory to him, the angel of the Lord's presence. [00:12:22] Oh, we've all got Amorites, azites, perizzites, kenites. We've all got them in our lives, the ites. [00:12:30] They glare at us from every corner of the office. They glare at us sometimes from every corner of the home, and sometimes they glare at us from every corner of the church. [00:12:41] They're there, the ain'ts, they're all there, all kinds. Some of these tribes were cultured tribes. They weren't just some primitive, barbaric type of tribe. They had a culture longer than the people of God. Some of them were very barbaric people, some primitive, some educated. And, you know, we've all got problems. Some of them are very primitive, some of them are very sort of refined, but we've got these things in our lives. [00:13:13] They are these that are in possession of the land, and God's word over them is the angel of my presence will go before thee and drive out the amorite and the kenite and the perizzite and all the rest of them. They'll all be gone. Oh, so you say. This is absolute. What a wonderful thing. I'll just sit down, sing a hymn or two and lounge back and just wait. You just wait and you'll find that they're more entrenched than ever breathing down your neck. That's not the way. How then does. Does it mean that the angel of the Lord's presence will go before us? Only when your feet go down on the ground and you say, lord, all I can feel is the breath of these things on my neck. But, lord, you said you'll drive them out, and I'm here to say you're going to do it. Blessed be your name. You're doing it now as you put your foot down and praise the Lord that it's yours, the keenite will suddenly vanish. [00:14:23] You will not know how it's happened. But it's happened. They've gone. Just like they went round the walls of Jericho on the 6th day. I expect the enemy was the most ardent marcher of them all. He was there at the beginning and the end of the procession, and in the middle, whispering, whispering whisper. This is ridiculous. Ridiculous. Why don't you give it up? You're just foot weary, slogging round these walls. Look at them. They'll never come down. [00:14:57] Never, never, never. Not in a thousand years. And you'll go round them seven times tomorrow, and you'll blow that silly trumpet at the end and the walls will stand there as firm as ever. And then you'll all look so stupid. [00:15:11] Nothing will happen. [00:15:13] Supposing they'd listen. Supposing they'd said, well, it doesn't seem. I mean, if a crack had appeared, if there'd only been an earth tremor. Just something to encourage our faith, to give us some little idea that tomorrow of the 7th time, something's going to happen, but not a thing. [00:15:32] If only it happened on the 6th time around, on the 7th day. [00:15:36] Just a little tremor to help those of us who are weak in faith to recover from the march, but not us in. Not till the trumpet blew. And then it happened in an instant and the walls came down. [00:15:54] Who brought the walls down? [00:15:57] The angel of his presence. He blew on them and they fell flat. [00:16:03] But you just wait. Supposing they had not walked round the walls? They wouldn't have come down. Well, then, do we say that it was the children of Israel who brought the walls down? No, but the children of Israel believed the word of the Lord and possessed it. [00:16:20] The angel of my presence shall go with thee. Oh, haven't we all got these things in our lives? Haven't we got them as a company? Haven't we got them in the work of the Lord? Are there not things facing the purpose of the onward march of the purpose of God, which need to be dispossessed. [00:16:41] What shall we do? [00:16:43] Why should we fear? Hasn't the Lord said, fear not, for I am with thee. [00:16:49] I will hold thy hand? [00:16:52] We've got the Lord with us, the angel of his presence. But don't let us think that we can just sit back and do nothing. We've got to possess the word of the Lord. We have got to speak the word of the Lord in faith over situations. Do you do that? Speak the word of the Lord over a situation? [00:17:12] Actually speak it, where something is terrible and dark and so on. Say out loud, Lord, you're the master of this situation. It's going to yield before you say it with your lips. Now, I'm not saying that you should do that in the workbench or the office or so on, or they might think you're potty. [00:17:32] But I am sure there are ways of expressing the word of the Lord over situations, which means that the angel of his presence is on the moon. Now, the amazing thing is that the angel of the Lord's presence will not move until he's got that word. [00:17:52] It's as if he needs ratification of something in heaven. [00:17:57] Whatsoever things you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever things you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. In other words, when you speak the word of the Lord, it's not your own desires and will, but when you speak the word of the Lord, heaven says, yes. Done. [00:18:15] The angel of his presence. [00:18:18] Oh, there's so much we could say about the angel of the Lord's presence, but let's just move on to something else, because in our own lives, in every way, we've got these situations we've got to possess. Well, it's the angel of his presence. I'd love to speak about angels themselves for a few moments. You know, we don't realize what a ministry there is all around us. The Lord said, I will give mine angels charge over thee to keep thee in thy ways. Few of us know the angelic ministry. Send forth the minister to those who are the heirs of salvation. If we could see it, this place is packed with them. [00:18:55] I mean, every little one has got an angel. The Lord Jesus said it. Every one of those little ones here has an angel before his father's face. What about us, then? [00:19:07] Haven't all deserted us? The angels, they got older. [00:19:13] I know anything about us. We need more to keep us in the way as we grow up. Oh, and, you know, at once, Elisha prayed that his servant might see, and his eyes were open. He saw the whole hillside covered with angels, colossal number of angels in that simple little around that simple little house on that country hill. What a shock for the servant. He had lived with his master all those years and never known that he had such a heavenly train all around, on every side. [00:19:52] The Lord Jesus said, I could call 72,000 angels if I wanted to, he said at one point, but he wouldn't because he was going through to the cross. 72,000 could have called with a single word. [00:20:09] Well, we mustn't speak about that because it might be, in some ways a sideline. But sometimes I think we are unaware of the hidden, unobtrusive ministry of these angelic beings. We hear so much about evil spirits nowadays, and so in one sense, we need to, because they are on every side, and we know that they'll become more and more apparent buttons. Let us always remember that for every one of these evil spirits, there must be at least two or three angels. [00:20:43] So don't start thinking that on every side there are evil spirits sort of waiting to pounce on us. Remember, there's an angelic ministry as well, protecting and guarding us. But the angel of his presence, that's worth more than all the angels. That's the Lord himself, and that means more. Well, our time's nearly gone. I said I was going to talk about one or two phrases, but we'll move to another. It's just the bread of his presence. [00:21:12] That's Exodus 25. [00:21:15] Exodus 25 and verse 30, thou shalt set upon the table sjobred before me always. Now, this word showbread is a difficult word, but, you know, I see that in the new English Bible, and indeed, in all the modern versions, they have quite correctly called it presence bread, or the bread of his presence, because in Hebrew, it is just simply bread of his presence. [00:21:48] The hebrew word for presence just is rather poetic. The word faces, face, countenance. It's a person's presence. [00:22:00] And this bread is show bread. Well, that's how originally it was translated, showbread. Showing what? Showing that the Lord is here. [00:22:14] Showing that the Lord is showbread. [00:22:18] But I doubt whether many people realize that. [00:22:23] What then do we understand from this the bread of his presence? [00:22:29] Well, I think we have to turn to John chapter six to understand that this question of the presence of the Lord is more than just his being with us. He wants, as it were, a union between us and himself. [00:22:45] He says in John chapter six, the Lord Jesus said, dead, verse 32. Jesus therefore said unto them, verily, verily, I say unto you, it was not Moses that gave you the bread out of heaven, but my father giveth you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which cometh down out of heaven and giveth life unto the world. [00:23:06] Then in verse 53, jesus said, except ye eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourself. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life. And I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me, and I in him. As the living father sent me. And I live because of the father, so he that eateth me, he also shall live because of me. [00:23:47] Now you know the presence of the Lord. It's wonderful to know the presence of the Lord. But there is something more than just in even the angel of his presence going before us and being with us. The Lord wants us to take the bread of his presence and feed. [00:24:06] Now, of course, this is a mixture up of figures, metaphors, and so on, but nevertheless, there's a tremendous spiritual truth here. That showbread was eaten by the priests. [00:24:20] They lived on the showbread. [00:24:27] Now, you and I are such, and we are to live upon the presence of the Lord. Now, what happens when you eat food? What happens when you eat bread? It becomes your flesh and your blood. [00:24:46] It becomes part of you. It sustains you. Jesus said, he that eateth me eateth my flesh. [00:24:57] He that eateth, except ye, the flesh of the son of man, and drink his blood. Ye have not life in yourself. In other words, we've got to receive and receive and receive. We've got to feed and feed and feed. We've got to feed on him. Now, simply this means that we need more and more and more of Christ. [00:25:22] We can never come to a place where we say, I've got it all, or we can never come to a place where we can say, I've got everything I need. [00:25:32] In one sense, we can say, I know him who can answer my every need. [00:25:38] My searching is finished. I know where to find the answer. But we need more and more and more and more of him. [00:25:49] Grow in grace, says the apostle Peter. Grow up into him as head, says the apostle Paul. [00:25:58] Everywhere we read in the New Testament this exhortation to grow, to grow. But how can we grow? [00:26:07] Do we grow spiritually by just going to a theological seminary or a Bible study course that may be necessary at times. But we dont grow spiritually because of that. [00:26:23] We grow when we feed upon the Lord Jesus Christ, when we know how to receive and receive and receive and receive the bread of his persons. [00:26:44] There are many other things too we could talk about. I was going to talk about the tent of his presence. I've searched everywhere in the whole of the Bible for that phrase and can't find it. [00:26:57] I noted it down about a month or more ago and omitted to put any reference. And if anyone finds it I'll be very thankful. [00:27:06] And then the COVID of his presence and the presence of his glory. [00:27:16] Well perhaps you would like to think about those things. The Lord gives you light on it all. But you know, the great thing is the presence of the Lord. [00:27:26] When finally we are presented before the presence of his glory in exceeding joy, without spot or blemish, how wonderful it will be to see that that presence is going to be not just gloriously before us, but manifested in us, his glory to be marvelled at in all those that believe. [00:27:54] That's really what the city is all about, isn't it? [00:27:58] The tabernacle of God is with men and he will dwell with them and he will be their God and they shall be his people. [00:28:10] He will not go out anymore. [00:28:16] The presence of the Lord. [00:28:20] The presence of the Lord maketh rich and no sorrow is added. [00:28:34] Dear Lord, there's not one of us who does not need to know more of thy presence. [00:28:41] We may have much knowledge, we may have much devotion, but what we all long for, Lord, is a deeper experience of thy presence, a greater awareness of thyself. Lord. [00:28:59] O Father, thou hast said concerning thy presence, in thy presence, his fullness of joy. [00:29:09] Lord, we pray that every one of us may discover in a new way what thy presence means. [00:29:17] May we not, Lord, contradict thy presence? And may we not disobey thy word. But grant, we pray, Lord, that we may know what it is to possess all that is ours, thy purpose and thy will, through thy word. [00:29:45] And we ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. [00:29:50] Amen.