In His Presence

A Study of the Presence of God and a Fresh Insight into Worship and Music

Byron Allen

• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781645156567
• eBook ISBN: 9781645156574
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

WORSHIP is the SPONTANEOUS, HOLY SPIRIT""DIRECTED experience of the MANIFEST presence of God. This book begins with Exodus 33 as God tells Moses that he is not going to accompany him as he leads Israel to Canaan. Moses asks to be exempt from leadership if God is not present. God hides Moses in a cleft in a rock and lets him see the periphery of his glory. Included in the book is a careful study of the modes in which God makes himself known to people. The book also contains a study of all Bible words translated "worship." There is also a study of several failed attempts to worship. Also included in this study is a fresh and new look at the definitions of "thanks," "praise," and "worship." There is a study of ten events when God's manifest presence allowed the experience of worship. The use of music in God's house is also discussed. Further, the effects of God's presence are explored.

PART ONE

A General Survey of the Presence of God

As the hart pants after the water brooks,

so pants my soul after you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God:

when shall I come and appear before God?

—Psalm 42:1–2

Chapter One: God’s Presence

God’s Presence

And the LORD said unto Moses, Depart, and go up hence, you and the people which you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, unto the land which I swore unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, Unto your seed will I give it: And I will send an angel before you; and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite: Unto a land flowing with milk and honey: for I will not go up in the midst of you; for you are a stiff-necked people: lest I consume you in the way. And when the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned: and no man did put on him his ornaments.

—Exodus 33:1–4

He was just a little boy and on a Sunday morning was wandering home from Sunday school. As usual, he was dawdling on his way. He scuffed his shoes into the grass; he found a caterpillar and then a fluffy milkweed pod and blew out all the “filler.” A bird’s nest in the tree overhead, so wisely placed and high, was just another wonder that caught his eager eye.

A neighbor watched the boy’s zigzag course and spoke to him from the lawn, asking the boy where he had been that day and what was going on.

“Oh, I’ve been to Sunday school,” he said as he carefully turned the sod and found a snail beneath it. “I’ve learned a lot about God.”

“M’m, a very fine way,” the neighbor said, “for a boy to spend his time. I’ll give you a brand-new dime if you’ll tell me where God is.”

Quick as a flash, his answer came, and his accent wasn’t faint either. “I’ll give you a dollar, mister, if you’ll tell me where God ain’t.”

Presence is just about everything. One cannot talk to a God who is not present, nor can one fellowship with a God who is absent. Above all, one can worship only when God is present. I believe that the local church exists to do what the individual believer should be doing on a personal basis—and that is to praise God.

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that you should show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Peter 2:9)

In current-day church services, we are repeatedly told that we are saved to serve or to minister. The service then becomes a motivational seminar. We are made to feel good, charged up with positive thinking and energized to go out and serve. All of this may be well and good. But the truth is that we are saved to praise God. We are not accustomed to hearing this in our Christian fellowships. Peter, in the verse quoted above, reminds us that we are a “chosen generation, a royal priesthood, [a] holy nation, a peculiar people.” Let us not be afraid or ashamed of our uniqueness as believers!

Whatever a person does “as unto the Lord” (pray, praise, sacrifice, worship), it must be done with an awareness of his presence if it is to have any real effect upon the individual or if it is to be a sacrifice with which “God is well pleased.” That which is done otherwise will be mere form without any redemptive or restorative power. It will be a mechanical, outward performance that benefits neither God nor man.

At first glance, these statements seem too general, too dogmatic, too limiting. But the activities of our lives as believers are actually based upon our concept of God’s presence or absence. Adam and Eve assumed God’s absence, and they disobeyed his command. Cain assumed God’s absence and killed Abel. Noah assumed God’s absence and got drunk. Israel assumed God’s absence while Moses was on the mountain and made a golden calf. Lot assumed God’s absence and got drunk, committed incest, and produced a line of descendants who troubled Israel for centuries.

To whom then will you liken God? or what likeness will you compare unto him? The workman melts a graven image, and the goldsmith spreads it over with gold, and casts silver chains. He that is so impoverished that he has no oblation chooses a tree that will not rot; he seeks unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not be moved. Have you not known? have you not heard? has it not been told you from the beginning? have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he that sits upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in: That brings the princes to nothing; he makes the judges of the earth as vanity. Yes, they shall not be planted; yes, they shall not be sown: yes, their stock shall not take root in the earth: and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble. To whom then will you liken me, or shall I be equal? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who has created these things, that brings out their host by number: he calls them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one fails. Why say you, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God? Have you not known? have you not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He gives power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. (Isaiah 40:18–31)

It appears that we have three options in this matter: Option 1, we can assume God’s absence and do that which dishonors him. Option 2, we can assume his presence and carry on our activities in a perfunctory and meaningless way. Or option 3, we can cultivate an awareness of his presence that motivates and prompts us to obey and honor him through our lifestyle. In any of these choices, the rightness or wrongness, the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of what we do, at least in our own minds and hearts, is really determined by our concept of God’s presence or absence. I want to strongly encourage you to develop a mighty longing after God. The lack of such has brought us to our present low spiritual estate. The stiff wooden quality of our spiritual lives is a result of our lack of holy desire or spiritual hunger.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. (Matthew 5:6)

As the hart pants after the water brooks, so pants my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? (Psalm 42:1–2)

Acute desire must exist, or there will be no manifestation of God to his people. He waits to be wanted. It is too sad that with so many of us, he waits so long, so very long, in vain.

You may be countering this line of reasoning by saying, “God is always present everywhere.” My response to which is, “In what sense is he present?”

Three Modes of God’s Presence

God’s Continual Presence

There are three modes, or levels, in which God can be described as present with mankind. First, there is the continual presence of God. Our theological term for this is “omnipresence.”

“God is above all things, beneath all things, outside of all things, and inside of all things. God is above but not pushed up. He is beneath, but not pressed down. He is outside, but he is not excluded. He is inside, but not confined. God is above all things presiding, beneath all things sustaining, outside of all things embracing, and inside of all things filling.”2

We tend to understand this level of God’s presence as if God were present within each person. While this is true, it is not the best way to think of God’s presence.

Listen again to the words quoted above. They address this concept. God is “within but not enclosed; without but not excluded.” Perhaps the best way to view this is to think of the atmosphere that surrounds this plan...

Table of contents

• PART ONE
• Part Two