The presence of God

Genesis chapter 3 and we'll break in at verse 4. And the servant said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat and gave unto her husband with her.

And he did eat and the eyes of them both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.

And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. Now over to chapter 4, chapter 4 and read from verse 3. And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel he also brought of the first fruits of his flock and fat thereof.

And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering. But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wrought and his countenance fell.

And the Lord said unto Cain, why art thou wrought? And why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall his desire and thou shalt rule over him. Verse 16, and Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden.

And over to the book of Jonah, over to the book of Jonah and read from chapter 1. And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Muntei, saying, Arise and go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarsus from the presence of the Lord and went down to Joppa. And he found his ship going to Tarsus, so he paid the fare thereof and went down into it to go with him unto Tarsus from the presence of the Lord.

And over to Matthew chapter 25, Matthew 25, and we'll re-break in at verse 10. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut. And over to Acts chapter 8, Acts chapter 8 and read from verse 37.

And when they came to the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they were come up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more, and he went on his way rejoicing. Now the Lord will bless to us the reading of his precious word.

And she ate of that tree. Quite remarkable. Something that God told them not to do.

They went against the revealed will of God, and she took of the tree, and she ate of the tree, and then she gave it to her husband, gave it to Adam. And Adam ate of that tree. And the moment they ate of that tree, their eyes was open.

Quite a thing to have your eyes open. And I sometimes say, this is the only time in the world that the whole world had their eyes open to see their condition before Holy God. And that's something that every one of us had to find out in this life, that we had to have our eyes open to understand that we were all brought under the sin that Adam brought into the world.

We were all condemned. And when I think of that today, we should all have that experience of knowing to have our eyes open. And it's only the spirit of God that can open up our understanding, to open up our eyes to see that we have all sinned, and that we have all come short of the glory of God.

But to think that the Lord called Adam there in the garden, and Adam heard the Lord God walking through the garden in the cool of the day. That's remarkable. And he went and he started sowing fig leaves together, and he thought that was a pretty good thing.

And his wife, they both sowed these fig leaves together, and they covered themselves. And I can see them both standing there saying, my, we did a pretty good job. But you know what? That's something we can never do.

We can never cover up our nakedness. We can never cover up sin. There's no way that we could ever cover up sin.

Sin has to be brought out in the open. And even though they thought they had did a pretty good job in covering up, then they began to hide themselves. Where did they hide themselves? From the presence of God.

And dear ones, today, there's not a one of us that can ever hide ourselves from the presence of God. We have to be very careful with that. But when I think that the Lord says to Adam then, he kept calling Adam.

And he says, where art thou, Adam? And Adam said, the woman that thou gavest to be with me. And I'm not going to go into that. But Adam finally admitted that he did eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

And when we think of the moment that he acknowledged that, it didn't take too long. And then God came in. And an animal had to die.

And they were clothed with the skin of an animal. When we think of the great love of God for Adam and Eve, even though they brought sin into the world, God made provision for them. God knew before the foundation of the world what He was going to do.

He was one day going to send His Son into this world to be the Savior of the world. Mind when we think of that today. We heard about that a little bit.

How that God was so thankful for what, how that the Lord was so thankful for what God gave Him. And that's something we should be thankful for too. But after that, God clothed Adam and Eve there in the garden.

And that is love beyond compare. God showed them grace there in the garden. And He clothed them.

And then we see in chapter 4 there, how that Cain brought of the till of the soil. And God did not accept his offering. And then we see that Abel, he brought of the first sling of the flock that fell to the ground.

And Abel had a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. If you would go to the New Testament Hebrews, you would read there where he had a far more excellent sacrifice than Cain. Cain brought of the till of the soil, but Abel he brought of the first sling that fell to the ground.

And you know, in the process of time, a certain set time, they brought, Abel brought that lamb to the Lord Jesus. When I think of that, the love that he had. And the love that he had for that little lamb that fell that day.

And he took care of it. He fed it real good. And one day, he brought that to the Lord.

And the Lord accepted it. How come Abel had a far more excellent sacrifice than Cain? One thing about it dear ones, Abel had faith in God. Without faith it is impossible to please God.

Dear ones today, we can never please God without having faith. And I think of the faith that Abel had there when he offered that lamb. What a day that must have been for Abel when his sacrifice was accepted.

Dear ones, when we come together on Lord's Day morning to remember him, should we not have our baskets full? Should we not have something to bring to the Lord? And then the Lord will accept that offering that we bring to him. What a day, dear ones, when we think of that. What a privilege we have come into as a people of God to bring an offering to the Lord.

To bring something to him. And then I think of Cain. Cain went away wroth.

He was angry at God. And God says to him, if thou do us well, shalt thou not be accepted. If thou do us not well, sin lies at the door.

Oh dear ones, Cain would not change his mind. And we see how he murdered his brother. And then we see he says my punishment is greater than I can bear.

Why won't we think of that? Surely his punishment would be greater than he could bear. Think of dear Cain. And then he says a little later on, it says about Cain, and Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod.

When we think of that today, he lost his whole family. Every one of them went under the flood. When we think of that today, that is very solemn, dear ones.

What Cain did, he went out from the presence of the Lord. Now we go to the book of Jonah. Over to Jonah chapter 1 there.

And when we come to chapter 1 there, we see disobedience in chapter 1. We see thanksgiving in chapter 2. And we see obedience in chapter 3. And then we see him disgruntled in chapter 4. But I think Jonah here, he goes out and he leaves the presence of the Lord. The Lord wanted him to go to Nineveh to cry against that great city. And dear ones, when we think of that today, that was no easy trial to go to that vast city and cry against it.

But he went his own way. He went down to Tarsus from the presence of the Lord. And then he paid a fare to take a ship to go down to Tarsus.

It cost him a price to get away from the Lord. And you can plainly see in the life of Jonah here, it's a complete downward course as we go through chapter 1. My, he went down to Tarsus. He paid a fare.

Then he went down into the ship. And my, all the things that Jonah failed to have. And the Lord sent out a tremendous wind.

Sometimes we get to thinking that Jonah is a principle person in the book of Jonah, but it's the Lord himself. The Lord sent out a great wind. The Lord is in control, dear ones.

And the Lord is in control in all our lives. But we can see how gradually a person can get away from the Lord when he leaves the presence of the Lord. Don't get away from the presence of the Lord.

And then we see him down there. And the first thing he lost was his power to pray. He went down into the ship.

He fell asleep. And the shipmaster had to come to him. A wake old sleeper.

My, to think he put all those people in danger. And they had a light in the ship of all the wear and all that. But it didn't seem to bother Jonah at the time.

And then he went. He was fast asleep down there. He had no more spiritual desire.

He lost his spiritual desire. He lost his power to pray. And dear ones, when we get away from the Lord, that's one of the first things we fail.

And we lose our spiritual power. We lose our power to pray. And when we think of that.

Then a little later on, he asked Jonah. They said they cast lots. And a lot fell upon Jonah.

And they asked him who he was. He was a man who feared God. He was a man who knew the Lord.

And he was a Hebrew and all that. You know, sometimes people ask me in certain different places. What do you do? What do you tell them? Well, I sometimes I've told them, I says, well, I used to farm.

And then I did some auctioneering. Well, what do you do now? Well, maybe you don't want to know what I do now. I preach the gospel.

Oh, how great. Yes, but you start talking to them about the gospel. And it's not so great.

It's quite a thing, isn't it? But, you know, sometimes we just don't want to tell the world who we are. Whoever has that problem. Here's Jonah.

He told them exactly what he was and who he was. He made it very clear to them. Then they rode and they rode with that.

They finally come to Jonah. What are we going to do? Jonah says, you throw me overboard and the sea will be calm unto you. Now, if you would be in that condition, what would you tell those mariners? Would you tell them to throw you overboard? Here was a man that wasn't only a man of God, but he was a man that feared God.

We heard a little bit about fear. The early church, it started out with fear. And the reason it was fear was Ananias and Sapphira, how they were put to death just because of a lie.

But fear so struck that church that they wanted to do the mind of the Lord. Here's Jonah. He had the fear of God.

And he said, you throw me overboard and everything would be calm. I wonder, brethren and sisters, if there's a little problem in the assembly, or maybe you're causing the problem in the assembly. Would you tell them that? It's all because of me.

Just throw me overboard and the whole thing will be settled. That'd be pretty hard for some of us to say, wouldn't it? Here was Jonah. He was honest.

They rolled that ship and they tried to get it to land, but they could not get it to land. And finally, they took Jonah and they threw him overboard and the sea was calm. When someone says I am wrong and makes it right, the sea is calm.

But did God leave him alone? The Lord prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. My, what a day that must have been. George Campbell, one time at the Garneville conference, he was speaking on Jonah.

He says that was wonderful when the mariners took and threw Jonah overboard and how that God had that fish right there. And that fish gulped up Jonah, made provision for him. I don't care what kind of a situation you go in, get into, dear ones.

God is going to prepare a way for you to escape if we just turn to him. Jonah, the word of God came to him the second time. I want you to go to Nineveh to cry against that great city.

How big a sermon did he have to have to go to that great city? Yet forty days Nineveh shall be overthrown. That's all you need to tell them. You know, sometimes we have all kinds of stories that we tell in our gospel messages and we set a great big precipice for maybe ten minutes or fifteen minutes and then finally one little word in the gospel at the end.

My, when you think of that, here's eight words, yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. What did they do? They believed the message. When I think of that today, that must have been a tremendous thing for Jonah to see.

That whole city believed God. They believed the message. Now I know some, the New Testament says they repented, but here it says they believed the message and they repented in sackcloth and ashes.

Now over to Matthew there, Matthew 25. Now I know this is the coming of the Son of Man. This is a future day, but I'm going to liken it to the church at this time.

And we have five wise and we have five foolish. The five wise and the five foolish, they all slumbered and slept. Now I wonder, dear brothers and sisters, how many of us are slumbering and sleeping? But they were all looking for the bridegroom.

They were all looking for the bridegroom to come. And when you think of that, that is very solemn. Think of these foolish.

They were looking for the bridegroom just as well as the other. But you know what? They were not prepared. They had the lamps, but they never had oil in their lamps.

But notice in verse 10 there, And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage supper, and the door was shut. I'd like to look at that. They went into the presence of the bridegroom.

They left this world to go into the presence. How am I going to be when I leave this world? Will I be leaving when the Lord Jesus comes to the air to take us home to be? Am I going to be in his presence at his coming? Wouldn't it be wonderful if we would all be in his presence that moment when the Lord will come to take us home to be with him? What a day that's going to be when the Lord Jesus comes to the air to receive us all. And he's going to give that shout.

And everyone that's saved, everyone that's redeemed shall hear that shout. And we're going to be with him and like him. And to think of the great price it cost him to redeem us.

He had to go to the cross. He had to give his life that we could have life and life everlasting. Think of that eunuch there.

Think of him. He went on his way rejoicing. I think of that eunuch when he went on his way rejoicing after he was baptized, after he was saved, and after he was baptized, he went on his way rejoicing with the presence of the Lord.

Think of that eunuch when he went up to Jerusalem. He didn't have a day of salvation. Even when he went back, he didn't have a day of salvation.

My, when I think of that. And then Philip came along and told him the plan of salvation. And he explained it.

He started to tell him about the Lord Jesus. And he told him all about everything. To think of that journey that Philip was explaining salvation to him.

I've often wondered how long it had to be many hours because for him to tell him all the things about being baptized and all that. And now here he's going on his way rejoicing. Dear brethren and sisters this afternoon, how are we going to leave this conference? Are we really going to be rejoicing in what we got in Christ? We have received him.

We know our sins are all forgiven. We know for sure he's prepared a home for us in heaven. He says if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again for you.

My, just think of that. He's prepared a way, a place, and to be with him throughout the ages of eternity. Shouldn't we be rejoicing today? Like this eunuch, he went on his way rejoicing with the presence of the Lord.

What a day that's going to be when we hear that shout. And if we were in his presence, at his coming, what more joy will we receive? So just these few words might touch our hearts.