God's Presence Is the Mark of a True Church

During the last 500 years or so, protestant churches have arisen that have come out of the Roman Catholic system, and within the protestant system there are different churches that have come up seeking to improve on what is existing, to be more in line with the New Testament in terms of many things like baptism and other doctrines. So soon after I became a Christian, I also got into that pursuit of finding what is a mark of a true New Testament church. So for some years I was with the Brethren Assemblies, which believe we shouldn't have a pastor, we must have elders, and we must have water baptism, and many things like that. And there are many, many churches, some have emphasized baptism in the Holy Spirit, and being filled with the Spirit, all of which are from God's Word. But over the years I came more and more to this conclusion. 1 Corinthians 14. What is the most important thing that should be there in this church as a New Testament church? It says here, this is one of the only passages in Scripture where it speaks of the whole church assembling together, 1 Corinthians 14.23. The whole church assembles together, and everybody speaks in tongues. People will say, you're mad! I've been to churches where everybody speaks in tongues, and I tell them, listen, the Bible says you're a mad church, don't get upset with me. So the Bible says that's not the mark of a New Testament church. But if all prophesy, which means share God's Word, that itself by itself is not also a mark of a New Testament church that everybody has an opportunity to share God's Word, because they may think they are prophesying, but how do we know? Well, it says here, people here and the secrets of their heart are disclosed. I mean, that's one mark of prophecy, verse 25. That secret things in the heart are disclosed to them so that they can be cleansed, but this is what I wanted to come to. He will fall on his face and worship God, verse 25, declaring that God is certainly among you. So after many years of studying God's Word, I've come to this conclusion that the mark of a New Testament church is that people sense that God is certainly among you. People who come to our church must go away feeling they met with God, not just heard a message, not just heard something that stirred them up or something very clever. There are many clever preachers in Christendom, but if they haven't met with God, we have failed as a church. They must say God is certainly among you, and that should be our desire too. That's speaking about an unbeliever, but it was us believers that when we come together, our primary purpose is not just is not to hear a message, but to meet with the Lord. And that's why I mentioned once before that when we sing the songs, the hymns, there are some hymns where we are expressing a certain truth or encouraging one another, but there are other hymns which are directed to to Jesus, Lord there is none like you. So when you sing a song like that, Lord there is none like you, for example we sang today, just ask yourself, were you talking to the Lord? Were you conscious of his presence and you were telling him, Lord there's none like you, you're here and I'm telling you there's none like you, or was it just a nice song? I mean I'm speaking from my own failures many times. I sang the song because I like it and I knew it, but I wasn't talking to the Lord. I wasn't aware of his presence. Everybody was singing, it's a nice song, we sing along, and I'll tell you it won't change in one day, but if you work at it and you work at it and say, Lord I want to be more and more conscious of your presence when I sing a song on Sunday, a day will come in your life when when you sing, you will not be aware of people around you, you'll be conscious of Jesus and you're talking to him, you'll become intimate with him. See what David said in Psalm 27, in verse 4, he says there's only one thing I have desired from the Lord, and these were the days when he was a man after God's own heart. Towards the end of his life he became a backslider, terrible backslider, but many of these songs were written before he became a king, when he was a shepherd, or when he was wandering, chased by Saul, and at that point time what he writes is really inspired. A man after God's own heart says in Psalm 27, verse 4, there's only one thing I've asked the Lord for. If the Lord were to tell you, is there one desire in your heart, what is it? Some would say I want more money, I want a better house, or give me my green card so that I can stay here, or so many things. But David said that I may dwell in the house of the Lord, means in the presence of the Lord all the days of my life, that I may be conscious of his presence to us in the new covenant, that's what it means. Lord, there's one thing I desire, that I may always live conscious of your presence wherever I am, in my home, my place of work, in the church, to behold the beauty of the Lord, to see more and more of your beauty, and to sense your presence. And how does God bring that about? It's not by some one experience of being filled with the Spirit. It's very important to be filled with the Spirit, it's one of the main things emphasized, and I believe that's very important, we should all seek for it. But along with that, in God's wonderful plan, he brings us into his presence through trials and suffering, which is not the way we would choose. I think of Job, we all know Job is a person who suffered a lot, more than anyone that I know in the Bible. In the book of James, there's something written about him. You know, there are people who question whether any man could have suffered like that. This is a fictitious story. Is it a parable that a man had 10 children, and they all died in one day, and he lost all his property in the same day? Or did it actually happen like that? Well, James 5 and verse 11 eliminates all doubt. You can be sure that it's not a parable, it's not a story. It's actual truth. Job experienced all of that, and he says here in James 5 11, count those blessed who endured. Endured what? Trial. You've heard of the endurance of Job, and I've seen the outcome of the Lord's dealings. So the book of Job was written to teach us how does it all end. Don't just think of what he went through, but the end of the Lord. That's how it's translated in some translations. Think of the end of the Lord. So as you read through the book of Job, you see, think about the end of the Lord. The end of the Lord, that the Lord proved that he's full of compassion and merciful. The man who went through the most severe trial that any man I've ever heard of or read off in the New Testament. Have you ever heard of a man losing 10 children in one day, all his family, and all his property, and a couple of days later getting sick with all types of sores and suffering like that? I've never heard of such a thing in my life. It's almost like fiction. It's almost like a parable, but here it says it's not. It's exactly, it's absolutely true that there was a man on earth who went through all that, and we know that God, you know, there's a wonderful promise that God does not allow us to be tested beyond our ability. 1 Corinthians 10 verse 13. God will not allow you to be tested beyond your ability. So if you haven't experienced many tests, it could be that the Lord feels you're still in the kindergarten. You're not making much progress because the higher up you go in the different classes in school, the tests get tougher, tougher, and tougher. So if you're experiencing some tough test, it means you're being promoted. You're in a higher class than you were. You say, well, early in my Christian life was so easy in the early days of my Christian life, but it's tough now. It's good, brother, sister. Children will say that my first grade lessons were so easy. Here I'm in the 10th grade and 11th struggling. It means you've been promoted. You're going higher. So the outcome of the Lord's dealings is he's full of compassion. So Job also, towards the end of his life, said something similar to David. You know, we were saying that the mark of the Lord's presence in a church is that they say God is certainly here. We're aware of the presence of Jesus, and we come to Sunday church and we must be aware of the presence of Christ right now in our midst when we sing the songs. And if the Word of God is anointed, then we will sense the presence of the Lord. If there's no anointing, there may not be a presence of the Lord coming through the Word, but we can still sense the presence of the Lord ourselves. But Job says in chapter 42 at the end of all that, he says, till now, verse 5. Job 42, verse 5. Until now I've only heard about you by the hearing of my ear, but at the end of this terrible time of trial, I see you. Like David says, one thing I have desired of the Lord, that I may see him dwell in the presence of the Lord. This is how Job got there. He says, finally, Lord, I see you. Till now I'd only heard about you. I fear that we can come to many, many meetings in the church and hear wonderful things about Christ. All accurate, correct, but we need to press through that to come to the place where we say, I heard about you by the hearing of my ear, but Lord, now I see you. Have you had instances like that where you suddenly get a revelation and it's the Lord himself who's made himself manifest to you? I believe it is such a revelation that Paul got when he felt he was the chief of all sinners. Christ Jesus came to the world to save sinners of whom I'm number one. How did Paul feel that he was the greatest sinner on earth towards the end of his life? It was not artificial humility. We can quote that verse, I'm only a sinner saved by grace, but to actually realize it, it can only come by a revelation. It can only come by a revelation of God's presence. You know, like when Isaiah saw the Lord, he says, oh Lord, I'm such a terrible sinner, woe unto me. If you see there in Isaiah chapter 5, he was a prophet and he was speaking boldly, and it's very interesting to see the contrast there. Anointed by God and denouncing the sin in Israel. Isaiah 5 verse 8, woe to those who keep on buying property and to leave no room for others. Verse 8, woe unto such people. Verse 18, woe unto those who drag iniquity by telling lies. And verse 20, woe unto those who call evil good. Different categories of people, he's denouncing their sin, who call good evil and evil good. Woe unto the drunkards, verse 22. And like that he goes on, and then one day after pronouncing all these woes on different, different people, you know, it's like even a Christian who looks around at different people and he can find something wrong with everybody. You know, people can come to church like that and find something wrong with everybody. Woe unto this, yeah, this is something wrong with that person, this is what's wrong with that person, that's what's wrong with that person. That's how Isaiah was. And being a prophet, what he said was absolutely right. And what you think of those people, what your opinion of those people may be, absolutely right. But something happened when he met the Lord. It says in chapter 6, the year King Uzziah is dead, I saw the Lord. Till then he was seeing people and all the defects in them. But like we read in 1 Corinthians, the presence of God in a church meeting, he says, I saw the Lord, like David said. So one thing I desire, to see the Lord. Job said, now my eye sees you. And Isaiah said, I saw the Lord. And he describes how it was, the angels who had never sinned, covering themselves. Those who had never sinned were covering themselves and crying, holy, holy, holy. And immediately this man who kept on saying woe to this and woe to this person and woe to that person, now he says, verse 5, woe unto me. The whole focus turned around from looking at the weaknesses of all the people around. What he said about them was accurate because he was a prophet. They deserved to hear it. But now it turned around upon him. That's what happens when we come into the presence of the Lord. We will be aware intensely of our own sin. That's what made, you know, Paul spontaneously say, I am the chief of sinners. He wasn't quoting a verse. We can quote a verse, but he wasn't quoting a verse. He says, Christ Jesus came to the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. And the more and more Paul got into his presence, he became more and more aware of that. I mean, I don't have time to show you this, but I see that in 1 Corinthians 15, which is written around 55 AD, when Paul was around 55 years old, he says, I am the least of all the apostles. 1 Corinthians 15, I think it's verse 4 or 5 or something. Five years later, he writes Ephesians when he's around 60 years old. And there he says in Ephesians 3, I think it's verse 8 or 9, I am the least of all the saints. From the least of all the apostles, he's come lower down. I'm the least of all the believers in the world. And five years later, when he's 65, and he writes 1 Timothy in chapter 1, verse 15, he says, I'm the greatest sinner on earth. The progression in Paul's life was not the way we think. You know, that's the way the devil went, higher and higher and higher. Paul's progression was the other way around. Just like Jesus, God became man, and man became... as a man he became a servant, and from a servant he went down to die apparently like a criminal. It was humility, humility, humility. Paul went that way too. I am the least of the apostles, I'm the least of all the saints, and I'm the chief of sinners. That is spiritual growth, and that comes through seeing the Lord. It's not by somebody preaching a convicting message and I suddenly feel convicted about something. It is by seeing the Lord. It should be our greatest desire. It's one of the privileges we have in the new covenant, to see the Lord inwardly, where it's not somebody we hear about or, you know, there are people who have been Christians for many years and who say, well, I wonder whether it's all true. You can never say that if you have seen the Lord in your heart. So when you look at Job's life, there are many things that encourage us there. The Lord is full of compassion. Please turn with me there. How the Lord led him finally to the place through all those trials, where he could say finally in Job 42, now my eye sees you. We don't have all those details in Paul's case or in Isaiah's case, how they finally saw him. But in the case of Job, we have a description of how he finally came to the place where he could say in Job 42, now my eye sees you. Dear brothers and sisters, make that the longing of your heart, that your inner eye should be able to see Jesus. It'll make a world of difference in your life. It'll make you very compassionate towards sinners. It'll make holiness something very attractive for you. You will not hesitate to take up the cross every day in every situation if you have seen Jesus. I mean, if you were to physically see Jesus going in front of you carrying a cross, wouldn't you want to follow him? It'll be like that when we see the Lord inwardly. There's nothing to equal it. And here, you know, when it says the Lord was very compassionate to bless him, there's one passage here which, a couple of verses in the first chapter, which challenged me. When I was a very young Christian, very soon after I was converted, more than 60 years ago, I read this word where the Lord told Satan in verse six, sorry, verse eight. Job 1, verse 8, that the Lord tells Satan, have you considered my servant Job? That means, have you looked carefully at my servant Job? Look at all the areas of his life. There is no one like him in the whole earth, not because he's so wealthy, but because he was blameless, upright, never bending, fearing God, respecting God, and turning away from evil. You know, in one of the chapters, Job says, if I'm tempted to lust after a woman, I would immediately turn away. That's a terrible sin that deserves, that would make me deserve hell. Now remember, this is not a person who's read Matthew chapter 5. This is a person who doesn't even have a Bible. He was so God-fearing. You don't need Matthew chapter 5 to know that lusting after a woman is sin. You don't even need a Bible. Job did not have a Bible, but yet he felt that way. Some of you may not be familiar with that. Turn with me to Job and chapter 31 and verse 1. All of you young men and older men, have you seen this verse? Job says, I made a covenant with my eyes. What a wonderful thing to do, to make a covenant with my eyes. How then can I gaze at a virgin? That gaze means keep on looking. It's not the accidental look. Like someone said, the first look is temptation. The second look is sin. It's the second look that is always sin, not the first one. The first one is accidental. We can't avoid it. But how can I gaze at a virgin? It's not my wife. God's given me a wife. How can I gaze at that other girl? This is a man, remember, who had no Bible, no Holy Spirit within him, never knew anything about Jesus Christ, did not know anything about Calvary's cross, did not know anything about God so loved the world that he gave his son. I tell you, it challenges us. What an uprightness that was in his life. And he goes on to say, if I had made gold, my God. I mean, you read those chapters. It's absolutely amazing in chapter 30, 31, and when you get time, read it. This is why God could say to Satan in Job chapter 1 and verse 8, have you carefully considered my servant Job? Satan is called the accuser of the all believers. We read in Revelation 1 and verse 13, 14 that he's always looking out to see whom he can accuse. Did you know that? He accuses, we read in Revelation 1, 14, he accuses them day and night. He's a full-time worker, 24 hours looking around the world to point out somebody to God. See, that guy calls himself a believer. God, what is he watching? He's watching pornography on his phone, and that person, he calls himself a believer. Do you see the way he was talking to his wife, God? Do you see just now? That sister who claims to be, sits in the church as a very humble sister, but see how she's talking to her husband now. God, do you see that? That is what Satan is doing day and night, but Jesus is also doing something day and night. It says in Hebrews 7, 24, 25, that he is ever living to make intercession for us. He prays for us. So there are two ministries going on in the heavenlies, one accusing and one praying. A believer falls, there's immediately somebody to accuse, immediately somebody to pray, and I want to say this, all of us are going to join one of these two ministries. And if you look back at your life, you will see that when you saw something wrong in a believer, you immediately joined one of these two ministries, either to accuse or intercede. Maybe you saw something wrong in your wife or your husband, immediately. You either accuse or intercede. And if you never knew that till now, please know it today, all husbands and wives. When you see something wrong in your partner, there are two ministries you can choose from. Accuse that person or pray for that person. Satan accuses day and night. Jesus prays day and night. We say, Lord, I want to be in fellowship with you. Here's a glorious ministry to be in fellowship with Jesus, and that will change that person much quicker than accusation. You all want your marriage partners to change for the better, for your own comfort. Well, I'll tell you the best way to do it is join Jesus in intercession. But the thing that comes to me here is that the Lord could tell Satan, look carefully at my servant Job. There's nobody like him in the whole earth, a blameless and an upright man. He wasn't perfect, but according to the light he had. You see, when a child is in the kindergarten, you don't expect him to know geometry and algebra and all that. No. According to what he has been taught, he's getting a hundred out of a hundred. So that's all God expects in the Old Testament without a Bible and without any knowledge of Christ. It was a very small circle that Job had, and in that small circle, he was perfect. He got a hundred percent in this kindergarten. He was in a kindergarten, but he got a hundred percent. We're not in kindergarten. We're in college knowing all about Jesus and all that he's done for us, and we got the Bible and we got the Holy Spirit and so many things. But the Lord could point him out to Satan and say, you've been roaming around the whole earth. Have you seen anyone like Job? One who fears God and turns away from evil. I remember here reading that as a young man. It's one of the first books I read after I was born again, and a challenge came to my heart, and I say, Lord, will you be able to say that, say about me to the devil like that? Have you seen my servants act? This is when I was a young 20-year-old. I was reading the Bible. I said, Lord, I want to be like that. It's not what people think about me. People appreciate me for a gift or something else, but if Satan, who looks into every corner of my life and watches me 24 hours, if God can point me out to him and say, have you considered my son, my daughter? That's a tremendous thing. I know I used to keep challenged by that many, many times, and there's something Satan said here which blessed me. Have you ever been blessed by a word that Satan spoke? Not usually, but here's one word that's blessed me for at least 50-60 years as I was studying the book of Job, and that is Job 1, where Satan tells God in verse 10 and 11, verse 10. Yeah, Job 1, verse 10. God, you have put a hedge around Job, and you put another hedge, a second hedge around his family, his house. And you put a third hedge around all that he possesses, his possessions. Now, I never knew that. There's not a single verse in the whole Bible that teaches me that. Thank God Satan said it, so that I know. And I know Satan tells us lies, but he dare not tell a lie to God. Here he's talking to God. He dare not speak a lie to God, and so I know it's the truth. The truth is there were three hedges around Job. One around his person, another around his family, another around his property. It's much more true of us. I thank God there is a hedge around me, around my body and what I am. There's a hedge around my wife and children and grandchildren, because they're mine. And there's a hedge around my property and my bank account, and there's a hedge there. And God allowed that hedge to be opened. Then only could Satan could go. That's why he says, he says, I can't get through this hedge. That's why he's sitting inside those three hedges and rejoicing, but try and open up those hedges to me a little bit, and then let's see whether he's praising the Lord. So that's what happened in the book of Job. One after the other, the hedges got opened. First his property, the outer hedge. All his property gone in one day. Everything's like losing your bank account in one single day. You come down to zero, not only your bank account, but all the wealth you have at home. Your house burnt up and nothing left. And then there was the second hedge, which is his wife and family, his children, wife and children. He had ten children. And all ten children were killed in one day. And I used to think, why didn't he kill his wife as well? Because Satan said, I can use his wife to irritate him a bit, and so I'll keep her alive. Sad if God keeps a wife alive just to irritate her husband. That's the only reason he didn't kill her. He was within that. God opened up that hedge and he, Satan could have killed her, but he didn't. Some people are more useful to Satan alive than dead. It's a sad testimony, but it's true. Because they'll irritate their husbands and nag their husbands and nag their husbands and speak evil of people and speak evil of people, and the devil says, why should I kill that person? That person is doing such a lot of my work, accusing and nagging and accusing and nagging. I don't want to kill her. Let us all learn a lesson. If you meditate on scripture instead of just reading it, a lot of things God can speak to us. And then God had not permitted him to go through the third hedge. Job was still healthy. He praised the Lord and he says, and he did not blame God at all in verse 22. He said, well, when I came from my mother's womb, verse 21, I was naked. When I go, I will return naked. It's the Lord who gave me everything. The Lord can take it away. And then the devil comes finally and says the third hedge, that innermost hedge. Yeah, Satan says, you know, a man may give up everything, but ultimately he loves himself more than his wife and children and property, everything, and touch him and then let's see. And then finally God opens up the third hedge as well and says, you're not allowed to kill him. You can trouble him in other ways. And then that's when he got this, what's probably some type of leprosy that he got, that he had to keep. The reason I say that is he couldn't sit inside the city. He had to sit outside the city and scrape himself. And it's amazing how in the midst of that, he went through the ups and downs. You read the book of Job that sometimes he says my dreamer lives and other times he's down in the dumps and says, Lord, why have you made me your target? Now whenever you read that, the book of Job, remember one thing. He did not have a Bible. He did not have the Holy Spirit dwelling in him. He did not know anything about Jesus Christ. You cannot compare yourself with Job. He was not even in the kindergarten. There's a pre-kindergarten, that's where he was. We are in college, so you don't dare to compare yourself with a kindergarten kid that you know more than you should know. You should be way ahead of a kindergarten kid. And I'm challenged by this kindergarten kid, Joe, by saying I'll never gaze at a virgin. A kindergarten kid saying that and college students can't say that? Something is wrong. I'll tell you what's wrong. The thing that God said about Job is he feared God in Job 1.8 or he reverenced God. That reverence for God is something not found in most Christians I've seen. If there was a reverence for God, we would be very careful with our speech. We wouldn't say things suddenly to hurt people. A reverence for God means I recognize God is here, listening to me, I'm in his presence all the time. That reverence for God, you know the advantage, the difference between the first apostles and many Christians today is this. Those 12 apostles, they joined Jesus when they were 30 years old, and for 30 years they knew zero about the grace of God. We asked them what's the grace of God? Oh, never heard that word. It's not in the Old Testament. Grace, I don't know. What their parents drilled them into was into the fear of God. All the fear of God, the fear of God is the main thing in the Old Testament. And those 12 disciples, 12 apostles, or 11 of them anyway, the fear of God was drilled into their mind and their heart. And then they heard of the grace of God, and they came into a wonderful life. Today's Christians hear immediately about the grace of God. The moment they are converted, they hear about the grace of God. He's come out of Hinduism into Christianity. He's accepted the Lord. Grace of God, grace of God. He's so good. They learned zero about the fear of God, and that is why they backslide and commit so many sins and say, oh Lord, forgive me. They fall and get up and fall and get up and fall and get up. It's the experience of most Christians because they've heard about the grace of God with zero about the fear of God. It's through the fear of God that we become holy. Please turn to 1 Corinthians and chapter, I'm sorry, 2 Corinthians chapter 7 and verse 1. How do we perfect holiness? Perfection in holiness is not by the grace of God alone. Beloved, having these wonderful promises, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness through the fear of God. So the fear of God is a New Testament thing that we need. It's not only Paul that speaks of it. You perfect holiness through the fear of God. In other words, you become more and more holy, only as you fear God more and more. I encourage all of you to pursue that. 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 14, as obedient children do not be conformed to the former lusts, but like verse 15, the holy one who called you is holy. Be holy in all your behavior. So it is the awareness that he is holy that makes us holy as well. So the fear of God is not something we're going to forget about. We perfect holiness by the fear of God. And so I feel that we need to develop more, all of us, of the fear of God, a reverence for God, a respect for God. And if we ask him to make, I believe one of the blessings of the Holy Spirit is that he makes us aware of God's presence and the awareness of God's presence keeps us from sin. For example, if Jesus were physically in your home, you would never get angry. I tell you, you would never get angry. You would never raise your voice at your wife or husband even once. If Jesus were physically there, that's what the Holy Spirit seeks to bring to us, awareness of God's presence. And it took me a long time after I was born again, many, many years after I was born again for the Holy Spirit to make me aware that Jesus is there in your home. Be careful how you speak. The fear and reverence of God, the perfect holiness. If you're about this message is only for those who are interested in perfecting holiness. This is not a message for those who want to go to heaven when you die. I tell you, I have no message for those who want to go to heaven when they die. No. Go to somebody else. There are enough churches preaching that. My message is for those who want a perfect holiness in the fear of God. May God help us. Amen.