MINISTERING THE PRESENCE

MINISTERING THE PRESENCE

                Once again this morning I was awakened by a dream. It was a very short dream and I remember nothing of it except the one line that the preacher spoke. He said: “Ministering the presence of God will be very important in these last days.” That was it… nothing more… but there is something about these morning dreams that sit me up out of a peaceful sleep and send me to my office to write.

                This is no grand prophetic revelation of course, but just a prompting from the Lord to write about something that is close to His heart. After all, the entire Bible is a story of God seeking to be present with us. With tears streaming down His face Jesus sat on the brow of the hill, overlooking the city of the Great King as He sobbed with heart-wrenching cries:

                “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings and you were unwilling.” Mt. 23:37

                In the old days we musicians would gather together for a quick prayer before we went on stage, simply asking God to bless our program. Nowadays, He is asking us to bless His program… to bless it with hungry hearts. It is we who should be crying and not God. It is we who should be weeping between the porch and the altar and crying out in our distress: “Oh God, unless you bless us with Your presence we have nothing. We lay our lives and our talents at Your feet. It all amounts to nothing unless our hearts are crying out for the very presence of God in our midst.” Please Almighty God… inhabit the praises of your people, or all is for naught.”

                Our worship team always prays before our practices, but recently we have taken to coming 15 minutes early just to walk through the sanctuary and to cry out to God for His mighty presence and His anointing upon those who lead and those who are led, to come into His almighty presence. What good is a ritual… what good is a manmade program… what good is performance of any kind unless it brings down the Holy Spirit and fire? WE are only instruments that God will use to draw His people to Him.

                John the Baptist came out of the wilderness crying out:  “As for me, I baptize you in water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I and I am not even fit to remove His sandals; He Himself will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. And His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean His threshing floor; He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Mt. 3:11, 12

                Should we then be satisfied with John’s baptism? Should we then say the sinner’s prayer and get dipped in the water and then presume that we are now saved forever by this one act? That was John’s baptism… and the church has in times past been satisfied with it, but God is now calling His true Remnant people into the Holy Spirit and fire. He is about to come to His threshing floor to purge and purify His people and to remove the chaff from them. This is the work of the Holy Spirit and fire which has been prophesied for our time.

                We too are now longing to see the Holy Spirit descending upon us like a dove and to hear His thundering voice from the heavens saying: “These are My beloved children in whom I am well pleased.” John 3:16, 17.

                 Jesus cried out in prayer to His Father saying: “As Thou didst send Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes, I sanctify Myself that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth… And the glory which Thou hast given Me, I have given to them; that they may be one just as We are one.” John 17:18, 19, 22.

                There is no way that we can read Jesus’ prayer in John 17 and then preach what many churches are preaching today. And because the Gospel no longer burns in their hearts like a winnowing fire, they resort to psychology and self-help slogans. God forbid!

                But Jesus is about to come to His threshing floor. He is coming with the Holy Spirit and with fire and He will thoroughly purge His church and He will shake us greatly so that all that can be shaken will be shaken until what remains cannot be shaken for it will be built upon the Rock.

                The prophet Malachi spoke of our day, saying: “For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff and the day that is coming will set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.” Mal. 4:1, 2.  Moses established God’s chosen people and transformed them from a group of slaves to a mighty nation… and Elijah came to this same nation when they had fallen away from God to draw a line between Baal and the true God. Today is no different.

                So Malachi reminds us of the Law of Moses and he says that He will send the prophet Elijah before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord.” Mal. 4:4-6

                Is it not interesting that the worship of Baal is becoming prevalent once again in our day? The ancient gods are being stirred into life as their powers are being invoked by the Luciferian hoards. This time even godless science is involved in the technologies of the fallen angels to mix human and animal DNA and to invoke demons and to form trans-human Borgs, transgender creatures and perverted humanity as in the days of Sodom. Everything is as Jesus said it would be at His coming.

                As it was in the days of Noah and as it was in the days of Lot so shall it be when the son of Man appears in His glory.  Mt. 24:37-39, Luke 17:26-30

                In times past God’s Spirit- filled people may have sought the Holy Spirit for chilly bumps and prosperity… but this is changing for the Remnant people of God. It is no longer about us, but about Him. It is not our agenda that counts, but His agenda… not our program, but His and His program right now is to come with the Holy Spirit and with fire. To cry out for His presence is to cry out for His purging and winnowing in our lives. Our music must take on the aspect of spiritual warfare. The demons must be flushed out of our  dead and wayward religion.

                I have shared numerous times how I had been a Christian for forty years and had a demon hiding in me unawares until I had a real encounter with the Holy Spirit. He exposed the demon… I prayed and asked Jesus to give me a true new birth… Jesus came in and kicked the demon out and within a short time after that the Holy Spirit baptized me with His gifts. I didn’t even know that I had a demon. After all, he loved to act religious… he liked to act so pious on one hand even as he engendered vain pride in me on the other hand.

                But as any good prophet or watchman will tell you;  e have entered a specific time in history. God has marked it with signs in the sun, moon and stars.  He has marked it in the upheavals of nature and in in the throbbing anger of the nations. We are heading into tribulation and an open battle between Christ and His people and Satan and his people. We are witnessing the rise of the antichrist and his global cabal. We are witnessing the gut wrenching convolutions of a planet in the pains of childbirth. There is no time left for casual Christianity.

                Two kingdoms are being pulled apart, like a boat leaving the dock. Jesus is calling us to either get on the boat or the dock. We will either find our security in Him or in the world, but it can’t be both.

                So it is with a profound sense of purpose that we walk the isles of our church, crying out for the presence of the Lord. And whatever we thought His presence was in the past, it now comes with the Holy Spirit and with fire to thoroughly purge His threshing floor. He is coming to flush out the demons that we have allowed to hide in our dead religion. He is coming with a choice to either serve Him or ourselves. He is coming to turn church members into disciples.

                The cross of Jesus forever stands as the open door… but it is not in wearing His cross around our necks or placing it on our steeples that He is talking about. Indeed we are being called to enter into His death and resurrection… to die to the flesh and to be borne by His Spirit as sons or daughters that live by His life and not our own.

                This is what it now means to invoke His presence in our worship.

                We are to eat His flesh and drink His blood until rivers of living water flow from our innermost beings. John 7:37-39. This was the dividing line in Jesus’ day and it is the dividing line today WE must eat the whole Lamb and we must escape from Egypt by the power of His blood…. And we must pass through the sea so that there is no turning back. HE is making us into a kingdom of priests unto our God.

                We live in an age when people have begun to doubt the divinity of Jesus or the infallibility of His Word. But to us Jesus has thrown down the gauntlet saying:

                 “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world; I am not of this world, I said therefore to you that you shall die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you shall die in your sins.”

                 He who? Can there be any doubt? For Jesus said to them: “Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was born, I AM.” John 8:58. And when Moses asked for God’s name to present Him to Pharaoh, God spoke from the burning bush saying, “Tell them I AM WHO I AM.” And He said. “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, “I AM has sent me to you.” Ex. 3:14 So Jesus was claiming the very title of God that day and so they wanted to stone Him for blaspheme,  for indeed it WAS blaspheme, or it was the truth. There was no middle ground.

                These mealy mouthed preachers that say that Jesus never claimed to be God are lying. They are of their father the devil and we must escape from their lies to serve the living God.

                There are so many Christians today who are saying that when hard times come they will claim Psalm 91… but that promise is only made to those who are dwelling in the secret place of the Most High.     That Secret place, once represented by the tabernacle of Moses, is in the Most Holy Place in the very presence of God and you can’t come into that presence without first being purged of your sins and washed in the blood of the Lamb and clothed in His righteousness. So if the High Priest spent 7 days fasting and praying and purifying himself from all defilements and wearing the clean linen garment, how can we do less than this as we enter into His presence today?

                So we had better think twice before we invoke the presence of God in our midst. This is harvest time and now He comes with the Holy Spirit and with fire to thoroughly purge His threshing floor. God is bringing true worship to His people, for those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and in Truth. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life and no one comes to the Father but by Him. John 14:6

                Have I said what you wanted me to say today Lord? If so, then carry it to the hearts of your people, is my prayer. Fill us with Your Holy Spirit today and clothe us with your righteousness so that we can worship You in the purity of holiness.