Psalms 51:11
Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Ephesians 4:30
And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Judges 16:20
And he knew not that the Lord had departed from him.
One of the greatest tragedies today is the lack of the manifest presence of Christ in our gatherings, and our seeming indifference to it. If there is a lack of the holy presence of God in our gatherings, then due diligence must be done immediately to find out why. We must do everything possible to set things right, making every effort to seek after Him. Finding Him is worth more than anything else in this world. He is the greatest treasure, and knowing and experiencing Him is a lifelong pursuit.
However, many of us have continued so long on this journey without His ever-increasing presence. We have become satisfied with many things other than the presence and nearness of Christ.
As mentioned in a previous article, all those who are ‘His’ are journeying on a pathway toward a final destination where God will fully inhabit them. The sign of our forward progress is an increasing measure of His presence in our personal lives and corporate gatherings. Unfortunately, many of our worship services greatly lack Him and are sometimes completely devoid of His presence. Even when He does manifest, it happens on very rare occasions that soon become distant memories without any continuous progress.
Today, we have the form, but we lack the real substance and the realities of Christ amidst us. The question then that needs to be asked is are we really on the right pathway? It’s so much more than the songs and the sermons; it is Christ manifest, actively working in power in people’s lives.
There are several reasons for this current spiritual state that make it hard for people to experience God in powerful ways. We will look into the primary reason in this article. Prior to that, we need to establish a scriptural precedent upon which we can build from!
Through scripture we see how important God’s holy nature is. When the children of Israel sinned against Him, the holiness of God demanded immediate judgment. While judgment on sin was the immediate consequence, the ultimate cost was the withdrawal of His presence if they persisted in their rebellion
We also see that the proximity of God to His people depended directly on whether their lives were right before Him. God was willing to send an angel to lead the Israelites, but He was not willing to go Himself because of their sinful actions. The Spirit can be grieved and vexed by our actions, causing Him to eventually withdraw from us completely.
In Samson’s life, God withdrew completely, and Samson did not even know it because he was deceived. David understood this reality, which is why he cried out to God not to take away His Holy Spirit because of his sins. Some may argue that these are merely Old Testament examples and under the New Covenant our actions do not contribute to our distance with God.
In answering this, we must first recognize that our God is unchanging; He is the same holy God today. His nature, and the actions that flow from it, will never change. If He withdrew then, He would withdraw now. While the blood of Jesus and His intercession greatly help us today, they only delay the inevitable if we continue in our wrong ways.
Secondly, both Samson and David were filled with the Spirit during their time itself though the specific workings of God would have varied from the Old Covenant to the New. The redemption they looked forward to ahead of time is the very redemption we now look back upon.
Finally, even if we accept that argument, we may be positionally near but experientially far; it is impossible to experience a holy God when living in sin and continual compromise. There is a measure of mercy and grace that God extends to us due to our immaturity, but it is given with the expectation that we grow, and it does not last forever.
Furthermore, we understand from Ephesians and Thessalonians that the Spirit can be grieved or quenched, ultimately causing Him to withdraw.
Now, we live in perilous times where sin has increased dramatically and is more accessible than ever before. The church has been inadequately equipped to handle all these changes. The self-centered gospel of convenience has compounded the problem. Since the Lordship of Christ is not emphasized, we have many who are not saved, professing Christ in words but denying Him by their lifestyles and actions.
The ignorance of the doctrine of sanctification by faith, along with the subtle attacks on holy living and its related disciplines, has led to a group of people who live in the flesh but profess to worship God in the spirit. Those that are saved are entangled with those that are not or have been poisoned by deceptive doctrines that discernment has been lost as a result.
As a result, sin and compromise with the world have grown within the church. Even those who truly belong to Him have allowed the spirit of this world to influence their lives. When confronted with our mistakes instead of repenting in humility we justify and hide.
If this is the case, how can a holy God manifest Himself in power among us, let alone reside? How can the Spirit, whose very name is Holy, work among us in close proximity. Do we truly not know how sensitive He is to sin and corruption, or do we simply not know Him at all?” A person cannot claim to know the Spirit intimately if he remains casual with sin.
Dearly beloved, does not Hebrews 12:14 ask us to actively pursue holiness? Many have sought the Lord and the things of the Spirit completely apart from this pursuit. When people seek after God on flawed foundations, such as lacking holiness, their experiences tend to be false or deceptive as well.
Today, we have so many claims of God working in various places—so many people claiming supernatural encounters and experiences that, when put to the test of the Word and the Spirit, fall way short. In his book, The Latent Power of the Soul, Watchman Nee explicitly warns that the natural soul is capable of imitating the work of the Holy Spirit, producing nothing more than a cheap counterfeit. Ultimately, these false experiences fail to produce any genuine, lasting fruit that measures up to the standard of Scripture.
Whenever the work of the Spirit manifests or a greater measure of His glory is revealed, the ultimate result is always people being drawn closer to Jesus and transformed by His presence. This true move always bears the fruit of holiness, with repentance leading the way.
With great sorrow I write this next statement, having worked with the Spirit over the years. He is grieved by our compromise—by our continued walking in the flesh in our personal lives and ministries, remaining closed to His convictions while still making efforts to seek Him in the spirit. If He works among us, He works from afar and not from near. We need the work of the Spirit as in the days of old, when His convictions were deep and the realities of Christ were profoundly impactful.
Brethren, as God works in our times to bring about a much-needed separation between the wheat and the tares, let us make every effort to know and experience a holy God. As we journey forward, we should always remember that our God is holy, and if we are truly following Him, He will lead us into holiness in every aspect of our lives. This will keep us from deception in these perilous times.
If we desire to experience a greater degree of God’s presence, the corresponding measure of holiness that flows from Him must first sanctify us!
(TO BE CONTINUED)
